Capelle On Golf

My good friend Ryan Ballengee at the Waggle Room wrote an excellent piece the other day on the bias in the WGR. Though I knew they favor foreign players, he opened my eyes to the seasonality bias, which hurts Americans in the early part of the season when players are trying to qualify for the WGC events and the Masters. The article also delved into Home Tour Rating Value points, which also bolster the WGRs of foreign players.

Considering the bias I wondered if, on the course, the Americans would show they are as good or better than their rankings indicate.

A field of 80 players are participating in this week’s WGC CA. They include 27 Americans, or about a third. I divided the field after three rounds into thirds (as closely as possible) and examined the results.

Pos.—US—Theoretical #
1-29—–11—9.8
30-56—9—-9.1
57-80—7—-8.1

The table shows that the Americans were slightly above the theoretical norm in the top third, and slightly below the norm in the bottom group. That’s good news for American pros and golf fans.

But it gets better. Going into Sunday, Americans own five of the top nine spots, including our 54 hole leaders, Phil Mickelson and Nick Watney. And these numbers are without Tiger Woods, a perennial top 10 player in most any event. He’s currently at 19t, but no one in golf would be surprised if he winds up in the top 10 after tomorrow’s final round.