Measuring the Decline
Most of the data that you will see here covers the period 1980 through 2002. The methods I have used are described and the source material are available from the METHODS page. Generally, data was downloaded from the PGA Tour Stats web pages, summarized and then graphed. It seemed logical to me that Tour players would be the most reliable adopters of golf club design and/or technology. In addition, the PGA Tour Stats provides the most reliable and readily accessible data base for evaluation. Data for the period 1930-1980 was taken from a number of sites, usually the tournament web site for each respective historical tournament used. Where possible, the methods of summarization and graphical display were consistent. We will begin our study with scores for the top 150 players for each year from 1980 through the most recently weekly available data in 2002, usually Aug 31 or Sept 8, 2002.
The average score for the top 150 players on the PGA tour declined one stroke per round over the course of the last twenty years. The average score of the lowest scorer for each year declined by a lesser amount estimated from the graph above at roughly a half a stroke. The players finishing in position 150 each year of the top 150 players saw their average scores decline by slightly more than a stroke per round. We are going to look in detail at various aspects of the game to see if we can determine where and how players achieved this small but definite scoring reduction.