Statistics of British Open winners after the 2nd round

We are now in the second round at the British Open and players are scrambling to make the cut.  An analysis the the scores of the previous winner since 1980 provides some interesting results and trends.  Here are some of the trends that I have noticed.

The average combined score is 137 and the median is 138 but this represents only 10 winners out of 30.  But from the graph below you can see a wide range of scores.

Similarly the average score for the second round for the eventual winner is 68 but the spread is quite large.

More interesting though is the graph showing the number of eventual winners and how far they led or behind the leaders they were.  Again there is a fairly large spread but 19 winners either lead by a shot or were within 3 shots of the lead.  Not a great correlation but something to note.

My conclusions from this analysis is that there is no real strong correlations here.  Players are scrambling to make the cut which can lead to variable scoring.  However it does appear that players that are leading by more than 2 shots have trouble holding on to the lead while trailing by more than 4 is too much of a deficit to overcome.  But as we all know exceptions do happen!

Revision of players that I predicted would win the British Open after round 1

OK so the first round of the British Open (or The Open) is in the books.  Lots of surprised for sure and I am sure of lot of people's picks may have not fared so well.  Golf is a difficult sport to predict.  Now I happen to be in the camp of picks who may already be out of it after the first round.  I stuck my neck out and picked Hunter Mahan who had a disastrous round and is currently at 5 over, 10 behind the leader.  My previous post mentioned some statistics of the first round scores of winners in the last 30 years.

The amazing thing is that of my list of 20 that I picked to win only Hunter Mahan (who I narrowed down to my final winner) is the only one that is not within 7 shots!!!! (I believe this to be the magic number that the winner must be within the leader after 1st round).

Here is the post with my original list of 20:
http://lostroadworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/narrowed-my-list-of-british-open.html

So I already lost out with Mahan so I decided to revise my 20 and pick a new winner based on the new stats after the first round.  The most notable stat is that the final winner usually is behind the leader by 2-4 shots after the first round (this would make a score of between 3 to 1 under).  So my new list.

Darren Clarke, Northern Ireland (my pick for best chance for British win)
Graeme McDowell, Northern Ireland
Martin Kaymer, Germany (my pick to be in the hunt)
Ian Poulter, England
Adam Scott, Australia (who I wanted to win)
Bubba Watson, USA (my pick to be in the hunt)
Robert Rock, England

Of these guys I still have 2 guys I picked to be in the hunt before the tournament : Martin Kaymer and Bubba Watson (also had Adam Scott and Darren Clarke in my last 8 to win).

My new winner is (if I picked with my head) : Martin Kaymer
If I used my heart : Adam Scott (because he is an Aussie)

NOTE:  I got a lot of comments on twitter that history could be made, just so people know I would love to see history made, this analysis is just an academic exercise and I love sports stats!

Some history to keep in mind after the first round of the British Open

Amazing first round at the British Open, some real surprises (as always) and some disappointments (as always).  Still a long way to go a lot of interesting facts have come to the surface.  Fist of all lets look at an analysis of the winners from the last 30 years and how they played in the first round.

1.  Only Tiger Woods (2005) had the outright lead (1 shot) and one.  Only three other men: John Daly (1995), Greg Norman (1993) and Tom Watson (1980) have had a share of the lead after the first round and won.  This is probably due to the fact that it is extremely difficult to deal with the pressure of leading the British Open from the start.

2.  The average first round score of the eventual winner is 69.

3.  Of the 27 players that trailed after the first round the average number of shots behind is 3 (but from the graph below the median is 2).

4.  No player has shot more than 74 and won (Harrington, 2008; Norman, 1993, 1986).

5.  The lowest first round score by a winner was 65 (Oosthuizen last year).