Tiger Woods might not have a better shot at another green jacket

While the world's greatest golfers gather in Augusta, Georgia, this week for the Masters, it's the spring time of the annual rite of every sports enthusiast: wild speculation that Tiger Woods can add a fifth green jacket to his closet. Wood picking was a fashionable bet; then it started to feel like a totally futile exercise. Long after his last victory in 2005, there was a period during which Woods was constantly in the news. except golf success. In fact, it was not long before Woods found himself in the shoes of a winning golfer, as was his attempt to break Jack Nicklaus' record for the all-time major victories.

But everything changed last season, when Woods rebuilt everything to finish eighth on the PGA Tour win list and win the end-of-season championship in September. Now Woods is back, in his best position for years to win another Masters. According to VegasInsider, Woods has the third best chance of winning by a player this weekend. He also plays golf more than during last year's reentry campaign. But at age 43, will this be one of Woods' last chances of winning at Augusta before the end of his viable champion days?

Tiger has certainly dominated many of his much younger rivals in recent seasons. Since the end of his lost 2017 season, Woods has ranked sixth among PGA Tour qualifiers for the total number of strokes per lap, beating only Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood. He especially found his former control of firing on approach shots and still has one of the best feelings of the game for shooting around the green. In terms of winning shots, Woods scored 1.67 shots (compared to the average player) until now in 2019, a mark still better than the 1.60 that he scored last season – which is undoubtedly its best performance in five years.

One of the most impressive aspects of Woods' early game this season was the improvement in accuracy at the start. According to the PGA Tour, Woods has hit 65.2% of the possible fairways on his records this season, placing him 54th out of 214 qualified players. This may not seem surprising, but according to Woods' standards, this is extremely precise precision. Last year, it reached only 59.4% of fairways, ranking it 127th. He struggled to beat 55% in the previous four seasons. (Even in his very beautiful seasons before scandal / injury, hitting the fairways was an Achilles heel.In 2007, when he won the most money playing golf, Woods s & rsquo; Is ranked 152nd in terms of driving accuracy and failed to hit 60% of the fairways.) When Woods is fighting, the first indication is often a capricious drive that requires subsequent artistic talent , just to do with it.

Thanks to this improved accuracy, Woods now ranks 72nd in this year's race – he was 100th in last season – and ninth in the tee-to-green races, recording 1.48 shots per round before scoring points . the putting surface. Classic Tiger has always been a green monster, ranking first or second in the all seasons healthy category from 2006 to 2013. His strong performance in this category this year is another sign of Woods' return to vintage form.

It's also a very good sign for his chances at Augusta. That's because, as Todd Schneider wrote in FiveThirtyEight a few years ago, Masters often boils down to players' skills with long clubs – contrary to the tournament's reputation of being a putting contest.

Great PGA Tour players are generally better at approach and practice shots, gaining about 4 shots relative to the green starting average for every extra shot they make with putts. But the recent history of the Masters winners also suggests that a good long game is the real prerequisite for the victory of the green jacket. The average winner since the start of the shots was recorded for the first time in 2004 (with the exception of 2016 and 2017 winners Danny Willett and Sergio Garcia, who lacked enough PGA Tour lap times qualify for official rankings). shots won at the start, 32nd at the number of shots and 18 in total.

The green tee shots were the highest (or tied) category with 46% of the Masters winners over that period and 62% of the Top 10 winners according to the statistics – as Woods does this year. (This is consistent with my earlier research that driving distance and approach accuracy are the two secret weapons that players may have at Augusta, which makes them play better in the Masters than their prediction suggests. overall average.)

I have not mentioned Tiger's numbers yet, and with good reason. Woods was once the best putter in the world, but so far this season, he ranks only 74th in the number of shots won with the flat, adding only 0.19 shots above the average per round. Last year he was better – 48th on tour – although he has not yet been the putting maestro who has already shown me and others the fundamentals of a big shot . However, Augusta often saw putters that rank far Worse than Woods wins in the era of detailed PGA Tour tracking data. (In fact, since 2004, more than half of the Masters Masters winners have ranked worse than the 78th.) The performances are so random year-to-year – a lot less than a tournament at the 39, another or even from one round to the other – that it is much easier for a good tee-to-green player to get hot on the green during a weekend than for a good putter to suddenly have an unusually unbelievable weekend at the start.

For all these reasons, it's not difficult to understand why Woods is a strong 12-to-1 bet for winning the Masters. But it is not difficult to imagine that it is the last chance, that of 43, to win another green jacket. Using our research on the great historical winners of a few years ago, here's what the aging curve of championship golfers looks like:

Ernie Els, Darren Clarke, Payne Stewart, 42-year-old Tom Kite and Gary Player recorded a dramatic jump in the number of early-40s wins. side of it. It is well known that Jack Nicklaus won his major final at age 46, but most great golfers have largely won in their early forties. And the game did not get younger until the twilight of Woods' career; While the average major winner in our data set above (up to 2014) was 31.9, this number is only 29.6 for the years since. With his own dominance and popularity early in his career, Woods has inspired a new generation of talented golfers with whom he now has to fight.

Woods is a special talent and is in conversation for the greatest golfer of all time. He plays as well in Augusta as he has done for a long time and excels in the right categories. But between the effects of aging and his own injury history, he may never have a better chance of winning another Masters than he is currently doing. Once upon a time, Tiger was legendary for jumping on all the opportunities he had left. It will just be necessary to see if he can invoke this ability once more.