04/18/24
August 21, 2005
Tiger's Big Gamble: Tiger took a chance; but how big a gamble was it, exactly? Sportsfilter's own Amateur breaks it down.
You North Americans are stat crazy. Statistics are nominally part of my job, but as Amateur says that's what computers were invented for. Thus enabling layabouts such as myself to get on with the more vital tasks like pondering fantasy football teams. Hmmmmmm............Isn't fantasy football basically based on nothing but statistics? As for Tiger, stats or no stats, I still think it was a bad decision. If he missed an opportunity for a playoff because he left, the Terrell Owens story would be dead!
posted by panteeze at 05:47 AM on August 21, 2005
Tiger had to make a decision and he made it. As things worked out, it was the right decision. Tiger is a big boy. people should just stop trying to second guess him.
posted by daddisamm at 06:07 AM on August 21, 2005
Cool analysis -- I would've thought the chances were higher than 1 in 320. I think the price of being wrong was so high that Tiger's departure was inexcusable. He quit on a major. It was a bizarre thing to do, absent some kind of family emergency that required him to be somewhere else on Sunday night.
posted by rcade at 08:55 AM on August 21, 2005
I love these sort of articles. The other way you could have approached it would be to take into account how those specific players played those remaining holes in the three previous rounds. It's a much smaller sample size to use, but you could have done some combination (field average + player average) as well. Otherwise, it was a good read.
posted by grum@work at 09:49 AM on August 21, 2005
I will play devil's advocate and suggest that "pressure down the stretch in a close Major" is a factor that would work in favour of higher scoring probability, and thus perhaps the estimate isn't *so* conservative after all. The analysis is otherwise very informative, though I would agree with rcade that "quitting on a major" should have far more significant ramifications than it did.
posted by smithers at 09:52 AM on August 21, 2005
Great analysis. I'm with daddisamm here -- Tiger made a decision and would have lived with the consequences if things had turned out otherwise. See this article for a classic case of media hand-wringing over this decision and an excellent example of the "if he had just stuck around his mere presence would have unnerved the competition" argument.
posted by holden at 09:55 AM on August 21, 2005
I like that Bayliss article (which is rare for me these days -- the guy's a tool). I think the most likely explanation is that Tiger was bitter that late tee times and weather pushed the finishers off the course Sunday evening, when the leaders were all falling fast down to him, and he figured the rain-soaked greens would make 17 and 18 easy pickings on Monday morning. I don't watch golf much these days, but something told me that this PGA Championship would be another memorable one, like all of the times the event hits Baltusrol. Tiger's decision is great fodder for argument. I think Bayliss is right that he would have intimidated the other golfers with a conspicuous presence on the course Monday morning.
posted by rcade at 10:25 AM on August 21, 2005
Tiger Woods in recent years appears to have learned a lesson very important for people constantly in the public eye which, oddly enough Paris Hilton also seems close to doing, and that is to do what you think best for yourself and ignore any criticism that comes from it. There may of course be consequences, fewer opportunities to make big money or lose some fans are two examples, but life is just too short.
posted by billsaysthis at 02:07 PM on August 21, 2005
Isn't fantasy football basically based on nothing but statistics? You've spotted the fatal flaw in my argument.
posted by squealy at 03:37 PM on August 21, 2005
And this excellent analysis doesn't even factor in the fact that of the five golfers who were tied or ahead of Tiger, four of them had won Major championships before, and Thomas Bjorn is far from a wide-eyed rookie himself. These guys were not the kind to be unhinged by having Tiger staring at them. There wasn't a Jean Van De Velde or a Jason Gore in the bunch. Every last one of them has played with Tiger so many times, they know him as well as they know themselves. Moreover, Tiger's pretty close socially to Phil & Retief (and maybe some of the others, but definitely those two), so the death-stare argument doesn't wash with me. It may have been a roll of the dice, but as has been said before, Tiger knew his competition enough to give them the respect they had earned, and all five of them weren't going to choke, not with an softer course on Monday and two par 5s on which to come home.
posted by chicobangs at 07:52 PM on August 21, 2005
Tiger was bitter that late tee times and weather pushed the finishers off the course Sunday evening And why shouldn't he? It's disrespectful to players who are already working with extremely hectic schedules. This week's tournament, which Tiger won with his extra day of prep, was a WGC event with the top 50 golfers so it's not exactly the Reno Open he was getting out of Jersey for. he would have intimidated the other golfers with a conspicuous presence on the course Monday morning Really? You honestly think Tiger working on the practice tee was going to intimidate anyone? The only people who would have seen him were the 39 people watching on tv monday morning. I'm still not getting how Tiger "quit" rcade. He finished his round.
posted by YukonGold at 08:50 AM on August 22, 2005
How is what Tiger did any different than refusing to sign a scorecard or walking off a course mid-event, as John Daly has done in the past? The event wasn't over. Tiger was on the leaderboard. He had a realistic chance at making a playoff. If he had made a playoff, but not been there to participate, wouldn't you state that he had quit?
posted by rcade at 09:01 AM on August 22, 2005
No - I'd state that he fucked up large.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 09:55 AM on August 22, 2005
Tiger would no doubt agree if it went down that way. But knew the odds, and they were a lot longer than 320-1. It's different because Tiger knew about more variables than even Amateur factored in. It may not have been 100%, and he might have sweated his decision, but if Tiger believed he was out of the running enough to fly out of there, then frankly I trust him. His track record aside from this is impeccable. Also, I'll bet you a dollar he'll never leave a tournament with the clubhouse lead again. Not because it was necessarily a mistake, but he's gotten plenty of grief over this that he doesn't need.
posted by chicobangs at 12:07 PM on August 22, 2005
How is what Tiger did any different than refusing to sign a scorecard or walking off a course mid-event Those examples = DNF. Tiger competed in a 72 hole tournament, which he completed and carded an official score. There was no guarantee of a playoff so his tournament had ended. I guess it's also the connotation of "quit"...there are "quitters" in the world of sports, but Tiger shouldn't be thrown in there because of something that never happened. If the playoff had taken place, I still wouldn't use a word like "quit", but I'm no linguist and don't want to get into a semantic debate...because I'll lose.
posted by YukonGold at 12:52 PM on August 22, 2005
Went camping for the weekend -- sorry for the delay. Squealy -- this has been answered here. grum -- yes, probably could have had something meaningful had I just taken the hole-by-hole for the last twelve players, or even for the six that mattered. But taking individual abilities into account makes for a lot more guesswork. smithers -- pressure might be a balancing factor, or then again it might not. I have never seen it definitively shown that golfers play worse in those situations. Some golfers are considered "clutch," doesn't that mean that they play better when the big chips are down?
posted by Amateur at 08:14 PM on August 22, 2005
I have a thought about the "quitting" accusation. Imagine an NFL game, Team A winning by 2, 0:01 on the clock, Team B about to attempt a long field goal. Quarterback for Team A, not involved in special teams, heads for the locker room before the kick. Is he a quitter? He can't possibly impact the outcome of the game, so what difference does it make if he stays or doesn't stay? Logically, he's not a quitter, and yet it still pisses us all off. Why? I think it's because we feel some power that compells us to stay to the bitter end, even though we have absolutely no control over the outcome. We, as fans, would never dream of leaving, because the game has some power over us; if QB A walks away, he's proving that for all his talent, he doesn't love the game like we do. That's why Tiger's taking a beating out there, because there were so many fans who hadn't admitted defeat, who were still dreaming that he might pull it off.
posted by Amateur at 08:21 PM on August 22, 2005
That quarterback analogy is flawed, because Tiger could still affect the outcome when he qui-, er, flew home early to prepare for the WGC-NEC. A better analogy would be the quarterback leaving with the team three points down and the kicker attempting a 75-yard kick. I am, however, known as a bitter-ender by my family when it comes to sporting events. I hate to leave early.
posted by rcade at 05:56 AM on August 23, 2005
I wasn't really trying to make an analogy, I was trying to extend the circumstance to an extreme case. If I was a fan of team A, and the quarterback walked away from that game, I would be pissed, even though I can see that the accusation of "quitter" is logically absurd. Your analogy is more apt for Tiger's case -- I don't object to people who say that Tiger "quit" on the PGA. You are absolutely right that his game was not really over until somebody finished the fourth round ahead of him.
posted by Amateur at 07:49 AM on August 23, 2005
You North Americans are stat crazy. Statistics are nominally part of my job, but as Amateur says that's what computers were invented for. Thus enabling layabouts such as myself to get on with the more vital tasks like pondering fantasy football teams. Doubtless the column is a work of statistical genius and we should be grateful for the effort made. However I'm more curious about what part the author played in the 1996 Olympics.