“It's Not How You Drive, it's How You Arrive”: The Myth

Abstract

Analysis of individual performance statistics for the 1993 and 1994 Professional Golf Association (PGA) tour yielded a significant positive correlation between the rankings of top ten money winners and their total driving skills. This positive relationship, i.e., the higher the money winnings, the better the driving skills tend to be, and its implications were discussed. The correlation between the rankings of money leaders and hitting greens-in-regulation skills was nonsignificant. Each year, those players ranked as the top ten in total driving skills won more money in fewer tournaments than the players ranked as the top ten in greens-in-regulation skills. The results cast doubt on the adage “It's not how you drive, it's how you arrive” and suggest the major contribution of driving skills is to winning money on the PGA tour and corroborate a trend, noted in 1988, toward the increased importance of driving skills.