[R.P. Jacobs II]

Ok, as Tiger has everyone talking(and posting) that he has finally emerged from his two+ year "funk," I have been trying to look through all of the historical data to see, besides the obvious, just how great was he & how far off of that is he today, the week after his victory at The Memorial..Everyone chirps in with an opinion, myself included, which for the most part has been based on subjective conjecture & personal opinions..I wanted to see if there was any "hard" evidence to show where Woods was, where he is, & is he on track to getting "back"...Back to #1 in the world..I found a statistical concept known as Z-Score(or Standard Score) which is the best yardstick that I have found...If you're familiar with it, please bear with me, as I attempt to accurately regurgitate what I read....Unfortunately, the numbers are only through Tiger's victory @ Bay Hill, but most of us can fill in the blanks from there...

Z-Score works comparing a player's performance to the rest of the field(as opposed to par) before producing a figure that is inherently adjusted for the difficulty of the course, the time frame, the weather, and the quality of the field in which the player is competing....
Z-Score includes every score from every official PGA event starting in 1970, though we are only going to look at the time frame of Tiger's career, covering 246 tournaments through Bay Hill...

The author of this "study" divided Tiger's career into five distinct stages, stages which don't necessarily coincide with obvious landmarks in accepted history...His individual Z-Scores range from +2.31(his +18 over par in the Bridgestone, 08/2011) to his -4.12(his 15 stroke victory @ the 2000 US Open)...Obviously, the lower the Z-Score, the better....

Phase-I 1995-1998
-----------------

Although Woods came out of the gate as "The Great One," his performance was more hype than substance through his first two seasons on tour....While his peformance at Augusta in '97 was amazing(Z-Score: -3.24, the 4th best score produced on tour that year), there were too many tournaments in 1997-98 Woods was merely average or slightly above, with many finishes in the mid-twenties & a Z-Score average of -0.5...Woods had six such performances in 1997 alone, yet only one during the two year period to come, during which he was other-worldy great....

Year Tournaments Ave. Z-Score
----- ----------- ------------

1995 /3 /1.01
1996 /7 /-0.54
1997 /19 /-1.04
1998 /17 /-0.97
---- ---- ------
Total /46 /-0.81

Phase-II 1999-2000
------------------

This phase saw Tiger Woods go from being a good pro to a legend...If his career had ended following this period, he still could have laid claim to being amongst the greatest of all time(This is my opinion, & I'm not a Tiger "fan," but this is what it is, Incredible!)...Tiger's Z-Score of -1.96 over this TWO YEAR stretch is better than ANY pro's SINGLE SEASON best in the 41 years that the data was compiled for(through 2011)...For the 28 tournaments covered in 2011, there were only 52 ROUNDS of a player putting up a Z-Score better than -1.96...Basically Tiger's TWO YEAR AVERAGE performance would have been the third best round last year....

What happened when Tiger was better than average over this period? Well, I've got to go a little statty here, however his performances were THREE STANDARD DEVIATIONS AWAY FROM THE MEAN... Those of you familiar with statistics know how incredible this is and those not that familiar with statistics, trust me, it's outrageous!...There were 8 performances in 1999-2000 where a player produced a four round performance that was more than three standard deviations below the mean, the sign of a truly stunning performance, and Woods had four of them!....

One of those performances was the now legendary 2000 US Open 15 stroke win, which still rates as Woods' best performance...In fact, with a Z-Score of -4.12, it rates as the 2nd best 72 hole score in the 41 year history of the data....The best was posted by Johnny Miller(-4.38) who shot a -24 under-par in the 1975 Pheonix Open, when the average player finished the tournament 1.6 strokes over par...Woods shot a -12 under-par 272 @ Pebble Beach, where the AVERAGE player shot +12.1 strokes over par!....Even not being a Tiger fan, I give him the nod over Miller just based on the tournament & venue.....


Year Tournaments Ave. Z-Score
---- ----------- ------------

1999 /18 /-1.78
2000 /19 /-2.14
---- ---- -------

Total /37 /-1.96

Phase III 2001-2004
-------------------

Woods followed the two most phenomenal years in tour history with a four year run which quite simply, stamped him as the top golfer in the world....Woods led the tour in Z-score in 2002 & '03, was second to Davis Love III in 2001 & a relatively distant 4th in 2004...Woods was constantly above average, with just THREE positive Z-Scores in 70 events(which in & of itself is amazing), though he had only one three-deviation tournament across the four year stretch....In '04, outside of The Match Play Championship(not included in this study), Woods didn't win a single tournament & he finished 17th or worse in three of the year's four majors...

Year Tournaments Ave. Z-Score
----- ----------- --------------

2001 /19 /-1.22
2002 /17 /-1.69
2003 /16 /-1.43
2004 /18 /-1.18
------ ---- -------

Total /70 /-1.37

Phase-IV 2005-2009
------------------

And then Woods went on a five year tear, where he was quite simply, and unarguably, the greatest golfer in the world, by a decent margin, for those five years...He wasn't quite as consistent as he was during his previous stretch, either missing the cut or WDing from fivr tournamnets while producing a few more below average performances, though he was frequently more brilliant(2008 US Open) despite suffering through repeated knee injuries...As an aside, Woods basically came back from his post Open knee-surgery in 2009 & was the same golfer that he was from 2005 to 2007...This casts doubt in some peoples' eyes to Wood's constantly "blaming" the knee for his downfall in 2010 & 2011...I'm included in this group...

Another interesting point: his Z-Score during a short 2008 run of -2.24 was greater than his other-worldly score of -2.14 in 2000, so he was still capable of playing a game of which none of his competitors could even fathom, much less compete against on a week in, week out basis....Pro-rating that across a full season, which I can do cuz it's my thread(lol), he should've/would've/could've won about 40% of his tournaments...

Year Tournaments Ave. Z-Score
----- ------------- --------------

2005 /19 /-1.40
2006 /14 /-1.73
2007 /15 /-1.86
2008 /5 /-2.24
2009 /17 /-1.70
------ ---- ------

Total /70 /-1.78

Phase-V 2010-2011
-----------------

Following five years wher Woods was the clearly the best golfer on the planet, we have Tiger's "episode".....The funny thing(sorta) is that in 2010 & 2011 Woods really wasn't THAT bad...He only played in 19 tournaments & he was only awful in 2 of them, both of which came in 2010...His average Z-Score in the other 17 tournqments was -0.48, which, if you look, compares with the inconsistency that he showed in the begining of his career...And, it fits the pattern of a #10-20 world ranked player...I know, I know, this is Tiger Frickin Woods we're talking about, not some schmoe ranked #17..However, if the past two+ years are the worst that we ever see of Tiger, then he will have had a great run...I'm not going into it here, however Tiger's 1010 & 2011 years are better than Nicklaus' bottom two years(actually Nicklaus had 3 years worse than Tiger's two worst)....

Year Tournaments Ave. Z-Score
------ ------------- ------------

2010 /12 /-0.19
2011 /7 /-0.23
----- ----- -------

Total /19 /-0.23

And what about 2012(Through the first four tournaments, not including the Masters)?....In those four tournaments Woods had two above-average performances(including the WD following the third round in one) & two exceptional ones...Notably, Tiger finished with Z-Scores two standard deviations below the mean twice in four events, the first time he's done that since, oh....2009....His win @ Bay Hill(-2.61 Z-Score)wouldn't have stood out as anything incredible three years ago, though it would have been among his best performances during any single year and better than the best tournament that 93% of the players to tee it up in a tour event over the past 41 years has ever had...

Factor in his most recent performance and it's safe to say that Tiger is making an earnest move "back" to the #1 spot in the world rankings...Forget about Tiger being "back".."Back" to what?...."Back" means so many different things to so many diffrent people, that it's like a cat chasing it's tail...Ya get dizzy just watching and I'm gettin tired of people sayin the same thing twenty different ways...Being the best in the world at something is every world-class athlete's ultimate goal...I believe that it is Tiger's...And when he get's "back" there this time, I really do believe that he'll appreciate it and savor it a lot more...

And I'm not even a fan from the personal side, though I do appreciate & respect his talent, ability & work ethic....I also love his intimidation factor...Now I'm getting into a subjective area though let's face it, when Tiger used to appear on the first tee, it was basically over...Not anymore or at least not at the same level...So Tiger has to evolve..And he is...The other athlete who comes to mind who never got over getting knocked down/knocked out was Mike Tyson...when he saw his own blood, he quit...Though it's figurative, when Woods saw his, he picked himself up, wiped himself off & worked harder to come "back"... He's a work in progress..Does he need to be "back" to the Tiger of 2000, 2006 or even 2009?Nope...There's noone in the top five that he can't dispose of with ease if he brings his "A" game, circa 2012....

I'm sorry that my tables are so screwed up, however I'm not much good at doing more than just hitting the keypad...The lines should read Year/# of tournaments played/Ave. Z-Score..The dashes denote a negative number, not a seperation mark..Sorry didn't turn out that way...

Fairways & Greens 4ever.........

[JBones]

Great read, thanks for posting.

I don't have a problem with all the people saying he's "back", I have a problem people saying "oh yeah, he's back", then the next time he plays poorly those same people say "I told you you he wasn't back quite yet".

I am very anxious to see what Tiger does at the US Open.

[R.P. Jacobs II]

JBones, on 08 June 2012 - 02:41 PM, said:

Great read, thanks for posting.

I don't have a problem with all the people saying he's "back", I have a problem people saying "oh yeah, he's back", then the next time he plays poorly those same people say "I told you you he wasn't back quite yet".

I am very anxious to see what Tiger does at the US Open.

JB, I agree...That really is my biggest pet peeve, though I didn't wanna get on a soap box, as the post was long enough...My buddy from a few of my posts, Dave, is the king of the fair-weather Tiger fans...lol....This week, he has Tiger taking the Open...Three weeks ago ago he was taking bets against him making the cut...lol...It'll definitely be a great tournament...The Best...Fairways & Greens 4ever...

[JBones]

I have always been a Tiger fan. I've always been a fan of the guys who are the best at what they do, they just make it more fun to watch. I don't really follow the NBA and I definitely can't stand the Miami Heat, but damn it was awesome watching Lebron James destroy the Celtics last night.

[GolfSpy Matt]

Great info, Richard, good read and very interesting. I think my history here shows that I'm far from fair weather! I'm hoping Tiger plays great next week.