2008 PGA Tour By the Numbers & Grooves Regulation

Geoff Shackelford posted a link to PGATour.com's fascinating ShotLink and data trending analysis done by Kin Lo.  It profiles all kinds of datapoints that really do sum up the season pretty well.  Lo's analysis also has some longer term trending info that helps explain a lot. 

Shack's post focuses on the final three stats in this graphic:

Geoff made the suggestion that while driving distances have increased by 30 yards on the average, players essentially hit the same percentage of fairways and greens in regulation.  He wondered if this flew in the face of the USGA's reasoning behind grooves regulation, which was that there is less of a correlation between winning and hitting the fairway than their used to be.

I think, though, that these numbers indicate one key thing - and it makes the case for the USGA for regulation.

This data indicates that despite what the PGA Tour - and other bodies - have done to tighten fairways, deepen rough, and trick out greens with ridiculous speed and pin placements, that the players have managed to marginalize their efforts.  Players and technology have adapted (not necessarily improved) to the point that they can overcome what the Tour has been throwing at them in their setups.

The PGA Tour would tell you, then, that their setups are validated because players would throttle most courses without how they set them up to compete against technology.  In one regard, they would be right.

In another regard, though, this really explains the possible benefits of groove regulation at this time.  It would allow for the PGA Tour to scale back its setups, play a wider variety of courses with different kinds of setups, and perhaps still maintain the exact range of GIR and fairways hit that we have seen for the last 30 years.

The only problem in all of this is when the ball companies beat the groove regulation, then the USGA will almost assuredly have to regulate the golf ball.  The positive end of this is that the grooves regulation will have set an accepted precedent for such regulation.