The Effect of Par Score on Tiger's Majors Record

[Phil Benedict]

Here is a quote from an article I saw on CBS Sportsline:

"As a standard course with four par-5s, a relative oddity these days at the majors, the power players tend to torch the three-shot holes at Augusta National. Don't believe it? Of the 12 major titles in his collection, Woods has amassed 10 of them on par-72 courses. Want to take an edge away from Woods and Mickelson? Then scale back par to 70. Woods is 1-for-15 in his career on majors staged on par-70 tracks and 10-for-18 on par-72s."

The data is a little misleading since two of Tiger's wins were at St. Andrews, which is par 72 but only has two par 5's.  I was astonished to see that Tiger is 1 for 15 on par 70's.

[Ron Farris]

* Bump

Interesting statistics.
However, the majors are stroke play events and the lowest score wins. Period.  

We who play the game for fun and not for money love par 5 holes as it is a rare chance to pump our fist, ala Tiger, and feel good.

[mike_beene]

It is silly.If you call 13 and 15 par 4s people think they are difficult.Lets face it,except for a few players it is all par 68.Those others better be good wedge players anyway.How would a simple change of par(and nothing else)change perception of the holes?

[JESII]

All I can say is...it does.

[Tim Bert]

While 1 for 15 sounds pretty convincing, there's got to be more to the story than par.  Tiger has the same advantage on a 510 yard par 4 that he would on a 510 yard par 5 - particularly if the two holes in question were the exact same hole.  There's more to it than how you label two of the 18 holes.

[Tim Gavrich]

Perhaps Tiger is better at making crucial birdies than he is at making crucial pars.  I know the distinction may not be significant to some of us, but I'll bet it is to Tiger.

[JESII]

never seen a better par putter than Tiger...

[Doug Siebert]

Certain Tiger has an advantage on courses with more par 5s, since he's a better long iron player than anyone else (like Nicklaus before him)

I'll bet if you re-ran the numbers on the par 72 courses in 2001 and later and called any that had two par 5s of under 510 yards par 70 (if we call that the post Pro V1 par 4/5 dividing line) he's probably winning fewer times on those as well.  At that distance the regular pros are hitting middle irons so the fact Tiger might hit a 7 or 8 isn't a big advantage.  At 560 or 590 its a whole different story.

[Jim Johnson]

From a thread that I posted on awhile ago...

So I'm catching some of the Nissan Open yesterday, when up on the screen there's a graphic describing how Tiger has fared on the par 3's, par 4's, and par 5's throughout his pro career thus far.
Interestingly, he is but 17 under par on all of the par 3's.
Really interestingly, though, was his score on the par 5's. Of the 2200+ par-5 holes that he's played, he has birdied over half of them.

JJ