When a golfer hits the ball at the starting point, the shot is called a drive and the driving distance is the distance that the ball travels. The fairway is the closely mown area that runs from the starting point almost all the way to the hole. The fairway accuracy is the percentage of drives in which the ball comes to rest on the fairway (not on longer grass, sand traps, and ponds). The mean driving distances and the fairway accuracies for Professional Golf Association (PGA) male players are compared by the scatterplot in Fig. 18. Let d be the mean driving distance (in yards) by a PGA male golf player whose fairway accuracy is p percent.

a. Is the association positive, negative, or neither? Why does that make sense?
b. In part (a), you described the direction of the association. Now describe the other three characteristics of the association.
c. From January 1 to September 14, 2014, David Toms led the PGA in fairway accuracy, with 653 out of 865 drives coming to rest on fairways. Estimate his mean driving distance.
d. It turns out that r = -0.61. For women in the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), r = -0.424. Is the association stronger for men or for women? Give at least one possible reason.

Mean Driving Distance versus Fairway Accuracy 85 80 75 701 65 60 50 45 260 270 280 290 300 310 320 d Mean driving distance (yards)