Pádraig Harrington: I’m putting himself under too much pressure

There was once a time when the only numbers a professional golfer on tour needed to crunch were the zeros on his prize money cheques. The rest was down to instinct and talent.

That is certainly still the case for Pádraig Harrington and many others but for an increasing number of today’s PGA Tour elite, the ‘Moneyball’ strategy that transformed baseball from a simple contest between bat and ball into a behind the scenes battle of statistical forward planning, is becoming increasingly important.

Michael Lewis’s bestselling 2004 book ‘Moneyball’ and the subsequent movie told the story of how Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane transformed his club from perennial losers into the 2002 American League West pennant winners.