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Below are the players who are the top career putters on the PGA Tour 1986-2001. To review the mathematical algoritm for ranking players based on PGA Tour pstats for putts per GIR 1986-2001, see the explanation below.
TOP 10 CAREER PUTTERS 1986-2001
PLAYER
POINTS + RANK SCALES
COMBINED
1. Payne Stewart 2. Ben Crenshaw 3. Brad Faxon 4. Steve Stricker 5. David Frost 6. Jim Furyk 7. Greg Norman 8. Don Pooley 9. Lee Janzen 10. Glen Day
Career Points
Top 10Average Rank
Top 10PLAYER POINTS SCALING PLAYER RANK SCALING 1. Brad Faxon 1. Ben Crenshaw 2. Steve Stricker 2. Payne Stewart 2. David Frost 3. Jim Furyk 4. Payne Stewart 4. Steve Stricker 5. Ben Crenshaw 5. Greg Norman 6. Jim Furyk 6. Brad Faxon 7. Glen Day 7. Don Pooley 8. Scott McCarron 8. Lee Janzen 9. Phil Mickelson 9. David Frost 10. Greg Norman 10. Glen Day The Combined Career Rank Algorithm
The Mathematical Algorithm for the Combined Ranking is 50% average annual Rank and 50% Career Points as scaled [Combined = (Career Points + Average Rank) / 2].
Career Points
A. The Rules of Inclusion are:
1. Any player who has ranked in the top 25 at any time in the past 4 years 1998-2001 (n=66) with five or more years on the PGA Tour after a first season of 5 or more events (n=57), and
2. Any player who has ranked #1 in putting during the past 16 years 1986-2001 (n=5).
Players with under 5 years have not played long enough to be judged accurately and are not eligible, although their data is given (n=9). Players with over 30% of their careers predating the start of the stats in 1986 probably cannot be fairly judged either (e.g., Ben Crenshaw and Don Pooley), but they are included because they have plenty of stats 1986-2001 for comparison to other players. The Rules of Inclusion could simply be extended to ANY golfer appearing in the top 25 at any time 1986-2001 (n=148), but this does not alter the final Top 10 ranking and a great many of these earlier golfers are no longer active players on Tour. Later, full rankings for all 148 top-25 players will be given under this system.
B. The Points System is:
Basic Par Points are awarded for position in the top 25 (Basic Points = 26 less position #), and
+Birdie Points are awarded for reaching the top 5 (5 bonus points) or ranking number 1 (10 bonus points), and
-Bogey Points are deducted for falling out of the top 25 once it is reached (5 points deduction) and for falling below 100 in rank (10 points deduction). No deduction is taken for failing to be ranked in a year ("nr"). The typical reason players are not ranked in a year is because they did not play enough events. This may have been due to loss of card, injury, voluntarily leaving the Tour, playing another Tour, or end-of-career scaling back (e.g., Crenshaw 1997-2001, joining the Senior Tour in 2002). Known injuries are noted. Because it is impossible to tell in all cases why a golfers was "nr", no points are deducted from any players for this reason. And in any event, no points are ever deducted for years before the player first appears in the top 25, thus proving his ability, and eliminating from consideration those years on the learning curve.C. The Career Points Weighting Scheme judges and compares performance:
Each player is then assigned four separate LOOKS:
LOOK1: Par Points Only
LOOK2: Par + Birdie
LOOK3: Par - Bogey
LOOK4: Par + Birdie - BogeyOnce these four LOOKS are tallied, an Amalgalmated Number is the AVERAGE of these four. This number is then multiplied by a Weighting Multiplier (WM) that adjusts each player proprotionately so that players with fewer years on Tour can be compared to players with more years, and the product is Career Points. The WM is the number of years stats are available divided by the number of years after the player first appears on Tour in five or more events and is ranked. Thus, a full veteran is 16/16, so his WM of 1 changes nothing. A younger player with WM = 16/8 has his amalgamated points doubled, so his 8 years are comparable to the 16-year veteran. Even if a player has 16+ years, the WM is based only on 16. End-of-career retirement years (e.g., Crenshaw 1987-2001) are not removed from the WM calculation, as this is really an "experience" multiplier rather than a "times at bat" multiplier. And removing these years would no longer be comparing golfers during the last 16 years. (Players with under 5 years are assigned a WM of 3* to avoid unfair advantage.)
In effect, the final number is the Career Points of the player, and can be regarded as the overall putting strength of the player in comparison to other players.
Average Rank
Each Player is assigned an Average Rank, which is the sum of all rankings divided by the number of rankings, not counting years the player was not ranked ("nr"). Players with under five years of stats are not included.
The Combination of Points and Average Rank
For both Points and Rank, t he number 1 player is assigned 100% and the number 10 player is assigned 0%, with all other players between given the appropriate %. This places the players along a common scale in the top-10 range for both categories. The two categories are then merged by averaging the % from both, to yield a final Top 10 Ranking.
Data
The data source is PGA Tour statistics for putts per GIR from 1986 through 2001 as made available on the site PGATour.com. The data are reproduced in full here. For the 66 individual players appearing in the top 25 or ranking #1, the Table of data is reproduced here.
© 1999-2007 Geoff Mangum
