Okay, so, yesterday I was messing around with some data from the 2023 Masters, specifically the total pars. It was a bit of a wild goose chase, to be honest, but I learned a few things along the way.
First off, I started by just trying to find a simple list of the total pars for each player. Sounds easy, right? Nope. I scoured the internet, checked out a bunch of sports sites, and even dug into some golf forums. No dice. It seemed like everyone was more interested in birdies and bogeys than boring old pars.
Then I remembered a buddy of mine who’s a total stats nerd. I shot him a text, and he pointed me towards some raw data files that he had from a golf stats site. These files were massive, filled with all sorts of numbers and codes that I didn’t understand. It felt like trying to read a foreign language.
So, I decided to roll up my sleeves and figure this out. I opened up a spreadsheet and started to import the data. It was a mess. I had to clean it up, remove a bunch of extra stuff, and convert some codes into actual scores. I was pretty much guessing the whole way through, but I kept at it.
After a few hours of wrangling with the data, I finally managed to isolate the pars for each round. Then, I added them up to get the total pars for each player. It was a real “aha!” moment. I finally had the data I was looking for.
- First thing: Find a simple list of total pars for each player.
- Next: Ask a friend who knows a lot about stats.
- Then: Find raw data files.
- After that: Use a spreadsheet to put the data in order.
- Last thing: Add up the pars for each round to get the total.
But here’s the kicker – I realized that just having the total pars wasn’t that interesting on its own. It needed context. So I started to look at how the pars related to the other scores, like birdies and bogeys. I even started to calculate some averages and compare them to previous years. That’s when things got a bit more interesting.
In the end, I didn’t really come up with any groundbreaking insights. But I did learn a lot about working with data, and I had a pretty good time doing it. Plus, I now have a newfound appreciation for pars. They might not be the flashiest part of the game, but they’re definitely important.
It just goes to show that sometimes the most interesting things come from the most unexpected places. And sometimes, you just have to dig a little deeper to find what you’re looking for. You know, it wasn’t easy, but hey, that’s life, right?
