PGA Distance Visualization

[johnk]

Venture capitalist and all-around polymath Paul Kedrosky made a animated graphic that compares distance vs. accuracy for the PGA Tour players over 5 years.  I tried to include it here, but the "flash" tag doesn't work for me.  So go to:
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/001298.html

What's interesting is that almost every single dot, each representing a player on Tour, goes to the right over the last 5 years.  I.e. more distance.  For the bulk of players in the pack, they definitely get longer, and a bit less accurate.  Some of the shorter players have gotten longer and more accurate, and most of the longer players have gotten slightly longer and less accurate. Tiger is represented, appropriately, by the red dot.

[Jason Topp]

Interesting chart.  You can visualize a line running through the dots that demonstrates a mean accuracy level as driving distance increases.  Woods was well above that line before and he was about on the line in 2004.

It is also interesting to see that the accuracy statistics for most players is widening at particular driving distances.  I'm not sure of the significance of that trend.