Fewer Cats = Better Golf Game?!
Pet Cats in United States vs US Golf Rounds Played
As the US cat population grew, golf rounds plummeted. Cats are literally keeping people off the course. Why chase a ball when you can chase a laser pointer?
Why this correlation is stupid
The numbers above are real. Public data on Pet Cats in United States and US Golf Rounds Played happens to move inversely closely enough to produce r ≈ 95% (negative) — a value high enough that, in a less skeptical world, someone would file a Substack post about it. Here, it earns a chart and a chuckle.
Statisticians call this a spurious correlation: two trends that share a shape without sharing a cause. With enough variables tracked over enough years, you can find pairings like this one between almost any two phenomena. Confounding factors, common drivers (population growth, smartphone adoption, the unstoppable march of time), or pure chance can all make graphs hold hands.
Source data is drawn from public datasets. We do not endorse any causal claim — only the comedic one.
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