Recurrence Analysis of golfers' performances on the PGA TOUR

摘要

In many sports athletes, experts, and supporters believethat ”success breeds success and failure breeds failure”(Bar-Eli et al., 2006, p. 525). In particular, the psychologialconcept of momentum expects an athlete to perform quitewell during a certain period and better than this athlete isexpected to be able to perform. There are several studieswhich investigated the existence of this phenomenon indifferent sports, amongst others, golf which is analyzed inthis study. Golf itself is appropriate to analyze whether’hot hands’ or streaks of performance independent of thequality exist. Golfers are not allowed to interfere theperformance of opponents and each golfer is in control ofhis/her performance. Hence, it is reasonable to think thatfactors such as momentum exist which can lead to streaksof (exceptional) performance.