Another Year, Another Masters

Today, Wednesday April 4th, is the day before the start of the 76th Masters Tournament, so I just thought I'd take this opportunity for a little bit of statistical analysis. People often say that experience at Augusta National is key at the Masters, and in particular that former champions have a huge advantage. And they're right! Compared to the other two U.S.-based majors, the Masters is vastly more favorable to repeat champions. The numbers are as follows: the 20 multiple winners of the U.S. Open have won just 50 of its 110 playings, or 45%; at the PGA Championship, the 18 multiple winners have 46 of 93 wins to their credit, for 49%; but at the Masters, the 16 multiple-time champions have 45 wins out of just 75 tournaments. That's 60%! At both the Open and the PGA, your average multiple champion has around 2.5 wins. At the Masters, that figure is more like 2.8.

In fact, we can restrict our gaze to just those players with at least three wins, and the pattern remains just as stark. Only 5 players have achieved this level of excellence at the PGA, and just 6 for the US Open. At the PGA, they combine for 20 wins, or 21.5% of the total; at the Open, they have 22 wins, exactly one-fifth of the total. But at the Masters, the eight dominant figures (Nicklaus, Palmer, Woods, Player, Snead, Faldo, Mickelson, and Demaret) have 29 wins. Not only is this more than the figures for the (older) Open and PGA, but it represents nearly 39% of all Masters. So if you're someone who likes Augusta, you probably really like it.

But you'll note I've been talking just about the American majors, and there's an obvious reason for that. At the British Open, the 26 repeat champions of the past 150 years combine for 87 wins out of 140 tournaments. That's 62%, higher than the figure for Augusta. But there are 19 three-time Champion Golfers of the Year, who have a total of 73 Open Championships to their credit. That's more than half. So while it's definitely true that the Masters selects for a certain Augusta-friendly type of player year after year, that's nothing compared to how thoroughly the British Open rewards the same group of links-loving golfers.

Perhaps some more analysis coming later. For now I'll just note that the weather seems to be favoring Tiger: the course will be playing easy, as it has each time he's won it (well, okay, in 1997 he was the only one who thought it was easy, but he's been double-digits under par all four times), and the skies should be nice and clear tomorrow morning while he's playing, and then get nasty for McIlroy and Mickelson's afternoon rounds. Let's hope he can take advantage!