Abstract
A few PGA Tour events have been played using modified Stableford scoring, a format in which the gain to playing a hole below par is greater than the cost of an above-par score on a hole. This article examines whether the asymmetric gains and losses of modified Stableford scoring are associated with more aggressive play. Although the results indicate that modified Stableford scoring is associated with longer tee shots and an increased likelihood of tee shots missing the fairway, modified Stableford scoring is unrelated to golfers’ likelihood of going for the green on par-five holes, the likelihood of first putts being made, the likelihood of first putts being hit beyond the cup, and the distribution of scores relative to par. Hence, there is, at best, weak evidence that modified Stableford scoring is associated with more aggressive play.
Keywords
The strategy in Modified Stableford formats can, in most instances, be summed up in three words: Go for it. —Reno-Tahoe Open website [emphasis in original]
1
The (m)odified Stableford system not only promotes aggressive play…
—Andy Pazder, PGA Tour Vice President
2
All I think about is that a birdie and a bogey is better than two pars [and] you can pass 40 guys making an eagle on one hole.
—PGA Tour Golfer J. J. Henry (quoted in
New Zealand Herald, 2013)
Introduction
One of the most important decisions facing organizers of sporting events is establishing the conditions of contest. Such conditions may include the rules under which teams or players compete, the dimensions or other attributes of the physical space in which the competition is held, and specifications pertaining to equipment used in the competition. Sporting event organizers often refine the conditions of contest over time in order to guarantee the integrity of completion or to enhance organizers’ revenue by making the competition as attractive as possible to fans.
Examples of changes in the conditions of contest abound. Basketball outlawed, then legalized, dunking, adopted the 3-point field goal (and subsequently increased its distance from the basket), and adjusted its draft to deter shirking (Price, Soebbing, Berri, & Humphreys, 2010; Taylor & Trogdon, 2002). Major league baseball adopted the designated hitter, lowered the height of the pitcher’s mound, and adopted instant replay review of certain plays. Hockey adjusted its rules to encourage more open play and reduced the allowable width of goalies’ pads. Football liberalized its blocking rules to facilitate more passing offense, outlawed certain hits on quarterbacks in order to keep these marquee players healthy, and adopted the 2-point try after touchdowns. National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing imposed restrictor plates to slow racing speeds on certain tracks, tweaked the rules for its “Sprint for the Cup” tournament, and enacted rules meant to prevent members of the same racing teams from unfairly helping their teammates or sabotaging their teammates’ competitors.
This article examines a change in the conditions of contest in professional golf. Most professional golf tournaments are organized as stroke play events, though a few use a match play format. In stroke play, the field of golfers plays several rounds (normally four) on the course, with the winner being the golfer who takes the fewest shots to play the tournament. In match play, golfers play one opponent at a time (normally in a single 18-hole round), with the winner of each match being the golfer who has the lowest score on more of the holes than his or her opponent. The tournament proceeds with each match winner facing subsequent opponents until all golfers except one have lost a match.
The PGA Tour has also experimented with an alternative format known as modified Stableford scoring. Under modified Stableford scoring, points are awarded or deducted for each hole, and the winner is the golfer who accumulates the most points over the course of the four-round tournament. The points for each hole are awarded as follows: Double eagles are worth 8 points, eagles are worth 5 points, birdies are worth 2 points, pars are worth 0 points, bogeys yield a deduction of 1 point, and any score of double bogey or worse leads to a 3-point deduction. 3 Modified Stableford scoring differs from traditional stroke play in that the gain (loss) to completing a hole by a given number of strokes below (above) par is asymmetric. For example, the gain to finishing an additional stroke below par is greater than the cost of finishing a stroke above par. In stroke play, a birdie and a bogey offset and are equivalent to parring two holes. In modified Stableford scoring, a player with a birdie and a bogey would be a point ahead of a player who parred two holes. Since modified Stableford scoring alters the cost–benefit calculus of scoring above or below par on each hole, it might induce golfers to pursue birdies and eagles more aggressively.
To our knowledge, this article is the first to examine the effect of the modified Stableford scoring system on player aggressiveness. 4 The next section discusses the use of modified Stableford scoring in PGA Tour golf events. Subsequent sections turn to comparing players’ shots off the tee, their propensity to go for the green on par-five holes, and their putting under traditional stroke play and modified Stableford scoring. The penultimate section presents an alternate approach based on the distribution of scores in stroke play versus modified Stableford events. The final section summarizes the results.
Modified Stableford Scoring on the PGA Tour
The PGA Tour’s use of modified Stableford scoring originated in 1986 with the inauguration of The International tournament, played at Castle Pines Golf Club near Denver. The International’s use of modified Stableford scoring was attributable to the course’s owner, Jack Vickers, who sought a more aggressive style of golf for his new tournament (Reger, 2004). Although there were a few minor changes in The International’s scoring system over the years, it continued to use modified Stableford scoring until the tournament’s demise in 2006. Modified Stableford scoring was then absent from the PGA Tour until the Reno-Tahoe Open switched from stroke play to modified Stableford scoring in 2012. 5
The use of modified Stableford scoring at The International from 1986 to 2006 and at the Reno-Tahoe Open since 2012 means that there are (at least) two ways to test whether it incentivizes more aggressive play. One approach compares how golfers playing Reno-Tahoe under modified Stableford rules since 2012 perform compare to golfers playing Reno-Tahoe in prior years when stroke play was in effect. 6 Unfortunately, this approach is limited because the PGA Tour’s Shotlink database does not contain the requisite shot-level data for the years since the Reno-Tahoe Open adopted modified Stableford scoring. Shotlink does contain data on the hole-by-hole distribution of scores (birdie, par, etc.) and, in a later section, this article compares the distribution of scores at the Reno-Tahoe Open before and after it switched to modified Stableford scoring.
The second approach compares how golfers competing in both The International and traditional stroke play tournaments perform under the different scoring systems. For the most part, this article takes that approach. We use the 2006 Reno-Tahoe Open (prior to its adopting modified Stableford scoring in 2012) as the comparison tournament because, like The International, it is played at high elevation and because the tournaments are played only 2 weeks apart on the PGA Tour’s schedule. 7 Comparing tournaments played at similar elevations implicitly accounts for any effects of altitude on shot distance (balls travel farther at elevation because of thin air). Choosing tournaments close to one another on the PGA Tour schedule also means that players do not have time to make many changes in their games (e.g., equipment or coach) or to experience changes in their health or conditioning. Choosing the Reno-Tahoe Open as the stroke play comparison tournament has another advantage: In 2006, 74 golfers entered both tournaments, so there is a large overlap in the two tournaments’ fields, yielding a large sample for our analysis. However, complete data are available for only 71 golfers because three players had not earned any prize money prior to The International and therefore had no rank on the season’s money list (one of our control variables in some specifications).
Comparing Driving Distance and the Likelihood of Drives’ Hitting the Fairway
Our first test of the incentive effects of modified Stableford scoring is a comparison of golfers’ performance off the tee on par-five holes. The idea underlying this comparison is straightforward: If modified Stableford scoring incentivizes more aggressive play, then golfers should hit longer tee shots (perhaps by using their drivers instead of other clubs) at The International than at the Reno-Tahoe Open. We choose par-five holes because they are long enough to permit players to use their drivers off the tee if they choose to do so. Similarly, if golfers play more aggressively in The International than in the Reno-Tahoe Open, then fewer of their tee shots should land safely in the fairway.
The variable of interest is a dummy variable taking a value of 1 for shots taken in The International and zero if the shot is taken in the Reno-Tahoe Open. If modified Stableford scoring leads to more aggressive play, then The International dummy variable should be positively related to driving distance and negatively related to the likelihood of a player’s tee shot’s hitting the fairway.
Several control variables account for other factors that might affect driving distance or the likelihood of a tee shot’s landing in the fairway. Weather conditions might affect a tee shot’s length and accuracy, so the estimation controls for wind (miles per hour) and precipitation (inches). Rain should reduce driving distance because it diminishes how far a shot flies in the air and how far it rolls after the shot lands. The effect of wind should depend on whether it is blowing from behind the golfer or into his face, so the net effect is ambiguous and may well cancel out over several holes since they often have opposing orientations.
The design of a hole may also affect driving distance and accuracy. Longer holes lead many golfers to choose longer clubs (e.g., a driver); hence, a hole’s length should be positively related to driving distance. Conversely, a hole’s length should be negatively related to the likelihood of tee shots’ landing in the fairway since players choosing to use longer clubs sacrifice accuracy in exchange for distance. Fairway width might also affect driving distance and accuracy, so fairway width (measured at 300 yards from the tee) is included as a control variable. Wider fairways should be positively related to the likelihood of a tee shot’s hitting the fairway. Wider fairways are also easier to hit safely, so players can choose longer, less accurate clubs for their tee shots. Hence, there should also be a positive relationship between fairway width and driving distance.
Driving distance and accuracy should also be related to golfer-specific attributes. Skills vary across golfers, so it is important to control for differences in driving skills. Since some players consistently hit longer drives, the driving distance regressions include a measure of each player’s average driving distance over the 2006 PGA Tour season. We expect this measure to be positively related to driving distance. Similarly, some players are more accurate drivers than others, so the hit-the-fairway regressions include a measure of players’ driving accuracy over the 2006 PGA Tour season. We expect that players’ driving accuracy over the course of the season to be positively affect their likelihood of hitting the fairway in The International and the Reno-Tahoe Open.
Other golfer-specific attributes that may affect players’ driving distance and accuracy are age and rank on the money list. Evidence from other settings, such as automobile accident rates, suggest that younger men are more inclined to undertake risky activities than older men. (Age may also be associated with diminished physical capabilities, such as the ability to hit the ball for distance, though this effect should be captured by average driving distance, which is already included.) If younger players have more of a “grip it and rip it” mentality, then age should be negatively related to driving distance and positively related to driving accuracy. 8 Finishing in the top 125 on the PGA Tour’s annual money list entitles players to enter all Open tournaments in the subsequent season. Golfers’ behavior might therefore depend on their position on the money list entering the tournament. However, the direction of this effect is unclear a priori. On the one hand, golfers ranking outside the top 125 on the money list may play more aggressively in an attempt to capture more prize money and move up the money list. On the other hand, golfers who seem to have locked up a position in the top 125 (recall that The International and the Reno-Tahoe Open are played relatively late in the PGA Tour season) may feel that they can play more aggressively with little fear of hurting their chances of remaining in the top 125. If being poorly ranked entering a tournament leads to more aggressive play, then player rank should be positively related to driving distance and negatively related to hitting the fairway off the tee (remember that poorly ranked players have larger values for the money list rank variable).
As an alternative to including the golfer-specific variables discussed in the two previous paragraphs, player fixed effects are included in some specifications instead of age, money list rank entering the tournament, and season-long driving average (distance or accuracy).
As noted earlier, we have complete data for 71 golfers who played both The International and the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2006. The host course for each of the tournaments was configured with four par-five holes. The 71 golfers who entered both events played the eight par-five holes 1,654 times over the course of the two tournaments. 9 Data on various aspects of the 71 players’ play on these holes as well as other factors potentially related to players’ play on the par-five holes are compiled from the PGA Tour’s ShotLink database. Descriptive statistics appear in Table 1.
Descriptive Statistics.
Results for the driving distance and driving accuracy regressions are in Table 2. The first two columns contain the driving distance estimates from using via ordinary least square with heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors. Column (1) includes age, rank before the tournament, and season-average driving distance; column (2) replaces these variables with player-specific fixed effects. The results are consistent with modified Stableford scoring’s incentivizing aggressive play; other things equal, drives in The International are about 18 yards longer than drives in the Reno-Tahoe Open.
Analysis of Golfers’ Behavior From the Tee.
Turning to the control variables, wind is positively related to driving distance and precipitation shortens driving distance. Golfers have longer drives on longer holes and holes with wider fairways. Players with higher season driving averages have longer drives, but age and money list rank entering the tournaments are not related to driving distance. Replacing age, money list rank, and season driving average with player fixed effects has no appreciable effect on the magnitude or statistical significance of the other variables.
Columns (3) and (4) contain the driving accuracy regressions. Since hitting or missing the fairway is a binary outcome, we use probit estimation with heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors reported in parentheses and marginal effects reported in brackets. Similar to the driving distance estimation, column (3) includes age, rank before the tournament, and season-average driving accuracy. Column (4) replaces these variables with player fixed effects. Again, the results suggest that modified Stableford scoring leads to more aggressive play. Holding other things constant, players are about 10 percentage points less likely to hit the fairway with their tee shots at The International than at the Reno-Tahoe Open. 10
As for the control variables, unsurprisingly, both players’ season-average driving accuracy and fairway width both positively affect the likelihood of players’ tee shots hitting the fairway. Hole length reduces the likelihood of hitting the fairway thereby suggesting that longer holes induce players to sacrifice accuracy for additional length off the tee. Neither the weather conditions nor a player’s age or money list rank entering the tournament is related to driving accuracy.
The Likelihood of Going for the Green on Par-Five Holes
Our next test for the influence of scoring system on golfers’ aggressiveness also examines players’ behavior on par-five holes. After hitting their tee shots, golfers playing par fives must decide whether to try to reach the green on their next shot or to layup short of the green. Going for the green is considered the riskier approach because it is more difficult to control long shots than short ones. While successfully reaching the green on a par-five hole in two strokes creates an eagle opportunity or an almost certain birdie, an errant shot increases the likelihood of an above-par score. Hence, we now estimate the propensity of players to go for the green on par-five holes under the different scoring systems: If modified Stableford scoring leads to more aggressive play, then, ceteris paribus, more golfers in The International will try to reach par fives in two strokes than in the Reno-Tahoe Open.
Before we turn to a more formal analysis, Table 3 reports the percentage of golfers going for the green on their second shot for each of the par-five holes in The International and the Reno-Tahoe Open. 11 The hole-by-hole percentages range from about 40% to 80% for both tournaments, and the variation seems to be strongly related to the length of the hole (the correlation between yardage and the percentage of golfers going for the green on their second shots is −0.71). Although there is variation across the holes within each tournament, golfers went for the green only 56.6% of the times they played par-five holes in The International compared to 66.5% for the Reno-Tahoe Open. This difference is not likely the result of a systematic difference in hole length between the two courses because the par-five holes in The International are 7 yards shorter on average than the par-five holes in the Reno-Tahoe Open. Hence, the nearly 10 percentage points lower rate for The International than for the Reno-Tahoe Open casts doubt on the incentive effects of modified Stableford scoring. A complete analysis, however, requires holding constant other factors that might affect golfers’ decisions whether to go for the green on par-five holes.
Comparison of Golfers Going for the Green on Par-Five Holes.
A golfer’s decision to go for the green on a par five might depend on several factors other than the scoring system. One, suggested by the simple comparison in Table 3, is how far the second shot would have to travel to reach the green. If a golfer faces a long second shot because of a poor drive or because he is playing a long hole, then he is less likely to go for the green on his second shot. Hence, the estimation includes the number of yards to go to reach the green as a control variable. The accuracy of a player’s drive may also affect the likelihood of going for the green on his second shot. Balls that lie outside of the fairway are more difficult for players to hit accurately. Thus, the empirical model includes a dummy variable taking a value of 1 if the player’s drive lands in the fairway and a value of 0 for tee shots that land outside of the fairway. We expect this variable to be positively related to a player’s likelihood of going for the green on his second shot. The round in which the hole is played may also affect a golfer’s decision whether to go for the green. In most tournaments, the field is cut by roughly half after the second round, and golfers who do not make the cut do not earn any prize money. Golfers who fear they may not make the cut may play more aggressively in the second round in order to make the cut. The tournament pay structure of golf in which the gain to moving up a position in the field is greater than the harm of falling back a place in the standings may also incentivize more aggressive play in later rounds of a tournament (Ehrenberg & Bognanno, 1990a, 1990b). Hence, dummy variables for Rounds 2–4 are included in the model. 12
A hole’s configuration may also affect a golfer’s likelihood of going for the green on the second shot. Other things equal, a straight hole should induce more golfers to try to reach the green in two shots. By contrast, golfers should be less likely to try to reach the green in two shots on dogleg holes because some players may have poor angles between the location of the ball and the green for their second shots. Hazards around the green may also affect players’ willingness to try for the green in two shots. Holes with nearby water hazards or sand traps may see fewer golfers going for the green on their second shots because of the risk associated with these hazards. Green size may also affect golfers’ willingness to go for the green on their second shot; larger greens should see more golfers trying to reach them on the second shot and smaller greens should see fewer attempts. To control for these hole characteristics, the empirical analysis includes a dummy variable taking a value of 1 if a hole is straight, a dummy variable taking a value of 1 if there is water near the green, a variable giving the size of the green, and a variable giving the number of sand traps near the green.
As in the analysis of golfers’ behavior from the tee, golfer-specific attributes may affect a player’s willingness to go for the green on the second shot. Age controls for our expectation that older players are less likely to engage in risky behavior and are less likely to go for the green on the second shot. Players’ rank on the money list entering the tournament is included in case aggressive play varies with a golfer’s position on the money list.
Because we are examining whether the modified Stableford scoring used in The International leads to more aggressive play, the variable of interest is a dummy variable taking a value of 1 for par-five holes played in The International and 0 for holes played in the Reno-Tahoe Open. If modified Stableford scoring incentivizes players to go for the green on par-five holes, this dummy variable for The International will have a positive coefficient.
As noted earlier, we have complete data for 71 of the 74 golfers who played both The International and the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2006. The host course for each of the tournaments has four par-five holes. The 71 golfers with complete data who entered both events played the eight par-five holes 1,654 times over the course of the two tournaments. As before, data come from the PGA Tour’s ShotLink database. Descriptive statistics are reported in Table 1. Since the dependent variable has two outcomes—whether a player went for it on his second shot or not—we use probit estimation. Table 4 contains the estimation results. Each cell contains a coefficient estimate with its heteroscedasticity-robust standard error in parentheses and associated marginal effect in brackets.
Probit Results. Dependent Variable: Went for the Green on a Par-Five Hole.
Results are presented in column (1). As expected, drives that hit the fairway make golfers more likely to go for the green on their second shots. Similarly, golfers are more likely to go for the green if they have fewer yards to go to reach the green. Likewise, golfers are more likely to go for the green in the second, third, and fourth rounds of a tournament than the first round, with larger effects associated with the second and fourth rounds. Golfers are less likely to go for the green on their second shot if they are older and, perhaps surprisingly, if they enter the tournament ranked lower on the money list. One explanation of the finding that worse-ranked golfers are less likely to go for the green is that lower ranked golfers are poorer players and that money list rank is more a measure of ability than a measure of desire to move up the money list. As for the hole-specific attributes, the results unsurprisingly indicate that golfers are more likely to go for the green on straight holes and on holes with larger greens. On the other hand, the results surprisingly indicate that golfers are more likely to go for the green on holes with water and sand near the green. An explanation for this unexpected result is that golf course designers include more hazards on holes that are otherwise easier and hence more likely to have golfers trying to reach the green in two shots. The variable of interest, the negative coefficient on The International tournament dummy variable, indicates that golfers were less likely to go for the green in The International rather than the Reno-Tahoe Open. Hence, the results provide no support for the notion that modified Stableford scoring leads to more aggressive play.
The results from replacing age and rank before the tournament with player fixed effects are reported in column (2). The results are very similar to those in column (1). They provide no evidence that modified Stableford scoring leads to more aggressive play.
To control for other factors that might affect whether golfers go for the green on par fives, it would be nice to include hole fixed effects in addition to The International tournament dummy variable. Unfortunately, this is not possible because holes are always part of the same course and the inclusion of both hole fixed effects and The International dummy would create a collinearity problem. Column (3) contains results from reestimating the model with hole fixed effects replacing the dummy variable for The International. (Note that the hole-attribute variables such as green size are omitted to avoid perfect collinearity.) For this estimation, the omitted hole is number 17 from the Reno-Tahoe Open. It was omitted because, as indicated in Table 3, it had the lowest rate of golfers going for the green among the four Reno-Tahoe Open par fives. With this hole used as the baseline, it is interesting that the coefficients on all four of the hole dummies from The International have negative coefficients (with two of them—holes 8 and 17—being statistically different from zero). Therefore, this approach also fails to support the hypothesis that modified Stableford scoring leads to more aggressive play.
A Comparison of Putting Behavior
The final comparison of golfer behavior in The International to the Reno-Tahoe Open examines players’ putting performance. When golfers putt, they must balance their desire to make a putt with their not wanting to putt so aggressively that they leave themselves in a poor position if they miss initial putt. An aggressive attempt to make every putt sometimes leaves golfers in an unfavorable position for their second putt attempt, leading to the dreaded “three putt.” If modified Stableford scoring induces more aggressive play, then we should observe both more made first putts and more first putts finishing beyond the hole rather than being “lagged.”
Golfers who played both The International and the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2006 attempted 7,436 first putts in those tournaments. In this section, we analyze whether first putts were more likely to be made at The International and whether putts at The International were more likely than first putts at the Reno-Tahoe Open to go past the hole. As in previous sections, the key variable is a dummy variable taking a value of 1 for putts taken at The International. If modified Stableford scoring induces more aggressive play, The International dummy variable should positively affect both the probability of making a putt and the probability that a putt goes beyond the hole.
The control variables for this analysis include the putt’s starting distance from the hole and its square since the probability of a putt being made may not change linearly as distance from a hole increases. Dummy variables for Rounds 2–4 are included in case golfers’ aggressiveness varies by round. 13 The golfer-specific variables age and rank before the tournament are also included. The estimation also includes each player’s strokes gained putting per round, which is the PGA Tour’s measure of putting effectiveness. 14 Since strokes gained putting is constructed so that positive values indicate better than tour average putters and negative values indicate golfers who are worse putters than tour average, strokes gained per round should positively affect the likelihood of a shot being made and negatively affect the distance remaining after missed shots. As before, we estimate alternate specifications in which player fixed effects replace the player-specific variables age, rank before the tournament, and strokes gained per round.
Table 5 reports the results. The first two columns contain probit estimates of golfers’ likelihood of making their first putts. Neither the specification including the player-specific variables age, rank before the tournament, and strokes gained, column (1), nor the specification with player fixed effects shows evidence that golfers playing The International (under modified Stableford scoring) are more likely to make their first putts. As for the controls, the likelihood of making a putt decreases with distance (albeit at a diminishing rate) and increases with a golfer’s strokes gained per round.
Analysis of Golfers’ Putting Behavior.
The next two columns consider the likelihood that putts go beyond the hole. This estimation also uses probit with the dependent variable taking a value of 1 for putts that go beyond the hole and 0 otherwise. Again there is no evidence that modified Stableford scoring induces more aggressive play since the estimated coefficient on The International dummy variable is small and not statistically different from zero. Other than a putt’s distance from the hole and its square, the control variables are not statistically related to the likelihood that a putt travels beyond the hole.
The Distribution of Scores at the Reno-Tahoe Open
As noted earlier, the PGA Tour’s statistical database does not have the necessary data for examining players’ behavior off the tee, going for the green, or putting since the tournament switched to modified Stableford scoring in 2012. (Presumably the full range of statistical data for the tournament is not compiled because the Reno-Tahoe Open is considered an alternate event since it is played on the same weekend as a higher profile, limited field tournament.) Hence, it is impossible to perform an analysis comparable to the previous three sections using data from the same tournament both before and after modified Stableford was adopted.
However, data do exist on the percentage of players scoring eagles, birdies, and so on, on each hole during the Reno-Tahoe Open. These data allow us to compare the 2011 (stroke play) tournament to the 2012 (modified Stableford) tournament to see if changing formats led to a change in the distribution of scores. Table 6 includes distribution of score data for both the tournament’s par-five holes and the tournament overall. The most notable change is that the category of other stroke totals (which consists mostly of triple bogeys and above, but also includes double eagles) falls sharply. However, this is because, under modified Stableford scoring, the worst a player can do on a hole is a double bogey (−3 points), so any scores that would have been worse than double bogeys are simply subsumed into the double bogey category. Otherwise, the distributions are similar for both years, suggesting that moving to modified Stableford scoring had little effect.
Distribution of Scores in the Reno-Tahoe Open.
Conclusion
While modified Stableford scoring is associated with longer tee shots and the likelihood of tee shots missing the fairway, modified Stableford scoring is unrelated to golfers’ likelihood of going for the green on par-five holes, the likelihood of first putts being made, the likelihood of first putts being hit beyond the hole, and the distribution of scores in the Reno-Tahoe Open. Hence, this article provides, at best, weak evidence in support of the conventional wisdom that modified Stableford scoring leads to more aggressive play. In one respect, this finding should not be surprising—quotes such as those at the beginning of the article notwithstanding, modified Stableford scoring has not been widely adopted. Instead, it seems to be something of a novelty that is occasionally used to enliven interest in relatively low-profile events on the PGA Tour (the Reno-Tahoe Open is an alternate event that is played opposite of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational).
The findings in this article other than the score distribution at the Reno-Tahoe Open hinge on the suitability of the Reno-Tahoe Open as the control event for the The International. While both events are played at similar altitude, on courses that were both designed by Jack Nicklaus, and in close proximity to one another on the PGA Tour schedule, it is possible that some unspecified factors makes The Reno-Tahoe Open a poor comparison for The International. Hence, additional tests of the putative incentive effects of modified Stableford scoring are certainly welcome.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.