PGA Tour Par 4 Performance

Reader Ken emailed a list detailing the number of players finishing a PGA Tour season under par on par-4s. You can view the 2008 list here, where John Huston was the only player in 2008 to finish in red numbers for the season.

I've left Ken's notes in about major equipment advances as they might relate to performance. I'd love to hear what everyone thinks of the surprising trend in recent years. Naturally, I'd look to stifling course setup ploys as the number one culprit, but if I'm not mistaken Ken is implying that performance has been impacted by technology. He also notes that Tiger was -8 on par 4s this year in his 8 events. And note that in 2000 Tiger was -71 on par-4s, and Steve Flesch was second at -70!

1983 - 1 - TM Tour Burner introduced

1984 - 1

1985 - 4

1986 - 2

1987 - 11 - Non-wound ball wins first major (Tour Edition)

1988 - 22 –first time metal drivers outnumber wood

1989 – 7 - Callaway introduces S2H2 metalwoods

1990 - 5

1991 - 12 - Big Bertha introduced

1992 - 18 - Titleist Professional introduced

1993 - 14

1994- 15

1995 – 13 - Great Big Bertha introduced

1996 – 8 - multilayer balls and urethane cover introduced

1997 – 4 - Biggest Big Bertha introduced

1998 - 6

1999 - 8

2000 – 27 - Pro V1 introduced, Tiger switches to Nike ball

2001 – 37 - Pro V1 takes tours by storm

2002 – 17

2003 - 12

2004 - 8

2005 - 7

2006 - 5

2007 - 5

2008 - 1