13 - Is Tiger Woods a Winner?

Summary

Abstract

Tiger Woods has an amazing record of winning golf tournaments. He has gained the persona of a player who is a winner, a player who when near the lead or in the lead can do whatever it takes to win. In this paper I investigate whether in fact, he is a winner. A mathematical model is created for the ability of Tiger Woods, and all PGA Tour golfers to play 18 holes of tournament golf. The career of Tiger Woods is replayed using the mathematical model for all golfers and the results are consistent with Tiger Woods' actual career. Therefore the mathematical model, which does not give Woods any additional ability to win, would result in essentially the same career. Woods has not needed any additional ability to win—only his pure golfing ability. The ramifications of this result are that there is no evidence that Woods is in fact a “winner”—instead he is just a much better golfer than everyone else.

Introduction

Tiger Woods is one of those rare athletes who accomplish feats in their sport that are freakish. In this small group are guys such as Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretzky, Wilt Chamberlain, Barry Bonds, and Jack Nicklaus. Woods dominates a sport where the population of players are all very good–and very tightly bundled in their ability. To win one tournament, beating 100+ of these players is incredibly difficult. To average one tournament victory a year for 10 years is a Hall of Fame type accomplishment. Tiger Woods has won 71 of 253 (28.1%) official PGA Tour tournaments around the world in 14 years on the PGA Tour.