Thinking Analytically

Ian Ayres, author of Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart has an interesting post at the Freakonomics blog.  In response to Tiger’s dramatic win at the U.S. Open, Ayres wonders why we don’t see more probability analysis of sinking a put from certain distances by certain players.  We seem to be obsessed with statistical minutia in other sports but golf is relatively untouched.  Granted there may be a few more variables in putting such as the cut of the green, location of the ball, direction of role, etc. but it would be fun to make some predictions.  Better yet, how about a hypothesis or two?

For instance and for my own game…

• Do I have a better shot at sinking a mid-range put than a short put because I feel I have less at stake so I relax more on the longer put?
• Does the number of stokes taken to get to the green have a bearing on the probability of making certains puts?  Do I relax more when I’ve already blown the hole versus when I have a shot at an eagle?
• What’s the relationship between warm up time on the practice green to puts made on the real greens?

What do you think?

I bumped into Ian Ayres’ personal web-site last night. He is author of  Super Crunchers. The prediction tools page includes a few free, fun tools some of which are mentioned in the book. One that I especially liked is the tool to predict how long you’ll live. Two tools are included one of which is from my employer, Northwestern Mutual. Give it a shot. The results may surprise you! Click here to “Play the Longevity Game”.

Ian Ayres’ new book Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart just landed on my desk. I’m looking forward to diving in this weekend while flying to Boston. According to the dust jacket, “number crunching affects your life in ways you might never imagine.” Hard to argue with that. Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics, calls the book “Groundbreaking…Not only is it fun to read, it just may change the way you think.” I look forward to finding out.

Amazon has a brief video of the author. Click here to watch it.