Thought you might find this interesting, from an article by Lorne Rubenstein...
...Puterman and Wittman, both avid golfers, analyzed the PGA Tour's money lists from 1980 through 2006. Their sophisticated data analysis produced five clusters or categories of players. They plan to publish their detailed study in an academic journal and, perhaps, to present it in a form more accessible to the layman as well.
"We tried to bring some rigour to the world of golf statistics," Puterman, a 13-handicap who usually researches the health care system, said from his UBC office this week. "A lot of statements are made using data, but without analysis. If I was on the Golf Channel, I would say that you can't say anything without analysis."
Puterman and Wittman, a seven-handicap, refer to the clusters as elite, distinguished, established, journeymen and grinders. Players in the elite category finished in the top 10 an average of 37.75 per cent of the time.
Tiger Woods leads the elite group. The researchers even found a Woods effect. "No other player showed greater dissimilarity from all others as Tiger Woods," they wrote in their study. Woods finished in the top 10 in nearly 90 per cent of the tournaments he played.
Canadians will be interested in fellow citizens Mike Weir and Stephen Ames, although neither is eligible for the Ryder Cup. Weir landed in the lower segment of the elite cluster, finishing in the top 10 20.5 per cent of the time through 2006. Wittman ran the data on Weir through 2007, and he was still in the elite category - just. Twenty-eight players comprise the elite cluster.