The virtual PGA: The nine favorites
By Bill Felber
Byron Nelson and Tiger Woods head the list of most likely winners of the virtual PGA Championship.
We brought you the virtual Masters last month, in place of the actual event. As the golf world is still in hiatus, now we do the same for the PGA Championship. In our virtual all-time PGA Championship, nine players stand out as favorites in the 68-player field.
Those nine, all of them multiple champions, have a combined 28 Wanamaker Trophies. All either are or eventually will be in the World Golf Hall of Fame.
When the champion of our virtual PGA hoists the trophy Sunday, it is likely – not certain but likely – to come from among the ranks of these nine.
The standard deviation of their average performance during their 10-year peak period ranges from a low of -1.22 to a best of just under -1.75 standard deviations superior to their contemporaries. No wonder they won so often.
One of the striking aspects of this most elite group is that although The PGA is today recognized as a world golfing event – 13 non-Americans have won 18 times – the top of the tournament’s pecking order has a distinctly Yankee feel to it. Of the nine players who present the most dominating PGA profiles, seven were born in the United States and an eighth played his entire professional career here.
In reviewing the data underscoring these ratings, you may be struck by the competitiveness of these top nine. The standard deviations of six of the nine are virtually identical, ranging between -1.22 and -1.37 …that’s a very small margin of difference.
That small margin of distinction increases the potential for volatility in the final results.
Here’s a more detailed look at the pre-tournament credentials of these nine tournament favorites. For each, the introductory material includes the year(s) of their title(s), the 10-year period of their peak performance at the tournament – that’s the span on which their rating is based – and the standard deviation of their average performance during that peak. They are presented in the mathematical order of likelihood of contention.