Using Stokes Gained on the PGA Tour to Analyze U.S. Ryder Cup Performance
Open Access
Author:
Gerity, William
Area of Honors:
Actuarial Science
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Andrew John Wiesner, Thesis Supervisor Amanda W Hammell, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Golf Statistics Ryder Cup PGA Tour Actuarial Science Strokes Gained
Abstract:
This thesis looks at one of the only team tournaments in men’s professional golf, the Ryder Cup, and the strategy behind selecting and organizing the players on the team. With the tournament having the opportunity for a team captain to choose golfers, there is undoubtedly many ways to come up with the best lineup. In the past, some methods have been more qualitative such as how a player’s game looks currently, or if they will have chemistry with the other players on the team. However, since the introduction of strokes gained statistics, there is more opportunity to quantitatively choose the optimal lineup of players.
Specifically, I explored the strokes gained metric for measuring players’ performance on the PGA Tour, and the application of new methods to analyze performance in the Ryder Cup. I looked at the strokes gained statistics by category, to quantitatively find the best Ryder Cup lineup based the players’ performance. If this study proves to be successful, then it could promote further methodologies for Ryder Cup player selection and potentially be used in future Ryder Cups.
