Summing up the Year

This is a post to sum up the results for the year between the Tour Outsider (me) and the Tour Insider (Rob Bolton -- for a 3rd year) for the 2012 season.  Usually I make this post at the end of the US PGA Tour season (i.e. after the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Classic), which was in November.  However, this year I was pre-occupied with finishing up my doctoral studies in November and December at the University of Louisville, while also teaching two courses (at Western Michigan University).  Therefore, I didn't get around to posting the end of year results until now, the last day of 2012.

Unlike the previous two years when Bolton was the Tour Insider, I was able to one-up him in 2012.  He had beaten me handsomely the previous two years, while graciously and unknowingly playing the Tour Insider role in my competition between the Tour Outsider and the Tour Insider.

Prior to having Bolton as the Tour Insider, I had not lost to the Tour Insider (the first 3 years of the competition).  In 2010, I lost to Bolton -- 19-21-4 (TO, TI, Draws), which was a close race.  In 2011, I lost in a big fashion to Bolton -- 12-30-3 (TO, TI, Draws).  However, in 2012, I came out ahead of Bolton for the first time -- 23-18-5 (TO, TI, Draws).

In analyzing the results this year, I have put together a summary of some of the results.  As with last year, when looking at our combined picks, we did rather well.  So if you used both of our picks, things turn out well for you.

In the 46 tournaments that we made picks, we had some winners, along with a good number of top 5s, top 10s, and top 25s.  Below is a summary of the aggregate figures for the 2012 season.

	TO	TI
Number of Tournaments	46	46
Number of Picks	230	230
Total Earnings	$33,755,837	$37,211,216
Average Rank	37.72	34.70
Number of Made Cuts	188	195
% of Made Cuts	82%	85%
Number of Winners	11	12
% of Wnners	24%	26%
Number of Top 5s	47	42
% of Tops 5s	20%	18%
Number of Top 10s	75	73
% of Top 10s	33%	32%
Number of Top 25s	110	120
% of Top 25s	48%	52%

In looking at our numbers this year, Bolton did better than I did in total earnings, average rank, and number of made cuts.  He earned more money than I did (total earnings: $33.8m compared to $37.2), his average rank was less (37.72 compared to 34.70), and his players made more cuts than mine (188 to 195).  He also did better in number of winners (11 to 12).

Since I won the number of tournaments, this means that he did very well in several of the tournaments, but I did better on average for each tournament.  This is supported in the number of top 5s and number of top 10s, where I had better statistics than he did.  In addition, I only had one less winner.  So I didn't lose a lot of in the earnings because of not picking a winner.  This is important since winners earn a lot more than 2nd place finishers in a tournament.

Compared to last year, we both earned more money (although, we are not comparing apples to apples since we had one more tournament to pick from this year compared to last year).  I earned $33.8m (last year $25.3m), and he earned $37.2 (last year $31.8m).  In addition, we both did better in the other  respective categories compared to last year, including in average rank, and number of made cuts (%), number of winners (%), number of top 5s (%), number of top 10s (%), and number of top 25s (%).

Here's to 2013!!!