The Stats Tiger Woods Monitors Religiously

Tiger Five Scorecard: How Tiger Woods monitors his performance

It's clear that everybody has different reasons for playing the game and different things that give them pleasure. I would say, however, it would be pretty close to universal that if you could go out and play a game of golf and score better, it is going to give you a real sense of satisfaction.

This is especially true on the days when you've not been perhaps at your best, but you've managed to think your way around the golf course. The time you actually come off the course knowing that it was a 71 when it perhaps could easily have been a 74 or 75 or whatever the relative scores are to where your game is at currently.

And one thing I wanted to discuss in this whole theme of scoring is the central idea that it is much, much easier to begin to reduce the number of mistakes that you make as opposed to making more birdies.

It's lovely making birdies. It's a great thrill making birdies, but they're not easy to come by, even for players at the highest level of the game. I saw a very interesting statistic the other day that suggested the basic difference between a 90 shooter and a scratch player in terms of birdies is only two per round, which is a staggering statistic that literally blew my mind.

Essentially, what it is saying is that a good player makes a lot fewer mistakes and a lot fewer high numbers.

And on that point, I want to discuss what is called The Tiger Five.

These were the five statistics that Tiger Woods kept religiously. I presume he still does, but certainly, he did when he was completely dominating the game in the early to mid two thousand when he was way, way ahead as world number one.

Tiger Five Stats

1) How many bogies he had on par fives.

2) How many three-puts he made.

3) How many double bogies he made.

4) How many blown easy par saves from just around the green?

5) How many bogies he made from inside 150 yards.

Now have a look at those statistics.

When I first saw it, it appeared really quite negative for me as a view, but the more I've studied it, the more I've looked at it, what Tiger was keenly aware of was that his success was going to be down to actually reducing the number of mistakes that he made.

In particular. The first one is really important, I think, for top-class players, low-handicap golfers, and professionals.

How many times do they come unstuck on par fives because the thought comes in that I should make a birdie when the truth is you never get hurt by a par on a par five? But if you stand on the tee convinced that you're going to make a four and you walk off with a six or seven, that can really affect the momentum of its own.

So I would suggest, in terms of scoring, you may want to keep your own version of the Tiger Five.

Within the Mind Caddie app, we have provided a scorecard for you to fill in at the end of each round on these exact statistics. From here, you can see your Tiger Five Score and also see a breakdown in a chart, so you know actually where your biggest mistakes are coming from.

If you can take anything away from this article, let it be this. To score better, you need to reduce your mistakes, not make more birdies.