I did some interesting stat research on myself using every round I’ve logged as a PDGA member since ’04.  My hypothesis is that I start every year very poorly and get better as the year goes on.  So I tried to just find out what my average round rating was per month since ’04.

January: 0 tournament rounds
February: 930 average rating over 7 rounds
March: 949 avg in 17 rounds
April: 944 avg in 25 rounds
May: 930 avg in 21 rounds
June: 960 avg in 33 rounds
July: 940 avg in 20 rounds
August: 955 avg in 19 rounds
September: 945 in 47 rounds
October: 945 in 8 rounds
November: 0 tourney rounds
December: 0 tourney rounds

But the problem is – aside from telling me that I seem to play an awful lot of tournament rounds in September, these numbers tell me very little.  Because it’s combining all years, including 2004 where my rating was 892 and 2009, where my rating was 971.  For instance, I played more as the year went on in 2004 with my crappy rating, and played very little the last two years with my best rating.  Also, I only played in Feb following years where I ended with a strong rating.  Essentially, the data is inaccurate and kinda haphazard.  So what I did was I went through each round and compared it to my rating at the time.  To see if I threw above or below my rating for that time period.  And just then, a distinct pattern came into view.

January: 0 rounds
February: I average 23 points LOWER (-23) than my rating PER ROUND
March: -7 points avg per round
April: 0 points
May: -9 points
June: +19 points
July: +2 points
August: 19 points
September: +8 points
October: +6 points

With April and July being minor aberrations, it’s a distinct parabola.  Not only do I play much better after having thrown (and ostensibly practiced) for a few months, but I also appear to favor warm weather.  Maybe I should try to play as much non-sanctioned golf in January and February as possible so I can be warm and ready for April.  Just a thought.

Also, I think this shows that I’m a stat nerd with too much free time.