Question

An old saying in golf is “You drive for show and you putt for dough.” The point is that good putting is more important than long driving for shooting low scores and hence winning money. To see if this is the case, data from a random sample of $69$of the nearly $1000$players on the PGA Tour’s world money list are examined. The average number of putts per hole and the player’s total winnings for the previous season is recorded. A least-squares regression line was fitted to the data. The following results were obtained from statistical software.

The correlation between total winnings and the average number of putts per hole for these players is

(a)$-0.285$

(b)$-0.081$

(c)$0.007$

(d)$0.081$

(e) $0.285$

Short answer

The correlation between total winnings and the average number of putts per hole for these players is option (a) $-0.285.$

Step-by-step solution

Given information

The given data is

Explanation

"$R-Sq$" is the square of the linear correlation coefficient $r$in the output:

$$\begin{gathered} r^2=8.1\% \\ =0.081 \end{gathered}$$

In the output, the slope of the least-squares regression line is provided as $-4139198$. The linear correlation coefficient $r$must be negative because the slope is negative.

The negative square root of$r^2$yields the linear correlation coefficient $r$ :

localid="1650644784650" $$\begin{gathered} r=-\sqrt{r^2} \\ =-\sqrt{0.081} \\ \approx -0.285. \end{gathered}$$