Numbers Don’t Lie, Except When They Do

It’s no secret economists love generating statistics and plugging them into complex formulas to create models of economic behavior. From gross domestic product reports to inflation measures, consumer spending and unemployment to durable goods orders, practitioners of the dismal science have a range of information at their fingertips. Yet they still often miss the mark when it comes to economic forecasting.

With the holiday season in the rearview mirror and the new year upon us, it’s time for predictions, prognostications and pablum about the state of economy. With a Janus-like ability to look forward and backward at the same time and extrapolate bold insights from a mass of data, the beginning of the year is the perfect opportunity to opine on all things economic. So, with no further ado, we present the 2023-24 Golf Ball Index.

As many may recall, the Index is a statistical model based on a range of recreational variables, including the number of golf balls manufactured annually, rate of golf balls lost or discarded, and relative replacement cost of said golf balls. Given the leisure time nature of the statistics, the Golf Ball Index does not track productivity directly, but extrapolates economic value derived from non-work-related practices as an adjunct of total output.

And just like other annual economic reviews, the beginning of the year offers a brand new set of statistics to manipulate.

The data set for this year’s Golf Ball Index is derived from the total number of lost golf balls recovered on a typical par-4 hole creating a statistically significant sample to construct a workable economic model. The total number of balls recovered in 2023 and 2024 are 223 and 250 respectively.

Assuming an equal number of rounds of golf played in both years, the 11% increase in recovered balls in 2024 compared with the previous year indicates fewer lessons being taken from course professionals and a concomitant rise in golfing confidence. That rise in confidence also translates to a higher level of economic confidence overall factoring in an annual cost-of-golfing increasing from 2023 to 2024.

Getting deeper into the weeds through a month-over-month comparison, only four times did golfers lose more balls in 2023 than they did in 2024. This increase in the monthly ball deficit in 2024 is clearly a sign of more free swinging drives off the tee, consistent with the higher level of confidence golfers felt in the most recent year. This finding also substantiates the emergence of the so-called “vibe economy” in 2024 as those vibes translate to a more open perspective on golfing equipment expenditures.

Of course, all these statistics really show is that on this particular golf course in these particular years, nearly 500 golf balls were lost by golfers. By applying any number of real or imagined formulas to the aggregate numbers, we can make some obvious observations – more balls were lost in 2024 than 2023 – along with some dubious conclusions – that this means anything at all.

And that is why even though numbers don’t lie, they also don’t always tell the truth. Or at least they don’t always tell a truth that has any deeper meaning than 2+2=4.