Strokes Gained Explained

Putts per round has a major flaw

Counting the number of putts per round ignores the one thing that makes a putt hard or easy — how far away the putt was from the hole. Think about it. A three-footer and a forty-footer both go down as one putt. Two-putt from six feet or from sixty feet, and your score card can't tell them apart. Another example would be if you miss a green, chip it to a foot, tap in — your putt per round stats improve and it looks like you are putting great, when really your chipping saved you. Strokes Gained asks a better question — not how many putts you took, but how many putts were expected from that distance

Every distance has an expected score

Every distance has an average number of putts a tour pro takes to hole out. That average is the expected putts, and it is what every putt gets measured against. Professor Mark Broadie from Columbia University calculated the expected putts from over 500,000 putts of PGA Tour data.

Here are six examples of expected putts.

Expected-putts values from Mark Broadie, "Putts Gained: Measuring Putting on the PGA TOUR" (2011), Figure 1.

Strokes Gained calculation

Once you have the expected putts for a distance, to then calculate strokes gained is simple. Take the tour's expected number, subtract the putts you actually took, and the difference is what you gained or lost against the field on that hole. Expected putts − Actual putts = Strokes gained.

Three more examples

Holing a putt from 3 ft is just a gain of +0.05. Miss a 3 ft putt and you drop −0.95, nearly a full shot. From 8 ft it is an even swing, half a shot either way. From 33 ft two putts is exactly par for the course, and holing a 33 ft putt is a full shot to the good.

What's a good score?

The Strokes Gained score is calculated against the PGA Tour average, so a score of 0 is very respectable. In our opinion it is possible to develop a tour standard putting stroke and consistently gain strokes.

For a bit of perspective: the very best putters on Tour gain only about +0.8 strokes a round on the field — Luke Donald led the way in 2010. The whole gap between an elite Tour putter and an average one is under two strokes a round. That's how fine the margins are up there, and how much every putt is worth.

Track your stats on the course and in training

Get your Strokes Gained score every single time you play and every time you practise, and you stop guessing about your putting altogether. One round is a snapshot; a handful of rounds and sessions logged together is a picture of you as a putter — the kind most amateurs never get to see. The goal is simple: chase that SG score every time you're on the greens, on the course or on the practice green.

Our Strokes Gained tools do the maths for you — enter each putt's distance and actual putts, and you get your gain or loss for the round or the training session. But the part that really moves the needle is the miss tagging. When you miss, you tag why — pushed it, tag Right; pulled it, tag Left. After each round or session you can download a report showing your strokes gained score and miss tendency. This is step one in the Blueprint for Success — data collection during practice and play, to benchmark your game.

Strokes Gained questions