Exploratory analysis of European Professional Golf Association statistics

Various summary statistics collected by the Professional Golf Association European tour for 1998-2001 are investigated, in particular to see how well these predict golfing success. The paper tries to avoid predicting something by itself, as previous papers have in effect done, concentrating on key parts of the game only. We conclude that the game of golf is too complex to characterize by the relatively small set of variables that are currently used, and we suggest further quantities which, if measured, would allow a more informative analysis.