Okay, here’s my blog post about my LPGA yardages project. Let’s dive in!
Alright, so I got this itch, right? I wanted to really understand the distances these LPGA players are hitting. Not just the averages you see on TV, but like, really understand it. I’m talking about building my own little database of distances. I wanted to dive deep and see what I could find.
Step 1: Gathering the Data (aka The Scrounge)
First, I started scrounging around online. The LPGA website has some stats, but it’s pretty basic. I was looking for something more granular. Ended up piecing together info from a bunch of different places – tournament leaderboards that showed distances, some articles, even a few random forum posts where people were discussing specific players. It was a mess, honestly, a real hodgepodge.
Step 2: Wrangling the Data (Spreadsheet Hell)
Next up was the dreaded spreadsheet. Copied and pasted everything into a giant Google Sheet. It was full of inconsistencies, different units, missing data… you name it. Spent hours cleaning things up, standardizing the units (yards, obviously!), and trying to fill in the gaps where I could reasonably estimate. This part was tedious. Real tedious. I used Excel just to manipulate data easily, but after it was clean enough, I moved it over.
Step 3: Spot Checking (The “Does This Make Sense?” Phase)
Okay, so I had a somewhat cleaned-up dataset. Time for the “sanity check.” I picked a few players I knew well and compared their distances to what I expected. Found a few glaring errors – typos, mostly – and fixed those. Also, tossed out some obvious outliers that were probably just misreported data.
Step 4: Basic Analysis (Finally, Some Fun!)
- Average Driving Distance: Calculated the average driving distance for all the players I had data for. Interesting to see how it stacked up against the official LPGA stats.
- Distance by Club: This was trickier. Had to categorize the data by club type (driver, fairway wood, iron, etc.) and then calculate the averages. Showed me the variance in distances.
- Player Comparisons: This was cool! I could compare individual players and see how their distances differed across different clubs.
Step 5: Visualizations (Making It Pretty-ish)
No one wants to just stare at a spreadsheet. I threw the data into a simple charting tool and made some basic graphs. A few bar charts showing average driving distance, some scatter plots comparing players. Nothing fancy, but it made the data a lot easier to digest.
Step 6: What I Learned
Honestly, I learned a ton. First, how much work it is to gather and clean data! Second, the sheer range of distances on the LPGA tour. Some players are absolute bombers, and others rely more on accuracy and strategy. Third, how important data validation is. You can’t just trust everything you see online. And finally, that even basic analysis can give you some real insights. Now I have a deeper understanding of the distances that can win on the LPGA.
That’s the gist of my LPGA yardages adventure. It was fun, frustrating, and ultimately really rewarding. Maybe I’ll expand it someday. For now, I’m happy with the little database I built.
