Drive for Show and
Putt for Dough?
An Analysis of the Earnings of the PGA Tour Golfers
DONALD L. ALEXANDER
WILLIAM KERN
WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY (2008)
Background
•Drive for show and putt for dough is an old phrase that has been around golf for ever.
•The meaning behind the phrase is that a better putter will reduce your score more effectively
than being a better driver of the golf ball.
•Driving the ball is what the crowd wants to see from you, but putting is really what puts the
dollars in the bank at the end of the day.
•The phrase comes from some simple math, that more shots are taken from and around the
green compared to the long game.
•I often disagree with this phrase, but my coach lives by it….
Literature review
•The traditional wisdom has come into question lately.
•More and more golf analysts are adopting the view that driving distance has become a relatively
more important determinant of success on the PGA Tour.
•Price (2002) argues driving distance is not more important than ever in the game.
•“The new gospel in the 21st century preaches power. Today you drive for dough. At its highest
level, it is a power game where winners checks more and more are deposited by home run
hitters.” Saunokonoko (2002)
•Several papers mentioned in the literature review are apposing the drive for show putt for
dough phrase.
•Several PGA Tours were questioned, all agreeing that the game has changed to where length is
just or more important than short game.
Introduction
•The data that was used came from the PGA Tour statistics from 1992-2001.
•“Unfortunately, almost all of the previous attempts to determine the contributions of skills to a
players earnings or performance have used ‘contaminated’ measures of skills”
(Moy & Liaw 1998, Rishe 2001, Shmanske 1992, Sommers 1994)
•A different approach to iron accuracy, putting, sand play and chipping was used to eliminate the
multicolinarity problem.
Empirical Model
Money = α + µ + βX + γY + ε
it
it
X includes several player-performance or golf specific variables
Y includes external variables
ε is the error term
µ is the individual-specific residual term
t
it
Variables
•Dependent PGA Tour Prize Money
•Independent
Golf Specific:
Non-player Performance
Driving Distance
Events
Driving Accuracy
Time
Iron Accuracy
Prize
Putts
Sand saves
Chip
Results
n= 1718
Variable
Mean
Standard Deviation
Maximum
Minimum
Money
306,600
351,370.00
5,335,800.00
20,125.00
Events
26.52
4.57
38.00
14.00
Driving Dist
268.19
9.67
306.70
237.90
Drive Accr
68.94
4.84
82.50
52.80
Iron
0.00
2.39
8.18
-9.57
Putt
0.00
0.02
0.08
-0.08
Sand
0.00
5.58
19.66
-20.88
Chip
0.00
3.97
14.82
-16.88
Purse
59,677,000.00
24,908,000.00
104,660,000.00
35,201,000.00
Time
5.63
2.87
10.00
1.00
Variable effects on earnings
Variable
Money
T-Stat
Elasticity Estimates Ln(money)
Elasticty Estimates
Constant
-4,420,323.00
-11.21
-4.46
Events
37,108.50
2.79
0.11
Events^2
-827.82
-3.19
-0.002
Drive Dist
11,728.44
10.26
11.11
0.04
10.63
Drive Accr
15,583.40
8.86
3.80
0.06
4.40
Iron
23275.20
7.12
0.00
0.07
0.00
Putt
-4,153,681.00
-13.47
0.00
-13.44
0.00
Sand
7,302.69
6.12
0.00
0.02
0.00
Chip
11,467.23
6.63
0.00
0.04
0.00
Purse
0.003
4.63
0.61
0.00
0.23
Time
-13,309.01
-2.26
-0.26
-0.02
-0.09
R^2
.37
.51
Interpretation
•The results indicate that the explanatory variables performed as anticipated and are statistically
significant at the conventional 1% and 5% levels.
•The calculation to estimate the predicted impact of reducing putts is biased and explained in the
paper. Therefore a new calculation was then used and the parameter was divided by the
estimate and come to a estimated $319,514 value of one less putt per round
•The driving accuracy estimated a 10% increase on the sample mean to increase income by
$123,000 where as a 10% distances increase would lead to a $340,000.
•The paper shows that short game is worth more than the long game and that drive for show and
putt for dough is still a valid term today.
Questions
•What does the paper prove to be the most important skill in improving a PGA Tour pros bank
account?
•What was the problem with using a technology variable?
•True or False, everyone that plays golf is simply an awesome person?
•True or False, did the paper agree with the adage drive for show putt for dough?
•What is the main problem that occurs when regression models are made for golf?