A recent study suggests that even before Tiger Woods tees it up at a tournament, he has a one stroke edge over the rest of the field. Jennifer Brown, a UC Berkeley Grad Student, wrote a paper entitled, "Quitters Never Win: The (Adverse) Incentive Effects of Competing with Superstars." The paper was published in November, 2007, and Tom Rinaldi of ESPN conducted a story on the topic last Thursday.
Brown studied over 20,000 rounds of golf on the PGA Tour from 2002-06, and discovered that players are shooting on average one stroke higher when he is in a tournament. Dr. Bob Rotella, a sports psychologist, said in the piece:
It's possible that guys are trying too hard to win or they're paying too much attention to Tiger.
But Brown's study suggests that players might not be trying as hard when Tiger's in the field. Brown said:
Intuitively, a player might say to himself, why should I exert costly effort in this contest that I will almost surely lose?
