Here is the today's article - Dead Solid Lucky (the role of luck in a tournament)
http://www.slate.com/id/2263085/Philip,
Statistics is a weapon against "old adage" or "common sense" or any other belief that has been passed from generation to generation without any evidence. It is nothing more than a tool for seeking out the truth. While it can be misused or abused, in general, statistics help us gain greater knowledge about our world.
A funny thing about human brains is that during our evolution out of the plains of Africa, it was vital for our ancestors to quickly be aware of predators hiding in the bushes. To survive in that environment, our brains developed amazing ability for pattern matching. This is what allows us to see people's face in the clouds, recognize stock chart patterns, and feel deja-vu.
Unfortunately, it is not perfect and our brain perceives many false positives. We also have tendency to remember positive enforcements of our belief/observation while quickly forgetting false ones. This leads to many common sense or beliefs that are wrong, but is generally assumed to be correct or true.
A great sports example is clutch hitting. Most baseball fans swear by certain player's ability come through big in high pressure situations. It is a very common term thrown around in baseball. However, it is just an illusion.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia on Clutch Hitting:
"Various baseball analysts, including Bill James, Pete Palmer, Dick Cramer, and the Baseball Prospectus editors, have found so-called "clutch hitting" ability to be a myth. This is not to say that clutch hits, like those listed above, do not exist, but rather that some kind of innate ability for a player to perform above his true talent level in high-pressure situations is nothing but an illusion.
Most studies on the matter involved comparing performance in the "clutch" category of statistics (production with runners in scoring position, performance late in close games, etc.) between seasons; if clutch hitting were an actual skill, it would follow that the same players would do well in the clutch statistics year in and year out (the correlation coefficient between players' performances over multiple seasons would be high). Cramer's study was the first of its kind, and it found that clutch hitting numbers between seasons for the same player varied wildly; in fact, the variance was the kind one would expect if the numbers had been selected randomly. Since Cramer published his results, many others have tried to find some evidence that clutch hitting is a skill, but almost every study has confirmed Cramer's initial findings: that "clutch hitting," in terms of certain players being able to "rise to the occasion" under pressure, is an illusion."Statistics helped us find the truth in this case and I believe statistics can also help us verify or disprove some old adages in golf as well (i.e Drive for Show Putt for Dough, putting is what matters on PGA Tour, risk/reward hole design, etc.)
We should embrace seeking the truth not shirk away from it.