Press inquiries

The finding most worth a reporter’s time. Augusta National is the only major championship venue measured every single year, and 44 of those years are in the analysis. Over 5 years in the 2000s the course gained 440 yards. Once the weather in each week is accounted for, that lengthening is invisible in what the field actually shoots — on a series able to detect a shift of 0.6 strokes, it produced none. Set that beside Pebble Beach, left almost alone over the same era and 5 strokes easier.

The counterweight, which belongs in the same paragraph. Hole by hole, a substantial tee move does work: it adds 0.10-0.17 of a stroke on the hole it touches, with 3 of 6 measured effects surviving correction for multiple comparisons. The yards are not doing nothing. They are being swamped by a season of weather and setup. A different claim, and the one a club needs to hear before it spends the money.

What does move the number, in order of size: setup, 2.96 strokes at Pebble Beach, measured on the same players at the same venue in two different months; who is in the field, 2.30; wind, 1.70 per 10 mph of gust; temperature, 0.69 per 10°F at Augusta; and architecture (one course against another in the same week), 0.40. Lengthening is the most expensive lever a club can pull and the weakest one a scoring average can see.