• last month
Transcript
00:00So this is something last year when we were talking about the signature event changes and the way
00:08points are going to be distributed. And you were kind of doing some of this math. This doesn't make
00:12any sense. This does not make any sense at all. And we're not a math pod. And I immediately said
00:18there is something wrong here. That should have been the first red flag.
00:23So the entire I spent like a tired day going through the through the data and just was
00:30mind blown. I was like, nobody has a chance that's not in the signature events. Well,
00:34you know who else did the same thing is our boy Maverick McNeely did a deep dive on this,
00:40came up with a better system, just shared it with some friends. Somehow it started making
00:44the rounds circulating. Everyone on tour is talking about it. He gets invited to join the
00:48pack. His wife convinces him to do it in July and goes of this proposal. And they're taking a vote
00:54on this in about a week. And if you go into into place in twenty twenty five. So this is I find
00:59this so fascinating. So he's going through all this and he found like this really good test case
01:04in Corey Connors. So he compared Corey's sixth place finish at the RBC Canadian Open this year
01:10and the T20 at the Memorial the following week. And so the the sixth Canadian Open here is 100
01:17FedEx Cup points. Memorial, it's ninety seven point five points. So essentially the same thing.
01:21We're going to call that a wash. Right. Corey. So then he's he's trying to find a metric to
01:26illustrate why this is sort of warped. He goes a true strokes game that you can get through data
01:30golf. Corey at the Canadian Open was positive two point seven eight strokes gain at Memorial,
01:35just one point seven eight. So just like this is like this doesn't make any sense. So his quote
01:41here is if you play the same quality of golf, no matter what tournament you're playing, you should
01:45get the same number of points. The person the person be different because, you know, obviously,
01:50you know, signature events, you're awarding guys who have really good years. But I think just
01:53because you finish top 50 doesn't mean you should earn more points the following year than the guy
01:57who played just as well. So presents this to the tour. The tour says amazing. They run it through
02:05their own set of simulations, do their own research. They come to the exact same conclusion,
02:09smooth out the curve, and they're not presenting this on the pack. And Camilo Vegas, his quote is
02:15he's a genius, dude. He doesn't know the numbers. It came up what he thinks is a lot more fair way.
02:19We studied the whole situation, and it is fair. So I give him credit for that. And in a nutshell,
02:24what the proposal boils down to is a slight increase to second place points for majors.
02:29This is something he also found via the data and the players and a slight decrease in points to
02:36positions 11 and beyond for for full field events and a slight decrease of signature event points
02:42in positions seven and beyond. So he just has a again, not a math pod. That's your first
02:48disclaimer. But just smoothing out those curves. As you get 11 beyond a full field, seven and beyond
02:54in signature events, and then increasing points for finishing high majors. So smiley, a lot of
03:01data, a lot of information I've thrown at you there. Your response to what Mav the homework
03:06Mav did and corrected this thing, the issue that you found with this almost immediately.
03:10Yeah, there's there's two or three things I'll say, and I'll start with this. I'll ask you,
03:15is the pack back? The pack might be back. The Pac-12, the Pac-2, that is not back. The PGA Tour
03:23pack very much back. They seem back right now. I mean, we have the Camilo sending the email
03:32about the changes of, you know, the events and how much how many players are going to be playing.
03:40In these full field events and and now we have Maverick McNeely basically going full Albert
03:45Einstein and figuring out the correct way to have the right distribution curve on the on these
03:51points lists. And so, OK, maybe the pack is back. The second thing I'll say is that in 2017,
03:59this would have been my second year on tour. They made an adjustment to the points and it was much
04:05more of the area from about 20 to 35. There was too many points being awarded in that area. And
04:15they eventually what they did was take some points away and put more points towards the top.
04:21So there were there were guys that were like if you were a top 25 machine, like in 2016,
04:27which was my rookie year, you were you were just so many points, like so many points.
04:33So I think this this whole this isn't the first time this has happened. And I know that we have
04:38a new point system with signature events. So it's not apples and apples comparing.
04:43But it's not the first time they've made a bit of an adjustment to the curve.
04:49My thoughts on what Maverick has done. It's like you don't say like this is what I've been
04:55saying is that this is wrong and they needed to fix it.
05:00So I guess the what what what jumps out at me and I think that it was obvious that the open
05:08field events when you finish six at Canadian Open and you finish six or you finish excuse me,
05:13if you finish 20 at the memorial, you know, are those the same? And we talked about this
05:18the beginning of last year. And I can make an argument. You're playing a tougher field,
05:24but you're also playing less guys, you know, compared to 156. There's a cut.
05:28So there's a lot of different ways that you can value of, you know, how we got to six points
05:34versus 20th and which one deserves more points. And that was Maverick's whole argument. It's like,
05:38fine, if you finish in the top 50, take the money, take all the money you want, but do not
05:44take away points for guys that are playing just as well in an open field event. And that's the
05:51big the biggest argument in this that I completely agree with. So it seems as if strokes gained data
05:59is what is somehow the tour is true, which I I also that is now we're using true strokes gain
06:09data as complete fact. I know some people have holes in strokes gain data. So you know, that's
06:18a whole different thing about like, you know, just looking at relative field sizes and you know,
06:24strokes game versus baseline if it's, you know, but again, apparently the model apparently there's
06:29like just there's just raw strokes gain data, like for these events. And then I guess within
06:34data golf, the true strokes gain corrects for all these sorts of things. And so there's sort of a
06:39a comparative, you can look at that number and compare it to other events. And for the most part
06:45can say that that that there, you know, you don't have to do anything to change the data to
06:49account for field size or, you know, or field strength or whatever, whatever. But I what you
06:55said right there is exactly the way I feel. And it's almost like that's the that's the it's it's
06:59we all know it's wrong. And we all know, like simply from the bat, like that something didn't
07:04make sense. But I think that the piece of intelligence that Mav had, that helped distill
07:09it was just seizing on what part of it was wrong. And also make making an eloquent argument where
07:14it's like, hey, I get it. You know, at face value, it seems like you're doing these new events.
07:19They have all the best players in the world. Yeah, the person should be bigger, and they should give
07:24more points. But being able to kind of split up, right, we're still playing all these events on
07:29tour. And if a guy's playing just as good or better golf in this event, you know, looking at
07:35strokes game playing against the course, whatever, why are we penalizing that guy like give the guys
07:39in the signature events more money, that's completely fair. You know, that's, that's the
07:43bonus they earn finishing top 50. But let's just reward good golf across the entire year in a fair
07:51way. And I think that's like such so much easier to make it make sense for people than like, you
07:55know, trying to compare does a six equate to a 20th, you know, if you're comparing signature
08:01events in full fields.

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