pga tour strokes gained approach

What Is Strokes Gained In Golf?

You might have heard of the term 'Strokes Gained', but what does it mean? We speak to an expert to find out...

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'Strokes Gained' is fast becoming one of the most used terms in the world of golf . It is seen by many as the most definitive marker of player performance at the professional level, and thanks to the latest partnerships and technology it's even moving into the amateur game. But what exactly is 'Strokes Gained'?

To get a better grasp of the term, we spoke with Sal Syed, CEO and Co-Founder of Arccos , a company which integrates automatic shot tracking, with artificial intelligence, to deliver insights that help players maximise their potential.

What Is Strokes Gained?

The simplest way to define Strokes Gained is a method of analysing each facet of a players game in comparison to the rest of the players in the field or at the same level. You can do this across recent performances, or even compare the best players in each statistical category over the past 20 years !

The main categories where the comparison is drawn are off-the-tee, approach, tee-to-green, around-the-green and putting. There is also a useful measure, titled Strokes Gained: Total, which gives an overall indicator based on the player's full game.

For decades, there wasn't a consistently used metric to measure this data, with ShotLink becoming available on the PGA Tour in 2007. Developed by Professor Mark Broadie at Colombia University, the whole philosophy of 'Strokes Gained' came about because the data was made available to academic institutions from that year. Ever since, term has grown in importance.

Q. In the simplest way possible, from an Arccos perspective, can you explain what Strokes Gained is, please?

S: Sure. Without getting into the technical details I would say it is the right way to analyse your game. So let's say you are shooting 85 and want to shoot 80. The difference of five strokes from where you are to the average 80 is distributed over various aspects of your game and what Strokes Gaines is able to do is tell you where you are losing the most strokes whether that be putting or whatever.

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So, in the simplest form, Strokes Gaines is doing the correct analysis on your game to help you understand where your strengths and weaknesses are. Traditional stats in golf can be misleading, so for example they used to look at fairways hit as a good metric for how good a driver of the ball you are, but you could be driving it 150 yards and hitting every fairway, and you know that's not good.

The number of putts is another. You may be two-putting from five-feet, or two-putting from 50 feet, one you are annoyed about, the other you are happy about. So Strokes Gained doesn't look at number of putts, it takes into account how far away did you two-putt from, so it is doing the right analysis for you to understand and breakdown your game.

Let me give you a simple example of an eight foot putt. The average PGA Tour pro makes 50% of their putts from eight feet. So then their expected number of putts from eight feet is 1.5 putts. And so, if you make one putt you gain 0.5 strokes but if you miss it you lost that half a stroke. So for each shot we are assessing how many strokes you are gaining or losing versus the benchmark.

And we at Arccos are able to quantify, aggregate and present that information in a very easy to understand way because in the end it just comes down down to how many strokes did you lose in an aspect of the game.

Q. What are some of the aspects that are more important, or what does Strokes Gained tell us about some misconceptions about the game?

S: Probably the number one misconception is that old saying 'driving for show, putt for dough'. Driving is really important.

If you are a good driver of the golf ball it positions you well and you gain a lot of strokes, and the golf world is certainly realising that. But at the same time, the accuracy is important because if you hit a bad drive and hit a recovery shot, you are losing strokes there because of your drive. If you are punching back out, that's half a shot penalty, so it is not all about distance.

As I mentioned earlier the number of putts is a misconception because it makes people think there putting may need work whereas actually it is approach game or around the green aspects that need practice. Really, the number of putts doesn't tell you literally anything.

Q. How does Strokes Gained account for different courses, because some are obviously harder than others?

S: Well for Arccos, it has so many rounds of shots taken that our algorithms are targeted and take difficulty into account. We also account for different flag positions because holes can play drastically differently dependent on the flag so it is all in the data. So when we develop our Strokes Gained models, we take that into account.

Ideally, in the future for Arccos, I want to take things like rough height, green speeds, weather conditions, wind, wind direction too because those things do have an impact.

Q. Looking to amateur golf, because Arccos has access to so much data, what would you say is the most common area where people lose strokes? 

S: So the reality is everybody is different. Arccos breaks it down into driving, approach, short game and putting, and I would honestly say it is evenly spread.

The other thing that is interesting is your golf game is not static. You are getting older, you are experimenting, you may have lessons and so on. So your game is constantly fluctuating and that is true for PGA Tour players as well as beginners.

Q. When it comes to analysing Strokes Gained, because it can be quite complicated, what tips do you have for people to actually understand that data and implement into their game?

S: Sure, well it is very simple to implement because with Arccos, when players look at their last five rounds and see where the weaknesses are, that gives players the ability to go and work on something, to put extra effort into that facet.

And we have seen that when people understand weaknesses, they improve at that aspect the fastest because they put more practice in. What we are able to point out are the three things that require your attention and work on them. Even when you take lessons, share that with your instructor so they have a clearer idea of how you play on the course.

Q. How can Arccos make things easier for coaching, but also maybe a buying decision?

S: Yeah there is no doubt. In my case, if I am trying two putters and deciding which one is better, I have three rounds with one and three with the other and that provides a lot of data to show which I perform better with.

So I think in the future, when it comes to a lesson, or a purchase you are making, it has to be tied to 'is this helping me play better golf? is this helping me to improve?'

And I think this is how golfing decisions will be made in the future, and that's how decisions are made on the PGA Tour right now.

Key Strokes Gained Terms

Strokes Gained: Off-The-Tee

The measure of a player's performance with their tee shots on all par-4 and par-5 holes.

Strokes Gained: Tee-To-Green

The measure of all shots taken by a player from the tee box to the green.

Strokes Gained: Approach

The measure of performance on all approach shots. Approach shots are categorised as any shot not hit from the tee on par-4 and par-5 holes, and any tee shots on par-3s. This also doesn't include any shots on or around the green.

Strokes Gained: Around-The-Green

The measure of player performance with any shot up to 30 yards from the edge of the green, excluding any shots taken on the putting surface.

Strokes Gained: Putting

The measure of strokes gained or lost on the green, based on length of putts and likely make percentage.

Barry Plummer is our Staff Writer, joining in January 2024 after seven years as a PE Teacher. He now writes about instruction, working closely with Golf Monthly's Top 50 Coaches to provide hints and tips about all aspects of the game. As someone who came into golf at a later age, Barry is very passionate about supporting the growth of the game and creating opportunities for everyone to access it. A member at Sand Moor Golf Club in Leeds, he looks forward to getting out on the course at least once a week and making up for lost time in the pursuit of a respectable handicap.

Barry is currently playing:

Driver: Ping G425

Hybrid: TaylorMade Stealth 4 Hybrid

Irons: Mizuno JPX 921 4-PW

Wedges: TaylorMade RAC 60, Callaway Jaws MD5 54

Putter: TaylorMade Spider Tour

World No.1 Scottie Scheffler missed a putt at the last chasing three PGA Tour victories in a row as Stephan Jaeger triumphed

By James Nursey Last updated 31 March 24

The former Ryder Cup captain was speaking to Irish radio about how soon he believes men's pro golf will come together again

By Jonny Leighfield Published 31 March 24

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Opinion & Analysis

The tour’s new strokes gained stats: what do they mean and how can you use them.

What is Strokes Gained anyway?

Don’t feel stupid if you have to ask this question. I deal with many people who make their living in the golf business and do not really understand this concept – and forget about the TV commentators. Simply stated, Strokes Gained is the best thing to happen to golf analysis since the game was invented. It renders the one-dimensional, traditional golf statistics virtually obsolete as it provides an accurate assessment of every player’s relative skill in each of the four categories of the game.

Strokes Gained evaluates each shot by comparing it to a standard derived from a computer model of performance. The starting position of the shot and its distance from the hole have a value as do the end position and distance. The values are based upon statistical analysis of all of the PGA Tour rounds since the advent of Shotlink data in 2004. The values for every possible distance and position represent the average # of strokes to hole out from each position.

Here’s how the Strokes Gained (or Lost) are calculated:

• Start value – (End value + # strokes need to get there)

Here’s a quick example:

• Start: 8-foot putt opportunity. End: Holed (1-putt)
• Start value: 1.50 – (End value: 0.0 – 1.0 to get there) = .5 Strokes Gained
• The player gained/saved half a shot. A 2-Putt would have lost half a shot

A bit more background

The PGA Tour launched Strokes Gained Putting in 2011. A second feature, Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green, was added in 2014. This was applauded by most as the long game “analysis,” when in fact it was simply everything else but putting, no analysis at all. If a player enjoyed Strokes Gained Putting of +1.00 but scored at exactly the level of the field, his Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green would be -1.00, simple subtraction.

The new stats and what they mean

In late May 2016, the Tour added three new Strokes Gained (SG) analysis pieces:

• SG Off-the-Tee : Considers all drives on par-4 and par-5 holes. Say goodbye to the most useless stat in golf:  Fairways Hit . This new off-the-tee stat includes not only fairways hit or missed and the relative distances accomplished, but more importantly, the relative severity of the misses, or what I refer to as driving errors. Including these misses is critical. I have analyzed more than a few events in which the top-5 finishers hit fewer fairways than the field, but their overall driving was heads and shoulders better. Clearly, a new performance yardstick was sorely needed.
• SG Approach-the-Green : Considers any approach shot that starts more than 30 yards from the edge of the green. This number also reflects distance and accuracy of the good shots as well as the misses.
• SG Around-the-Green : Considers all shots starting from within 30 yards of the edge of the green, the Tour’s measure of the short game. It includes all positions: fairway, rough, and sand. This stat is driven by proximity to the hole of the shots (how close they are hit), but also includes the not-so-rare mistakes, or shots that miss the green. Unfortunately, these often costly missed short game shots have never counted or been visible in any of the 653 stats that the Tour publishes. At least now they are being counted.

Add the SG Putting stat to these three and we now have the entire Strokes Gained puzzle. It provides much more clarity into each player’s true strengths and weaknesses, and they all have them!

How can you apply Strokes Gained to your game?

Unfortunately, without a detailed performance model, one cannot implement the system. However, with the growing popularity of Strokes Gained, a number of applications have been introduced. If you Google “Strokes Gained Websites” you will see quite a few options. I, of course, recommend mine,  ShotByShot.com , as I have been doing it longer than anyone and have a better understanding of the process and 250.000+ rounds of comparative “Target data.” This unique database helps players at every level clearly identify the nature of their strengths and weaknesses.

If you are looking for insight into your game where you do not have to buy anything, please see my recent GolfWRX article: How to track some of the most important stats in golf.

The strengths and weaknesses of Bryson DeChambeau’s game

The most ridiculous element of the Dustin Johnson ruling isn’t the ruling

In 1989, Peter Sanders founded Golf Research Associates, LP, creating what is now referred to as Strokes Gained Analysis. His goal was to design and market a new standard of statistically based performance analysis programs using proprietary computer models. A departure from “traditional stats,” the program provided analysis with answers, supported by comparative data. In 2006, the company’s website, ShotByShot.com, was launched. It provides interactive, Strokes Gained analysis for individual golfers and more than 150 instructors and coaches that use the program to build and monitor their player groups. Peter has written, or contributed to, more than 60 articles in major golf publications including Golf Digest, Golf Magazine and Golf for Women. From 2007 through 2013, Peter was an exclusive contributor and Professional Advisor to Golf Digest and GolfDigest.com. Peter also works with PGA Tour players and their coaches to interpret the often confusing ShotLink data. Zach Johnson has been a client for nearly five years. More recently, Peter has teamed up with Smylie Kaufman’s swing coach, Tony Ruggiero, to help guide Smylie’s fast-rising career.

19 Comments

Scott Carlson

Jun 30, 2016 at 8:59 pm

This is great stuff, Peter. This is very similar to metrics used by financial professionals/analysts to compare the performance of securities to others within the same industry. Peer analysis allows the investor to gain an understanding into the unique competitive advantages a company has against its competitors. Now, this may be one individual financial or operational category that far exceeds peer performance (e.g. return on equity) or a comprehensive set of metrics that provide consistent outperformance (e.g. market share growth to earnings growth to debt/equity ratio). Also, in a similar fashioin, MLB scouts have used sabermetrics with great success to determine WAR (wins above replacement) to get more useful and objective performance measures of prospects and current players.

To the other commenters that seem to have a very basic understanding of mathematics…you don’t buy a company’s stock because you like a their products or they have lots of revenue, rather, you buy their stock because they show a consistent and unique competitive advantage over time relative to their peers. This is the same situation…relative performance analysis!

I work in junior golf (AJGA) and getting this information to college golf coaches would be HUGE in helping them with their perpetually tightening recruiting budgets…all the way from large D1 programs down to NAIA schools. I understand the tracking will be a significant barrier, but ShotByShot may help (post-round). Offering this analysis to our 6,500+ members would be an enormous benefit in helping them improve their games and/or earn that prized scholarship.

Another thing that would be cool is to perform a regression analysis to the existing Tour data to determine correlation patterns/trends to the basic stats (like SG Off the Tee to Total Driving and Fairway Hit %) and then apply those patterns/trends to historical data over time to see how a player fares to some of golf’s greatest legends. Surely the basic data exists back to the early to mid 20th century!

Awesome work!!!

Jul 5, 2016 at 3:29 pm

Scott, Thanks for your very supportive comment. As to our SG analysis being of help to AJGA and/or college golf programs, most of our 150+ coaches that use our program with their players have active junior programs. Juniors have become such a large part of our business that we added 9-hole data entry and analysis early this year. In addition, we work with several college teams but could always like to see the word get out to more. If you have any ideas on how we might collaborate, please contact me at [email protected] .

Patricknorm

Jun 22, 2016 at 3:02 pm

I like when logic gives you data. In this case the numbers don’t lie. For a pro though it’s abundantly clear that your ability to outdrive everyone, hit a shorter iron into the green ( which should be more accurate) and then have shorter putts, you should shoot lower scores. Tiger Woods, at his peak was a superb driver of the ball, a better iron player, which meant he holed more putts. The same went for Jack Nicklaus. Last weekend Dustin Johnson was fantastic off the tee, excellent on his irons, and a good enough putter to stay in contention and eventually win. In today’s game a consistent 330 drive is necessary to get the ball rolling ( metaphorically) in golf. If your relatively accurate it compensates the player by letting him a shorter iron out of the rough towards the green. Good article. Instinctively I know when my approach shots can’t be chipped in off the green I’m really scrambling for par. And conversely if I’m 50 feet from the pin on the green, it’s no guarantee I’ll make par. Nice to be able to quantify this data.

Jun 23, 2016 at 10:37 am

Thanks Patricknorm!

Captain Wedge

Jun 22, 2016 at 2:35 pm

In general yeah, you know what parts of your game are weak. But do you know “how many strokes” that part of your game is costing you? Doubt it…

Jun 22, 2016 at 1:33 pm

All comments here, other than the unsupported “useless endeavor” opinion, point to ‘strokes gained’ as a very useful endeavor. I’m down!

Jun 22, 2016 at 3:06 pm

Your comments show how little you know. It’s measured against other non-professionals based on how many rounds they have statistical data for.

Jun 23, 2016 at 10:42 am

ShotByShot.com measures your Strokes Gained against the averages from the thousands of rounds posted by those in your “Target” Handicap group. Briefly, if a player is a 20 handicap, it does not good to be compared to a 5 handicap or the PGA Tour. We have target ranges from +6 to +4 all the way up to 25 to 29 handicaps.

Jun 21, 2016 at 10:28 pm

All said and done, the approach shot or should I say, the quality of the approach shot (distance from the pin) is the most important shot in the game. Most of the rest of the stats are relatively meaningless for us amateurs

Jun 22, 2016 at 2:32 pm

I don’t think they are meaningless. I used to track all my one-dimensional stats (Fairways, GIRs, and Putts). Now those are meaningless bc at the end of the day they told me nothing about my final score as there were no trends to them. Strokes Gained actually pinpoints where your game was strong vs. where it cost you strokes. I’d like to see these stats on my own game. My only issue is having to track and document EVERY shot. Not really something I want to do when I want to relax and play a round of golf. Maybe I’ll try it on a few rounds here and there.

Jun 23, 2016 at 10:50 am

Captain Wedge, thanks for your support. I have purposely streamlined the data requirements of ShotByShot.com because I too did not want a lot of work when I was enjoying a round or competing. Try it, you will see it is extremely easy once you understand the system and the apps make it even easier.

Jun 23, 2016 at 10:47 am

Not so mikee! I have found that from Tour players up to 20+ handicaps, we are all snowflakes and find our unique way to shoot our number. While there may be trends and certain parts of the game occupy a larger piece of the pie, everyone has distinct Strengths and Weaknesses. The challenge is to discover what and why they are so that they can be properly addressed.

Jun 21, 2016 at 1:24 pm

Easy to understand. But ultimately a useless endeavor. Hey, I putted badly today I better practice, serves the same purpose.

Jun 21, 2016 at 2:06 pm

But how do you know when you putted badly? # of putts? Strokes Gained is accurate. If relying on # of putts, one should also balance their checkbook based upon the # of checks written without regard to the $ amounts.

Jun 21, 2016 at 4:35 pm

To build on your point, ‘I putted badly’ is a complete subjective. I might say I’ve putted badly, but if in fact I putted to my average, then practicing my putting is pointless, because it was probably my irons that let me down

Jun 21, 2016 at 8:01 pm

To argue against your point – If you think you “putted badly” but actually putted to your average, your average probably isn’t very good… In that case, putting practice is still very necessary…

Jun 21, 2016 at 9:34 pm

You may think you putted ‘badly’ based on number of putts, but actually putted from a greater distance due to decreased accuracy of iron shots. A larger improvement may be gained from practicing iron accuracy, thus leaving shorter putts.

Jun 22, 2016 at 4:37 pm

Yeah. I vaguely remember some story about Tiger early in his career complaining to Butch about his putting woes at the time. Tiger started toward to the practice green but Butch stopped him and handed him an iron. “Putting’s not your problem, your approach shots are.” (Or something to that effect)

Jun 23, 2016 at 10:58 am

My golf professional used my original program years ago while trying to qualify for the senior tour. He completed my scorecards for all rounds and mailed them to me. When he came home we met to go thru his analysis. I started by asking for his assessment of his Strengths and weaknesses. He said: “I hit the ball as well as anyone out there and my short game is strong but I am a terrible putter.” I then shared my Strokes Lost/Saved (Strokes Gained) analysis that showed that he was actually a very good putter but while he was a long driver, he made too many driving errors, missed too many GIR’s and put too much pressure on his short game and putting. The game is a roller coaster. Without a way of routinely recording performance, it is very difficult to know where one may need the most work.

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Vincenzi’s 2024 valspar championship betting preview: elite ballstrikers to thrive at copperhead.

The PGA TOUR will stay in Florida this week for the 2024 Valspar Championship.

The Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort is a par 71 measuring 7,340 yards and features Bermudagrass greens overseeded with POA. Infamous for its difficulty, the track will be a tough test for golfers as trouble lurks all over the place. Holes 16, 17 and 18 — also known as the “Snake Pit” — make up one of the toughest three-hole stretches in golf and should lead to a captivating finish on Sunday.

The field is comprised of 156 golfers teeing it up. The field this week is solid and is a major improvement over last year’s field that felt the impact of players skipping due to a handful of “signature events” in a short span of time. 

Past Winners at Valspar Championship

• 2023: Taylor Moore (-10)
• 2022: Sam Burns (-17)
• 2021: Sam Burns (-17)
• 2019: Paul Casey (-8)
• 2018: Paul Casey (-10)
• 2017: Adam Hadwin (-14)
• 2016: Charl Schwartzel (-7)
• 2015: Jordan Spieth (-10)

In this article and going forward, I’ll be using the  Rabbit Hole  by  Betsperts Golf  data engine to develop my custom model. If you want to build your own model or check out all of the detailed stats, you can sign up using promo code: MATTVIN for 25% off any subscription package (yearly is best value). 

Key Stats For Copperhead

1. strokes gained: approach.

Strokes Gained: Approach grades out as the most important statistic once again this week. Copperhead really can’t be overpowered and is a second-shot golf course.

Total SG: Approach Over Past 24 Rounds (per round)

• Tony Finau  (+.90)
• Nick Taylor  (+.81)
• Justin Thomas  (+.77)
• Greyson Sigg  (+.69)
• Christiaan Bezuidenhout (+.67)

2. Good Drive %

The long hitters can be a bit limited here due to the tree-lined fairways and penal rough. Playing from the fairways will be important, but laying back too far will cause some difficult approaches with firm greens that may not hold shots from long irons.

Golfers who have a good balance of distance and accuracy have the best chance this week.

Good Drive % Over Past 24 Rounds

• Brice Garnett  (+91.3%) 
• Zach Johnson  (+91.1%)
• Sam Ryder  (+90.5%)
• Ryan Moore  (+90.4%)
• Aaron Rai (+89.7%)

3. Strokes Gained: Ball Striking

Adding ball-striking puts even more of a premium on tee-to-green prowess in the statistical model this week. Golfers who rank highly in ball-striking are in total control of the golf ball which is exceedingly important at Copperhead.

SG: Ball Striking Over Past 24 Rounds:

• Xander Schauffele  (+1.32)
• Keith Mitchell  (+1.29)
• Tony Finau  (+1.24)
• Cameron Young (+1.17) 
• Doug Ghim  (+.95)

4. Bogey Avoidance

With the conditions likely to be difficult, avoiding bogeys will be crucial this week. In a challenging event like the Valspar, oftentimes the golfer who is best at avoiding mistakes ends up on top.

Gritty golfers who can grind out difficult pars have a much better chance in an event like this than a low-scoring birdie-fest.

Bogey Avoidance Over Past 24 Rounds

• Brice Garnett  (+9.0)
• Xander Schauffele  (+9.3)
• Austin Cook  (+9.7) 
• Chesson Hadley  (+10.0)
• Greyson Sigg  (+10.2)

5. Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions

Conditions will be tough this week at Copperhead. I am looking for golfers who can rise to the occasion if the course plays as difficult as it has in the past.

Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions Over Past 24 rounds

• Xander Schauffele  (+1,71) 
• Min Woo Lee  (+1.39)
• Cameron Young  (+1.27)
• Jordan Spieth  (+1.08)
• Justin Suh  (+.94)

6. Course History

That statistic will tell us which players have played well at Copperhead in the past.

Course History Over Past 24 rounds

• Patrick Cantlay  (+3.75) 
• Sam Burns  (+2.49)
• Davis Riley  (+2.33)
• Matt NeSmith  (+2.22)
• Jordan Spieth  (+2.04)

The Valspar Championship Model Rankings

Below, I’ve compiled overall model rankings using a combination of the five key statistical categories previously discussed — SG: Approach (27%), Good Drive % (15%), SG: BS (20%), Bogeys Avoided (13%), Course History (13%) Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions (12%).

• Xander Schauffele
• Victor Perez
• Greyson Sigg
• Justin Thomas
• Lucas Glover

2024 Valspar Championship Picks

Justin thomas +1400 ( draftkings ).

Justin Thomas will be disappointed with his finish at last week’s PLAYERS Championship, as the past champion missed the cut despite being in some decent form heading into the event. Despite the missed cut, JT hit the ball really well. In his two rounds, the two-time major champion led the field in Strokes Gained: Approach per round.

Thomas has been up and down this season. He’s missed the cut in two “signature events” but also has finishes of T12 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, T12 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, T6 at the Pebble Beach AT&T Pro-Am and T3 at the American Express. In his past 24 rounds, he ranks 3rd in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach and 6th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking in the field.

Thomas loves Copperhead. In his last three tries at the course, he’s finished T13, T3 and T10. Thomas would have loved to get a win at a big event early in the season, but avoidable mistakes and a balky putter have cost him dearly. I believe a trip to a course he loves in a field he should be able to capitalize on is the right recipe for JT to right the ship.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout +6000 ( FanDuel )

Christiaan Bezuidenhout is playing spectacular golf in the 2024 season. He finished 2nd at the American Express, T20 at Pebble Beach and T24 at the Genesis Invitational before finishing T13 at last week’s PLAYERS Championship.

In his past 24 rounds, the South African ranks 3rd in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach and 26th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking. Bezuidenhout managed to work his way around TPC Sawgrass last week with minimal damage. He only made five bogeys in the entire week, which is a great sign heading into a difficult Copperhead this week.

Bezuidenhout is winless in his PGA Tour career, but certainly has the talent to win on Tour. His recent iron play tells me that this week could be a breakthrough for the 35-year-old who has eyes on the President’s Cup.

Doug Ghim +8000 ( FanDuel )

Doug Ghim has finished in the top-16 of his past five starts. Most recently, Ghim finished T16 at The PLAYERS Championship in a loaded field.

In his past 24 rounds, Ghim ranks 8th in Strokes Gained: Approach and 5th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking. In terms of his fit for Copperhead, the 27-year-old ranks 12th in Bogey Avoidance and 7th in Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions, making him a great fit for the course.

Ghim has yet to win on Tour, but at one point he was the top ranked Amateur golfer in the world and played in the 2017 Arnold Palmer Cup and 2017 Walker Cup. He then won the Ben Hogan award for the best male college golfer in 2018. He certainly has the talent, and there are signals aplenty that his talent in ready to take him to the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour.

Sepp Straka +8000 ( BetRivers )

Sepp Straka is a player who’s shown he has the type of game that can translate to a difficult Florida golf course. The former Presidents Cup participant won the 2022 Honda Classic in tough conditions and should thrive with a similar test at Copperhead.

It’s been a slow 2024 for Straka, but his performance last week at the PLAYERS Championship surely provides some optimism. He gained 5.4 strokes on approach as well as 1.88 strokes off the tee. The tee-to-green game Straka showed on a course with plenty of danger demonstrates that he can stay in control of his golf ball this week.

It’s possible that the strong performance last week was an outlier, but I’m willing to bet on a proven winner in a weaker field at a great number.

Victor Perez +12000 ( FanDuel )

Victor Perez is no stranger to success in professional golf. The Frenchman has three DP World Tour wins including a Rolex Series event. He won the 2019 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, as well as the 2023 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, which are some big events.

Perez earned his PGA Tour card this season and enters the week playing some fantastic golf. He finished in a tie for 16th in Florida at the Cognizant Classic and then tied for third in his most recent start at the Puerto Rico Open.

In his past 24 rounds in the field, Perez ranks 11th in Strokes Gained: Approach, 1oth in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking, 6th in Good Drive % and 15th in Bogey Avoidance.

Perez comes in as a perfect fit for Copperhead and offers serious value at triple-digit odds.

Myrtle Beach, Explored: February in South Carolina

As I gain in experience and age, and familiarity breeds neither contempt nor disdain, I understand why people return to a place. A destination like Myrtle Beach offers a sizable supply and diversity of restaurants, entertainment venues, and shops that are predicated on the tenets of the service industry. Greet your customers with a smile and a kind word, and they will find comfort and assurance. Provide them with a memorable experience and they will suggest your place of business to others.

My first tour of Myrtle Beach took place in the mid-1980s, and consisted of one course: Gator Hole. I don’t remember much from that day, and since Gator Hole closed a decade later, I cannot revisit it to recollect what I’d lost. Since then, I’ve come to the Grand Strand a few times, and been fortunate to never place a course more than once. I’ve seen the Strantz courses to the south and dipped my toe in the North Carolina courses of Calabash. I’ve been to many in the middle, including Dunes, Pine Lakes, Grande Dunes among them.

2024 brought a quartet of new courses, including two at the Barefoot Resort. I’d heard about the North Myrtle Beach four-pack of courses that highlight the Barefoot property, including layouts from Pete Dye, Tom Fazio, Davis Love III, and Greg Norman. I had the opportunity to play and shoot the Dye and Fazio tracks, which means that I’ll have to return to see the other two. Sandwiched between them were the TPC-Myrtle Beach course, also from Tom Fazio, and the Pawley’s Plantation trace, by the hand of Jack Nicklaus. I anticipated a bit of the heroic, and bit of the strategic, and plenty of eye candy. None of those architects would ever be considered a minimalist, so there would be plenty of in-play and out-of-play bunkers and mounds to tantalize the senses.

My nephew arrived a few days early, to screen a few more courses. As a result, you the reader will have an extra quarter of mini-reviews, bringing the total of courses in this piece to eight. It was inconceivable that CJR would play four courses that I had never played nor photographed, but that was the case. His words appear at the end of this piece. We hope that you enjoy the tour.

Main Feature: Two Barefoots, a TPC, and Pawley’s Plantation

Barefoot Dye

What Paul “Pete” Dye brought back from his trips to the United Kingdom, hearkened back to what C.B. MacDonal did, some 65 years prior. There is a way of finding bunkers and fairways, and even green sites, that does not require major industrial work. The Dye course at Barefoot Resorts takes you on a journey over the rumpled terrain of distant places. If there’s one element missing, it’s the creased and turbulent fairways, so often found in England and Ireland. The one tenet of playing a Dye course, is to always aim away from temptation, from where your eyes draw you. Find the safe side of the target, and you’ll probably find your ball. It then stands that you will have a shot for your next attempt. Cut the corner, and you might have need to reload. The Barefoot course begins gently, in terms of distance, but challenges with visual deception. After two brief 4s and a 3, the real work begins. The course is exposed enough, to allow the coastal winds to dance along the fairways. Be ready to keep the ball low and take an extra club or two.

TPC-Myrtle Beach

If memory serves, TPCMB is my first trek around a TPC-branded course. It had all the trappings of a tour course, from the welcome, through the clubhouse, to the practice facilities and, of course, the course. TPC-Myrtle Beach is a Tom Fazio design, and if you never visit Augusta National, you’ll now have an idea of what it is like. You play Augusta’s 16th hole twice at TPCMB, and you enjoy it both times. Fazio really likes the pond-left, green-angle-around par three hole, and his two iterations of it are memorable.

You’ll also see those Augusta bunkers, the ones with the manicured edges that drop into a modestly-circular form. What distinguishes these sand pits is the manner in which they rise from the surrounding ground. They are unique in that they don’t resemble the geometric bunkering of a Seth Raynor, nor the organic pits found in origin courses. They are built, make no mistake, and recovery from them is manageable for all levels of bunker wizardry.

Barefoot Fazio

If you have the opportunity to play the two Tom Fazio courses back to back, you’ll notice a marked difference in styling. Let me digress for a moment, then circle back with an explanation. It was written that the NLE World Woods course designed by Fazio, Pine Barrens, was an homage to Pine Valley, the legendary, New Jersey club where Fazio is both a member and the architect on retainer. The Pine Barrens course was plowed under in 2022, so the homage no longer exists. At least, I didn’t think that it existed, until I played his Barefoot Resort course in North Myrtle Beach.

Pine Valley might be described as an aesthetic of scrub and sand. There are mighty, forced carries to travers, along with sempiternal, sandy lairs to avoid. Barefoot Fazio is quite similar. If you’re not faced with a forced carry, you’ll certainly contend with a fairway border or greenside necklace of sand. When you reach the 13th tee, you’ll face a drive into a fairway, and you might see a distant green, with a notable absence: flagstick. The 13th is the icing on the homage cake, a callout of the 8th hole at Pine Valley.  Numero Ocho at the OG has two greens, side by side, and they change the manner in which the hole plays (so they say.) At Barefoot Fazio, the right-side green is a traditional approach, with an unimpeded run of fairway to putting surface. The left-side green (the one that I was fortunate to play) demands a pitch shot over a wasteland. It’s a fitting tribute for the rest of us to play.

Be certain to parrot the starter, Leon’s, advice, and play up a deck of tees. Barefoot Fazio offers five par-three holes, so the fours and fives play that much longer. Remember, too, that you are on vacation. Why not treat yourself to some birdie looks?

Pawley’s Plantation

The Jack Nicklaus course at Pawley’s Plantation emerged from a period of hibernation in 2024. The greens were torn up and their original contours were restored. Work was overseen by Troy Vincent, a member of the Nicklaus Architecture team. In addition, the putting corridors were reseeded with a hardier, dwarf bermuda that has experienced great success, all along the Grand Strand that is Myrtle Beach.

My visit allowed me to see the inward half first, and I understand why the resort wishes to conclude your day on those holes. The front nine of Pawley’s Plantation works its way through familiar, low country trees and wetlands. The back nine begins in similar fashion, then makes its way east, toward the marsh that separates mainland from Pawley’s Island. Recalling the powerful sun of that Wednesday morning, any round beginning on the second nine would face collateral damage from the warming star. Much better to hit holes 11 to close when the sun is higher in the sky.

The marshland holes (12 through 17) are spectacular in their raw, unprotected nature. The winds off the Atlantic are unrelenting and unforgiving, and the twin, par-three holes will remain in your memory banks for time’s march. In typical Golden Bear fashion, a majority of his putting targets are smallish in nature, reflecting his appreciation for accurate approach shots. Be sure to find the forgiving side of each green, and err to that portion. You’ll be grateful.

Bonus Coverage: Myrtlewood, Beechwood, Arrowhead, and King’s North

Arrowhead (Raymond Floyd and Tom Jackson)

A course built in the middle of a community, water threatens on most every hole. The Cypress 9 provides a few holes forcing a carried drive then challenge you with water surrounding the green. On Waterway, a drivable 2nd hole will tempt most, so make sure the group ahead has cleared the green.

Myrtlewood ( Edmund Alt and Arthur Hills) and  Beechwood (Gene Hamm)

A middle of the winter New Englander’s paradise. Wide open fairways, zero blind shots and light rough allow for shaking off the rust and plenty of forgiveness. A plethora of dog legs cause one to be cautious with every tee shot. Won’t break the bank nor the scorecard.

King’s North @ Myrtle Beach National (Arnold Palmer)

Vincenzi’s 2024 Players Championship betting preview: Pete Dye specialists ready to pass tough TPC Sawgrass test

The PGA Tour heads to TPC Sawgrass to play in one of the most prestigious and important events of the season: THE PLAYERS Championship. Often referred to as the fifth major, the importance of a PLAYERS victory to the legacy of a golfer can’t be overlooked.

TPC Sawgrass is a par-72 measuring 7,245 yards and featuring Bermudagrass greens. Golfers must be patient in attacking this Pete Dye course.

With trouble lurking at every turn, the strokes can add up quickly. With a par-5 16th that is a true risk-reward hole and the famous par-3 17th island green, the only safe bet at TPC Sawgrass is a bet on an exciting finish.

THE PLAYERS Championship field is often referred to as the strongest field of the year — and with good reason. There are 144 in the field, including 43 of the world’s top 50 players in the OWGR. Tiger Woods will not be playing in the event.

THE PLAYERS is an exceptionally volatile event that has never seen a back-to-back winner.

Past Winners at TPC Sawgrass

• 2023: Scottie Scheffler (-17)
• 2022: Cameron Smith (-13)
• 2021: Justin Thomas (-14)
• 2019: Rory McIlroy (-16)
• 2018: Webb Simpson (-18)
• 2017: Si-Woo Kim (-10)
• 2016: Jason Day (-15)
• 2015: Rickie Fowler (-12) In this article and going forward, I’ll be using the  Rabbit Hole  by  Betsperts Golf  data engine to develop my custom model. If you want to build your own model or check out all of the detailed stats, you can sign up using promo code: MATTVIN for 25% off any subscription package (yearly is best value). 

5 Key Stats for TPC Sawgrass

Let’s take a look at five metrics key for TPC Sawgrass to determine which golfers boast top marks in each category over their last 24 rounds.

Strokes Gained: Approach has historically been far and away the most important and predictive stat at THE PLAYERS Championship. With water everywhere, golfers can’t afford to be wild with their iron shots. Not only is it essential to avoid the water, but it will also be as important to go after pins and make birdies because scores can get relatively low.

Total SG: Approach Over Past 24 Rounds

• Tom Hoge  (+1.37) 
• Scottie Scheffler  (+1.20)
• Tony Finau  (+0.99)
• Jake Knapp  (+0.83)
• Shane Lowry  (+0.80)

2. Total Driving

This statistic is perfect for TPC Sawgrass. Historically, driving distance hasn’t been a major factor, but since the date switch to March, it’s a bit more significant. During this time of year, the ball won’t carry quite as far, and the runout is also shorter.

Driving accuracy is also crucial due to all of the trouble golfers can get into off of the tee. Therefore, players who are gaining on the field with Total Driving will put themselves in an ideal spot this week.

Total Driving Over Past 24 Rounds

• Rory McIlroy  (22)
• Akshay Bhatia  (25)
• Keith Mitchell  (25) 
• Adam Hadwin  (34)
• Sam Burns  (+39)

3. Strokes Gained: Total at Pete Dye Designs

TPC Sawgrass may be Pete Dye’s most famous design, and for good reason. The course features Dye’s typical shaved runoff areas and tricky green complexes.  Pete Dye specialists love TPC Sawgrass and should have a major advantage this week.

SG: Total (Pete Dye) per round over past 36 rounds:

• Patrick Cantlay  (+2.02)
• Scottie Scheffler (+1.90)
• Min Woo Lee  (+1.77) 
• Sungjae Im ( +1.72)
• Brian Harman  (+1.62) 

4. Strokes Gained: Ball Striking

Prototypical ball-strikers have dominated TPC Sawgrass. With past winners like Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Webb Simpson, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, it’s evident that golfers must be striking it pure to contend at THE PLAYERS.

SG: Ball Striking Over Past 24 Rounds

• Scottie Scheffler (+2.02)
• Tony Finau (+1.51)
• Tom Hoge  (+1.48)
• Keith Mitchell  (+1.38)
• Will Zalatoris (+1.18)

5. Par 5 Average

Par-5 average is extremely important at TPC Sawgrass. With all four of the Par-5s under 575 yards, and three of them under 540 yards, a good amount of the scoring needs to come from these holes collectively.

Par 5 Average Over Past 24 Rounds

• Scottie Schefler  (+4.31)
• Erik Van Rooyen  (+4.35)
• Doug Ghim  (+4.34)
• Wyndham Clark  (+4.34)
• Matt Fitzpatrick  (+4.31)

6. Strokes Gained: Florida

We’ve used this statistic over the past few weeks, and I’d like to incorporate some players who do well in Florida into this week’s model as well. 

Strokes Gained: Florida over past 30 rounds:

• Scottie Schefler  (+2.43)
• Erik Van Rooyen  (+1.78)
• Doug Ghim  (+1.78)
• Wyndham Clark  (+1.73)
• Matt Fitzpatrick  (+1.69)

7. Strokes Gained: Total on Courses with High Water Danger

With water everywhere at TPC Sawgrass, the blow-up potential is high. It can’t hurt to factor in some players who’ve avoided the “eject” button most often in the past. 

Strokes Gained: Total on Courses with High Water Danger over past 30 rounds:

• Scottie Schefler  (+2.08)
• Rory McIlroy  (+1.82)
• Tony Finau  (+1.62)
• Patrick Cantlay  (+1.51)
• Will Zalatoris  (+1.49)

THE PLAYERS Championship Model Rankings

Below, I’ve compiled overall model rankings using a combination of the five key statistical categories previously discussed — SG: Approach (25%), Total Driving (20%), SG: Total Pete Dye (14%), SG: Ball-striking (15%) SG: Par 5 (8%), SG: Florida (10%) and SG: High Water (8%).

• Scottie Scheffler 
• Shane Lowry 
• Tony Finau 
• Corey Conners
• Keith Mitchell
• Will Zalatoris
• Cameron Young
• Collin Morikawa
• Wyndham Clark

2024 THE PLAYERS Championship Picks

(All odds at the time of writing)

Patrick Cantlay +2500 (DraftKings):

Patrick Cantlay is winless since the 2022 BMW Championship but is undoubtedly one of the most talented players on the PGA Tour. Since the win at Wilmington Country Club, the 31-year-old has twelve top-10 finishes on Tour and is starting to round into form for the 2024 season.

Cantlay has done well in the most recent “signature” events this season, finishing 4th at Riviera for the Genesis Invitational and 12th at Bay Hill for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The former Tour Championship winner resides in Jupiter, Florida and has played some good golf in the state, including finishing in a tie for 4th at the 2023 Arnold Palmer Invitational. His history at TPC Sawgrass has been up and down, but his best career start at The PLAYERS came last year when he finished in a tie for 19th.

Cantlay absolutely loves Pete Dye designed courses and ranks 1st in the field in Strokes Gained: Total on Dye tracks in his past 36 rounds. In recent years, he’s been excellent at both the RBC Heritage and the Travelers Championship. TPC Sawgrass is a place where players will have to be dialed in with their irons and distance off the tee won’t be quite as important. In his past 24, rounds, Cantlay ranks in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach.

Despite being winless in recent years, I still believe Cantlay is capable of winning big tournaments. As one of the only United States players to bring their best game to Marco Simone for the Ryder Cup, I have conviction that the former top amateur in the world can deliver when stakes are high.

Will Zalatoris +3000 (FanDuel):

In order to win at TPC Sawgrass, players will need to be in total control of their golf ball. At the moment, Will Zalatoris is hitting it as well as almost anyone and finally has the putter cooperating with his new switch to the broomstick style.

Zalatoris is coming off back-to-back starts where he absolutely striped the ball. He finished 2nd at the Genesis Invitational and 4th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational where his statistics were eye opening. For the week at Bay Hill, Zal gained 5.0 strokes on approach and 5.44 strokes off the tee.

Throughout the early part of his career, Zalatoris has established himself by playing his best golf in the strongest fields with the most difficult conditions. A tough test will allow him to separate himself this week and breakthrough for a PLAYERS Championship victory.

Shane Lowry +4000 (DraftKings):

History has shown us that players need to be in good form to win the PLAYERS Championship and it’s hard to find anyone not named Scottie Scheffler who’s in better form that Shane Lowry at the moment. He finished T4 at the Cognizant Classic followed by a solo third place finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

The fact that the Irishman contended at Bay Hill is a great sign considering he’s really struggled there throughout his career. He will now head to a different style of course in Florida where he’s had a good deal of success. He finished 8th at TPC Sawgrass in 2021 and 13th in 2022. 

Lowry ranks 6th in the field in approach in his past 24 rounds, 7th in Strokes Gained: Total at Pete Dye designed courses in his last 30 rounds, 8th in par 5 scoring this season, and 4th in Strokes Gained: Total in Florida over his past 36 rounds.

Lowry is a player who’s capable of winning big events. He’s a major champion and won another premier event at Wentworth as well as a WGC at Firestone. He’s also a form player, when he wins it’s typically when he’s contended in recent starts. He’s been terrific thus far in Florida and he should get into contention once again this week.

Brian Harman +8000 (DraftKings):

(Note: Since writing this Harman’s odds have plummeted to 50-1. I would not advise betting the 50).

Brian Harman showed us last season that if the course isn’t extremely long, he has the accuracy both off the tee and with his irons to compete with anyone in the world. Last week at Bay Hill and was third in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach, gaining 5.54 strokes on the field in the category.

In addition to the strong iron play, Harman also gained strokes off the tee in three of four rounds. He’s also had success at Pete Dye tracks recently. He finished 2nd at last year’s Travelers Championship and 7th at the RBC Heritage.

It would be a magnificent feat for Harman to win both the Open Championship and PLAYERS in a short time frame, but the reality is the PGA Tour isn’t quite as strong as it once was. Harman is a player who shows up for the biggest events and his odds seem way too long for his recent track record.

Tony Finau +6500 (FanDuel):

A few weeks ago, at the Genesis Invitational, I bet Hideki Matsuyama because I believed it to be a “bet the number” play at 80-1. I feel similarly about Finau this week. While he’s not having the season many people expected of him, he is playing better than these odds would indicate.

This season, Tony has a tied for 6th place finish at Torrey Pines, a tied for 19th at Riviera and tied for 13th at the Mexico Open. He’s also hitting the ball extremely well. In the field in his past 24 rounds, he ranks 3rd in Strokes Gained: Approach, 3rd in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking, 6th in Par 5 average and 15th in Total Driving.

Finau’s problem has been with the putter, which has been undeniably horrific. However, this week he will see a putting surface similar to the POA at TPC Scottsdale and PGA West, which he’s had a great deal of success on. It’s worth taking a stab at this price to see if he can have a mediocre week with the flat stick.

Sungjae Im +9000 (FanDuel) :

It’s been a lackluster eighteen months for Sungjae, who once appeared to be a certain star. While his ceiling is absolutely still there, it’s been a while since we’ve seen Im play the type of golf expected of a player with his talent.

Despite the obvious concerns, the South Korean showed glimpses of a return to form last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He tied for 18th place and gained strokes off the tee, on approach, around the green and with the putter. When at his best, Im is a perfect course fit for TPC Sawgrass. He has remarkable precision off the tee, can get dialed in with his irons on shorter courses and can get up and down with the best players on Tour.

This number has gotten to the point where I feel comfortable taking a shot on it.

Billy Horschel +20000 (FanDuel):

Billy Horschel is a great fit on paper for TPC Sawgrass. He can get dialed in with his irons and his lack of distance off the tee won’t be a major detriment at the course. “Bermuda Billy” does his best work putting on Bermudagrass greens and he appears to be rounding into form just in time to compete at The PLAYERS.

In his most recent start, Billy finished in a tie for 9th at the Cognizant Classic and hit the ball extremely well. The former Florida Gator gained 3.32 strokes on approach and 2.04 strokes off the tee. If Horschel brings that type of ball striking to TPC Sawgrass, he has the type of putter who can win a golf tournament.

Horschel has been great on Pete Dye designed courses, with four of his seven career PGA Tour wins coming on Dye tracks.

In a season that has seen multiple long shots win big events, the 37-year-old is worth a stab considering his knack for playing in Florida and winning big events.

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Strokes gained and the stats behind the scorecards on the PGA Tour

Published: 10 January 2024

As the newly revamped 2024 season tees off, Today’s Golfer reflects on what it takes to succeed on tour and the metrics that matter most.

Merger mayhem, mega money moves , ‘Capgate’ controversy, and the battle to bifurcate – 2023’s off-course antics proved more turbulent than ever before.

“Golf is a mess” , puts Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston, as the PGA Tour’s reimagined calendar-year schedule teed off for its ‘Opening Drive’ in Hawaii. A much-needed pause from the drama dividing a game glittering with talent, global superstars, and record-breaking performances.

Take Scottie Scheffler. The World No.1’s spectacular season of ball striking saw him top the ‘Strokes Gained’ (SG) leaderboards for SG: Off-the-tee and SG: Approach in 2023 – the first time the feat has been achieved in the SG era.

Despite a deflating start to his TGL virtual venture , Rory McIlroy became the first player since 1981 to finish a season with a streak of 10 consecutive top-10 results. Team Europe’s premier gladiator in Rome also set a new all-time driving distance record on tour of 326.3 yards.

And, what to make of Ryder Cup bolter Ludvig Aberg’s remarkable breakthrough season. It took the Texas Tech graduate a mere 75 days to register his first professional win, before slotting in seamlessly alongside Europe’s big guns at Marco Simone.

By mid-November, Aberg had also added a first PGA Tour title at the RSM Classic, rewriting the PGA Tour record book along the way with his 72-hole total of 253 – equaling Justin Thomas’ mark, with closing back-to-back 61s adding up to the lowest final 36-hole total ever. Somehow that wasn’t enough to pip Eric Cole to the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year award.

Scandi compatriot Viktor Hovland also had a 2023 to remember, finishing as FedExCup Champion after storming to back-to-back victories at the business end of the season.

Not only were the numbers following the dollar sign on Hovland’s cheques rather impressive, but so too were the stats behind his performances.

The Norwegian World No.4 became the first player in 30 years to lead the field in Driving Accuracy, Greens in Regulation and Scrambling on route to the Tour Championship, and the first in 40 to win back-to-back while topping both fields in Driving Accuracy.

A resurgent Rickie Fowler returned to the winner’s circle at the Rocket Mortgage Classic on the back of reinventing his approach play. The Californian finished 2023 tied sixth for SG: Approach, after struggling to break 150 th in the two preceding seasons.

A special mention must also go to Lucas Glover who delivered his first multi-win season at 43 years old. His two wins came back-to-back, stealing the perhaps unwanted title of the oldest back-to-back winner on tour from Vijay Singh.

Of course, the above achievements provide a mere snapshot of a season where the talent on the turf still managed to outshine the chaos off it.

And whether you prefer Coke or Pepsi, DC or Marvel, PGA or LIV, a 58 is a 58, and Bryson DeChambeau’s historic efforts at Greenbrier stand with the best performance across golf’s 2023 tours.

Performances of this caliber not only take an extraordinary work rate, talent, and belief, but an uncompromising attention to detail, and hunger to dive down into the metrics that matter most and differentiate the best from the rest at this elite level.

DeChambeau is not alone in his data-driven approach to understanding performance. Matt Fitzpatrick is another determined to find silver bullets in the data he religiously records from every shot, and Edoardo Molinari’s stock is fast rising as a leading performance analyst to Team Europe and others looking for an empirical edge.

Numbers can have their pitfalls, however.

Granted, they don’t have opinions – which is refreshingly helpful in golf at present – but they can lead us all off the fairway and down a rabbit hole.

Which ones are meaningful, and which ones are simply ‘nice to know’?

Golf is a multi-faceted skill-based game like no other. There is no hierarchical model that determines performance outcomes. Good shots can be punished, bad shots can be rewarded, and we can all lay testament to that.

The right player, on the right day, on the right course has a puncher’s chance of winning on tour. The 69 different winners across 92 PGA and DP World Tour tournaments illustrate this point as well as any.

Climbing to the top tiers of the Official Golf World Rankings requires something more, however.

The highest rungs on the ladder can only be reached via a consistency of performance over time, earned by featuring frequently on the first page of Sunday afternoon leaderboards.

What can we learn from the performance characteristics of these players? What are the non-negotiables and how well-rounded do the best really need to be?

The validity of ‘Strokes Gained’ as a performance measure

Columbia University professor Mark Broadie’s ‘Strokes Gained’ measurement tool has undoubtedly revolutionized our understanding of the critical determinants of golf performance at the highest level.

An ever-growing bank of ShotLink data continually refines our knowledge of the exact number of strokes required for the ‘average PGA Tour golfer’ to put the ball in the hole from any given location on the course.

SG essentially provides a meaningful performance benchmark, enabling interested parties to measure how much better or worse a tour pro performs in specific areas of the game compared to their counterparts.

And in the same way that we accept the end-of-year world rankings to fairly reflect ‘what’ happened in the preceding 12 months of competition, the vast data underpinning end-of-season SG leaderboards is now widely accepted as a logical explanation of ‘how’ it happened too.

The cumulation of SG: Tee-to-Green and SG: Putting is known as SG: Total – a leaderboard topped by Scottie Scheffler in 2023, despite being the only player in the top 10 to finish below the tour average for putting. More on Scottie’s flat stick issues later.

Diving into the data

A linear regression of SG: Total against a medium-term success metric (end-of-year world ranking), shows a reasonable measure of fit against the model (R 2 = 0.51).

Simply put, SG: Total is roughly 50% successful at predicting world-ranking positions at the end of a season.

The relationship appears strongest for those players at the top of the SG: Total leaderboard, an observation also noted in a previous analysis that reported how SG: Total is an increasingly useful indicator of end-of-year ranking for the top 30 players.

But what for the relative importance of SG: Total’s constituent parts? Does the age-old anecdote of “drive for show, putt for dough” have any credibility?

Quite the opposite in fact.

We took the top 90 players from each SG leaderboard on the PGA Tour and divided them into three groups to see how proficiency in each facet of the game affected WR.

Not all SG statistics are born equal!

For this to be true we might expect more balanced average rankings for each SG metric and more proportional differentials between each level of player.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the SG: Total leaders had the lowest WR for the most elite group (24.73), followed by SG: Tee-to-Green (30.57), and then SG: Approach (35.40).

SG: Around-the-Green (46.47), SG: Putting (52.83), and SG: Off-the-Tee (56.50) round off the order – which would be sequential in terms of importance be it not for performance Off-the-tee on par 4s and 5s.

These data therefore highlight the importance of a strong all-round tee-to-green game if you want to reach the higher echelons of the WRs, and more specifically a dialed-in ‘approach game’ is critical.

A glance at the illustrious list of PGA Tour winners on the SG: Approach leaderboard and you’ll understand why.

The next pool of players (ranked 31-60) for SG: Approach don’t necessarily end the year further up the WRs than the final group (ranked 61-90). The same can be said of the SG: Around-the-Green leaderboard.

Birdie or better conversion rate may go some way to explaining this. It’s one thing hitting the green, it’s another taking your chances – and you’re not mixing it with the McIlroys and Hovlands of this world without being able to do this somewhat consistently.

With average driving distance on tour in the region of 300 yards, players are typically left with 125-150 yards on average length par 4s on tour.

A key distance to get nailed down, and interestingly the Green-in-Regulation leaderboards read very differently when the approach length edges beyond 150 yards.

Food for thought considering the recent decision to roll the golf ball back 15 yards from 2028.

How important is a well-rounded skillset?

Back to Scottie Scheffler, and if you’re going to have a weakness…

The World No.1 ranked first on four out of the six SG leaderboards, fifth for SG: Around-the-Green, and an eyebrow-raising 162 nd for SG: Putting, losing an average of 0.3 shots on the field.

McNealy, Montgomery, and McCarthy stepped up on 2023’s putting podium. Not exactly golf’s household names with all due respect.

And while we do see the likes of Schauffele, Homa, Hatton, and Burns challenging atop the SG: Putting leaderboard, our results tend to support the notion that the putter doesn’t need to be red hot every week.

It seems more important to give yourself chances all year round and keep faith that a putting purple patch will arrive, and hopefully in time for Major week.

We shouldn’t dismiss the short game as a ‘nice string to the bow’, however. The world’s best take fewer putts per round, convert more birdies, scramble better from both the sand and rough, and gain more shots in general both around and on the green.

The differentials between performance levels are just smaller than tee-to-green.

A final result of note is that driving the ball further does not differentiate between these groupings of elite players.

It appears to be important enough to put a shorter shaft in your hand for the next shot, but no match for being able to pepper the pin. A 300-yard drive quickly loses its value if you struggle to hit areas of the dancefloor where more putts are holed than missed.

This is what the best are doing consistently better than the rest.

But what does it actually take to win you ask?

Reassuringly, more of the same.

The SG data from the 41 PGA Tour events with individual champions in 2023 again stress the importance of a skillset with a laser-like approach play at the heart.

Champions on tour placed 39th on average for SG: Total, with the relative importance of each game facet decreasing in importance as the ball made its way to the hole.

The most striking difference between the two measures of success (WR and winning on tour), lies in the superior performance off the tee across the season for those going on to lift trophies.

It appears a less crucial weapon for climbing the WRs but is seemingly a key piece of artillery for those who won in 2023. Winners Scheffler, Aberg, McIlroy, and Hovland all feature in the top 8 for SG: Off-the-Tee, helping the metric rise in stature.

Interestingly, despite Scheffler dominating the majority of the SG leaderboards, it’s McIlroy who has the lowest average ranking across all six SG categories, adding weight to the Northern Irishman’s stake as the most complete player on tour.

Rahm, Homa, and Hovland also feature in the conversation for the best all-rounder based on this data.

Let’s wrap up by contradicting the last 2,000 words.

Statistics are great talking points, and very often can be reliable predictors of future success. But the beauty of sport, and indeed professional golf resides in its unpredictability and unwillingness to read the script.

Take a bow Nico Echavarria, stepping up from 406 th in the WRs to win the Puerto Rico Open on 21-under par, rising over 100 places in the space of a week to 287 th .

What was his super-strength? Timing. Pure and simple. The Columbian didn’t break inside the top 125 in any SG category that year.

It may not have been the most stellar field in the world, but Echavarria can call himself a PGA Tour winner, and no doubt the only numbers that mattered to him were $684,000.

It just goes to show the strength in depth across the tour, every dog has his day, but consistency is king if you want to be a top dog on tour.

Analysis – what we did

Our sample explored relationships between the top 90 ranked players from PGA Tour ShotLink leaderboards and success outcomes in golf – world ranking and tour wins.

The only exception being if a featured player finished the year ranked outside the world’s top 200. We deemed this as being a reasonable cut-off for describing players who regularly compete in top-tier tour events.

Limitations worth noting are the significant absence of data from LIV Tour players, and the fact that not every round of golf is captured by ShotLink, which may elevate or suppress a true reflection of performance across the season in some cases.

That said, the results are in good agreement with past studies and provide an objective starting point for conversations into the performance determinants of elite golfing performance.

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About the author

Ross Tugwood

Golf Equipment Writer

Ross Tugwood is a golf equipment writer for todays-golfer.com, specializing in data, analytics, science, and innovation.

Ross is passionate about optimizing sports performance and has a decade of experience working with professional athletes and coaches for British Athletics, the UK Sports Institute, and Team GB.

He has post-graduate degrees in Performance Analysis and Sports Journalism, enabling him to critically analyze and review the latest golf equipment and technology to help you make better-informed buying decisions.

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Explaining Strokes Gained

• BY Chris Nickel
• Jul 1st 2021
• Read all comments

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Strokes Gained sits on the shelf of golf terms labeled often-used, rarely defined. You hear it on TV broadcasts, in golf media and increasingly in manufacturers’ marketing literature.

But what does it mean? It’s a question we get fairly often at MyGolfSpy so let’s flesh it out a bit. Considering the two words absent any context, “strokes” and “gained” seem innocuous enough.

It’s not like we’re talking about axiomatic systems or oblate spheroids. But ask your regular foursome to define “Strokes Gained” and I’ll wager a steak dinner you’re more likely to get blank stares rather than a correct answer.

WELL, WE’RE WAITING …

Strokes Gained is the brainchild of Columbia business professor Mark Broadie. It’s the definitive performance statistic in the field, a welcome replacement for silo statistics such as putts-per-round and percentage of fairways hit.

Chiefly, Strokes Gained is a statistic that communicates the performance of a golf shot relative to a benchmark. Put another way, Strokes Gained doesn’t tell you how good (or bad) a shot is. It quantifies how good (or bad) each shot is based on a defined context.

If this sounds familiar, we’ve touched on the subject before .

For example, a tee shot that travels 250 yards down the fairway on a 450-yard par-4 doesn’t have the same value for every golfer. If you’re a PGA TOUR pro, this shot might have a negative Strokes Gained value because, on average, PGA TOUR players hit the ball further. This leaves a shorter approach shot which, on balance, generates a lower average score.

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However, for the average 18-handicap player, such a tee shot would produce a positive Strokes Gained measurement because the average driving distance for higher-handicap players is a fair bit less than 250 yards.

Here’s another one. Let’s say you’re comparing your putting to the PGA TOUR average, where 7’10” represents the distance at which a golfer has a 50/50 chance of making a putt. Let’s also assume that it takes an average of 1.5 strokes for a PGA TOUR pro to hole out from this distance. Therefore, if you have the same distance putt and make it, you gain 0.5 strokes. The formula is simple. It’s the average number of strokes—the actual number of strokes. In this case, that’s 1.5-1 = 0.5. If you don’t make the first putt but make the second one, the Strokes Gained on that shot would be -0.5 (1.5-2).

Also, because Strokes Gained produces a value for every shot, golfers can look at the aggregate values for various parts of the game, such as: Driving, approach, tee-to-green, putting, etc.

APPLICATION

Strokes Gained is a pretty straightforward concept once you get the idea that a golf shot can’t be defined as “good” or “bad” without some sort of context. It’s like asking whether $400 is a lot of money. For a dozen golf balls? Absolutely. For a round of golf at Augusta National? Probably not.

The PGA TOUR produces Strokes Gained values for every shot for every player in every tournament. As expected, the context for all this information is other PGA TOUR players. Bryson DeChambeau leads the Tour in both average driving distance (323.5 yards) and Strokes Gained driving (1.142 strokes/round). However, Rory McIllory, who is second in driving distance (318.7 yards) is eighth in Strokes Gained driving (0.636 strokes/round).

But for the rest of us, performance management platforms such as Shot Scope and Arccos now offer Strokes Gained analysis for their users. Earlier this year, Shot Scope announced it would add Strokes Gained data to its platform in three phases, a process that now is complete. From a competitive standpoint, it’s an important achievement for Shot Scope, given that Arccos launched its Caddie Strokes Gained Analytics in August 2020.

The primary benefit of individual performance tracking systems is the ability to benchmark against improvement goals. For example, let’s say you’re a 15-handicap golfer and you want to know what it would take to get down to a single-digit handicap. Strokes Gained will tell you how each segment of your game measures up. That way, you can see how close (or far) you are relative to that goal.

If you want to dig deeper, Shot Scope produces Strokes Gained analysis based on a variety of criteria such as distance and hole designation (par-3, par-4, par-5). For example, the data might show you struggle more with tee shots on par-4s that are more than 425 yards. Or that you gain strokes on par-3s compared to other golfers of the same handicap.

Whatever the case, the point is that if you’re looking to improve, it’s vital to start with the right information. Strokes Gained helps achieve that.

Because every golfer has different strengths and weaknesses, objective data can help you understand where the greatest opportunity for improvement exists.

ADVANCED COURSE WORK

Part of the excitement (for some of us, anyway) around the Strokes Gained framework is all the potential quantitative rabbit holes. It’s a free-flowing, brainstorming session that produces musings such as …

Given enough data, could we assess shot performance based on the time of year? Grass type? Course conditions? Time of play? Tournament venue? Rough versus fairway? And so on.

And given a large enough sample size, who knows? Maybe Strokes Gained will help you select your next Member-Guest partner.

If you’re into this type of stuff, check out Shot Scope’s FREE Strokes Gained E-book .

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Chris Nickel

Chris is a self-diagnosed equipment and golf junkie with a penchant for top-shelf ice cream. When he's not coaching the local high school team, he's probably on the range or trying to keep up with his wife and seven beautiful daughters. Chris is based out of Fort Collins, CO and his neighbors believe long brown boxes are simply part of his porch decor. "Isn't it funny? The truth just sounds different."

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3 years ago

Great article, Chris. I bought Mark Broadie’s book in May to get a better understanding of the foundation of strokes gained (Insightful read, but very dry). As an Arccos user, the strokes gained component has helped me dial in my short game, taking the data to my instructor and working through scenarios where I find myself losing strokes.

Tom Gregory

A very in-depth look into “Strokes Gained”, which you did Chris, so very well…In a good write-up, you used few words to describe a  complicated division of “Statistical Analysis” (my minor in college), Actuarial Science/Economics at Northwest Mo. State…I was always amazed at what a small correct ie. true sample can predict and therefore produce a very accurate formula for getting the best results in insurance, golf, and almost anything you apply it to… Great Formula, but at 74 years of age, I try to stay away from Statists, since my swing speed is down to 89 mph, but I still hold a single-digit Handicap.  Kudos to your writing skill!   

Very well done, Mr. Chris. We got more than a nickel’s worth, to tell the truth Incidentally, you get grammar strokes gained if: The quick and dirty tip is to use “farther” for physical distance and “further” for metaphorical, or figurative, distance. It’s easy to remember because “farther” has the word “far” in it, and “far” obviously relates to physical distance..

Chris: excellent article and explanation of Strokes Gained. Your explanation squares with my understanding of the concept for players on tour or in competition. I even get how Arccos can provide SG information to the average golfer based on the large population they collect data from. Where I struggle with the Strokes Gained concept is how MGS has adjusted the methodology for your Most Wanted testing (i.e. the recent Most Wanted Players Iron). It seems that the tester sample size is small in those tests, and there are variables like turf interaction that don’t seem to be a consideration. Like the previous poster Sydney, I’d appreciate a follow-up on how MGS has adjusted the Stokes Gained concept for grading and rating equipment. Thanks in advance.

I’m a data guy so my opinion might be skewed but I think anyone at any level can benefit from SG and the other magnitude of data that these systems provide. I often find that we have a good idea of where we failed after a round or what we need to work on but these systems give a definitive answer to that question and even more so track your improvements. It’s honestly a no brainer.

Who am I comparing myself to? And why? For me, if I keep a few basic stats I can understand my round and chart my performance over time without worrying about statistical mumbo jumbo. Hey, makes a great line on TV, so-and-so picked up 0.25 strokes versus the field. But who’s my “field”?

Michael Schmitz

It almost reads like strokes gained is looking to be the next handicapping system. The benchmark I care about is called Par. The club manufacturers can send me fitted clubs and I can test them and buy the ones that maximize my calculated strokes gained.

David Ambrose

I’m really enjoying the shots gained metric in Arccos. It allows you to see your game in a different light. It not only points out your weaknesses, but also can find hidden strengths you may not have considered. For example, I thought my putts would be really low since I always seem to be around the cup and rarely in. The stats showed I picked up the most strokes in that area and especially from lag distances. On the flip side, I thought my short approaches were pretty decent…yeah, not the case at all. :)

I bought the shotscope and am finding new information to be able to make me a better golfer. The only questions is if I can see in the app or in the desktop page the strokes gained of a single shot? I have looked for it over and over and haven´t found it.

I am not sure how I feel about this. In a broad sense applying metrics to a particular segment of the game like putting, may be a strategy I could embrace. Turning the game of golf into another use for my cell phone tracking data like a CPA might not be a strategy I can embrace. I would rather sign the card and head to the range to work on the days failures, then have a beer as opposed to printing out my spreadsheet and “analyzing” data against subjective personal “benchmarks”, It is easy to define a benchmark for a zero or plus handicap, much more subjective for high single digit and impossible for high handicappers. Just my opinion. Looks like a Bryson “want to be” flash in the pan scientific approach. Jury is still out on Bryson, I will take a wait and see on this one.

Dave Henderson

I agree that deep analysis after each round may have limited benefit but since I have started using Arccos I have learned a lot about my weaknesses. I am currently a 13 handicap benchmarking myself to a 9 because that is where I want to get to. As I look back over my last 10 rounds of data I see that tee shots and putting are killing me. I know where I need to spend the majority of my range time.

I think the primary issue that golfers are generally poor at self-assessment. And given enough data, you can benchmark against any performance level – So if you’re a 20 HCP and want to see how your game stacks up against the typical 15 HCP, you can do that. So, it’s not really a matter of opinion as much as it’s just the power of big data.

$400 to play ANY course is a lot of money……just saying

I think you’d get some strong dissention on this one. Assessing value, particularly at the extremes is rife with complications. That said, if you can snag me a time at Pine Valley, Cypress or Augusta for $400, I’m in!

You claimed that Strokes Gained is available for every tournament. If that’s true, I’d like to see the data from any of the last 20 Masters tournaments.

The PGA Tour does not run or have control over The Masters. The tournament is run and owned by the Augusta National Golf Club, which is located in August, Georgia. SO it seems ANGC is keeping their data like their membership…private

Cool thanks for this. I’ll give it a shot.

Thank you for this article! This is so helpful. One thing I am still missing though is what your performance is based off of. It is mentioned that it would vary between PGA players and a schlub like me, obviously, but how and who assigns the number in which your strokes are compared to? With the PGA it is pretty straight forward, but for a muni monster such as myself, how do I quantify my strokes gained on a particular round or rounds?

James – Good question. For platforms like Shot Scope, your benchmarks are other players that also use that system. And because it’s a feature of those systems, (unless you’re a PGA TOUR pro) you need to use one of those platforms to gain access to this info. If you have other questions, please reach out!

Okay I see now. That is interesting. I mean, I know that if I can putt better and fix my banana drives, along with tightening up my long irons and short game, that I will see some improvement, but maybe seeing how many strokes lost in each of my four weaknesses will help me hone in on areas of improvement. I do agree with John Smith that defining benchmarks for double digit handicaps would be highly subjective.

Hi Chris, great article. May I ask how does MGS calculate strokes gained for the Most Wanted iron tests?

Great article Chris. May I ask how does MGS calculate strokes gained for the Most Wanted iron tests?

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Strokes Gained on the PGA Tour

The PGA Tour measures strokes gained in four different categories

In 2011, the PGA Tour introduced the Strokes Gained statistics, a method for measuring performance better than traditional statistics (greens in regulation, fairways hit...) because it compares a player's performance to the rest of the field and because it can isolate individual aspects of the game.

The PGA started measuring total Strokes Gained and also "Strokes Gained: putting", which measures the performance on the green of each player compared to the rest of the field.

Since 2016, the PGA has added a few more stats to understand how each player is performing compared to the rest of the field, which are:

• "Strokes Gained: off-the-tee " measures player performance off the tee on all par-4s and par-5s
• "Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green " measures player performance on approach shots, which include all the shots that are not from the tee on par-4 and par-5 holes and are not included in "Strokes gained: around-the-green" and "Strokes gained: putting". This includes tee shots on par-3s.
• "Strokes Gained: Around-the-green " measures player performance on any shot within 30 yards of the edge of the green, but not on the green
• "Strokes Gained: Putting " measures how many strokes a player gains (or loses) on the greens

As you would expected, the sum of the four categories is the total number of Strokes Gained.

You can have your own Strokes Gained stats, just like any PGA tour player, if you track your scores using golfity . Just sign up , enter your data for a few rounds and you will know where to work to shave a few shots from your score!

More info: Strokes gained: How it works

Related posts:

Bryson DeChambeau hit a 417 yards drive at the 2020 Ryder Cup, how many strokes did he gain with that?

golfity introduces customizable benchmarks, allowing golfers to compare their skills against PGA Tour players, scratch players and 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 handicaps, for a more relevant and encouraging analysis.

Now you can see the strokes gained for any round in your Golfity feed

Mark Broadie published in 2008 this article and started the Strokes Gained revolution

golfity can you show the strokes gained (or lost) in each individual shot. Learn which were the best and worse shots of your round.

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The Man With Two Brains: Strokes gained guru Mark Broadie’s pioneering analytics have radically altered the game

On a sticky, end-of-summer New York afternoon, Mark Broadie stands on the first tee at Pelham Country Club, a rare occurrence for him of late. As the go-to guy in golf analytics, Broadie keeps so busy crunching other people’s numbers he doesn’t have time to post his own.

It is 81 degrees, with a wind from the northwest at nine miles per hour. Broadie knows this. He’s checked a weather app. The hole is a 462-yard, par-5, uphill, gentle dogleg. The percentage play is a driver up the right. Broadie knows this, too, because when it comes to golf-related facts and figures, there aren’t a lot of things he doesn’t know.

“We’ve had a lot of rain, so there’s not a lot of roll,” Broadie says. “And unless I’m getting roll, I can’t reach the green in two. But I try to get my second shot close for an easy up and down.”

At 61, lean and low-key, Broadie cuts an understated profile that belies his outsize impact on the game. To his peers and protégés at Columbia Business School, where he has taught since ’83, Broadie is known as the Carson Family Professor of Business, with an expertise in the pricing of derivative securities. But to members of golf’s firmament, he’s something of a walking Watson — as in the computer, not Tom.

That reputation stems from Broadie’s pioneering data-driven research, which began nearly two decades back, inspired by what you might call his golf obsession, and which continues to this day. Drawn from his analysis of millions of golf shots, struck by pros and amateurs alike, that research has yielded insights with farther-reaching implications than Broadie himself ever foresaw.

First adopted by the PGA Tour in 2011, “strokes gained,” Broadie’s breakthrough analytics tool, has become a fixture in golf’s Moneyball age. Though he was not alone in seeing the shortcomings of old-saw categories such as greens-in-regulation and putts-per-round (which, beyond being unhelpful, can be outright misleading), he was the first to do something about it. With strokes gained, Broadie was able to set the data straight by placing it in proper context. It allowed him to measure a player’s performance against the rest of the field while providing an isolated view of specific aspects of their game.

What started out in 2011 as merely a strokes-gained putting stat has, in the past seven years, spawned many other categories in the Tour’s ShotLink database, including revelatory strokes gained measures on tee shots, approach shots and shots around the green. Their combined influence on golf have been likened to the sway of sabermetrics over baseball, changing how Tour pros play and practice, how coaches coach, how caddies caddie.

An obscure term just a handful of years ago, strokes gained has entered golf’s mainstream lexicon, tossed around on television broadcasts and parsed by players in post-round interviews. Its proliferation has also helped turn Broadie from Ivy League professor into golf-world pooh-bah, his expertise enlisted by Golf Channel; by FoxSports in its U.S. Open coverage; by TaylorMade in its assessment of emerging talent; and by top instructors and a swelling number of Tour stars themselves.

“In the early days, I thought of our work with Mark as giving us an edge over the competition,” says Pat Goss, the men’s golf coach at Northwestern, who, in 2011, in his side gig as Luke Donald’s swing coach, became one of the first insiders to recognize the import of Broadie’s work. “Nowadays, I think of it as something we need just to keep up.”

Others operating in a similar mindset include the Molinari brothers, Francesco and Edoardo, Jordan Spieth’s swing guru, Cameron McCormick, and Rickie Fowler’s caddie, Joe Skovron, to cite a few of the many with whom Broadie has worked.

Asked last summer how he planned to hone his game for the ’17 FedEx Cup playoffs, Rory McIlroy revealed that he wasn’t off to look for answers in the dirt. He was off to meet with Broadie.

“I’m a big believer in stats…and strokes gained is the best stat that has come into our game for the last, well — ever,” McIlroy said at a post-tournament press conference. “I’m excited to sit down with him and talk about all that stuff.”

That press-conference mentions of Broadie are increasingly common doesn’t stop him from marveling at them. “When I got started on all this, I figured I’d publish a few papers and that would be it,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking about getting attention from it. It was an academic pursuit in the purest sense. I was after knowledge for knowledge’s sake.”

If Broadie’s current status was somewhat unexpected, there were inklings in his childhood of where his life might lead. Raised in suburban New Jersey, the son of an accountant and a homemaker, Broadie excelled in school and enjoyed a range of sports. He took up golf in his early teens by swinging his father’s clubs in the backyard. In retrospect, his approach to the game was too cerebral for its own good.

“To me, taking lessons seemed like cheating,” Broadie says. “I thought that part of the challenge should be teaching yourself.”

Rather than seek counsel, he gleaned his understandings of the swing by poring over golf-instruction books and magazines, and by watching middling players at a club where he sometimes caddied. The result was an unsightly set of fundamentals. Standing too far from the ball and employing an excessively strong left-hand grip, Broadie became a master of the screaming hook. Compounding his problems was that he, a natural lefty, had learned to play with righty clubs and never switched.

In time, he self-corrected, whittling his scores into the 80s, which still wasn’t good enough to make his high school team. In college, at Cornell, he played sporadically, and then more frequently while earning a Ph.D. in applied mathematics at Stanford, an institution blessed with a friendly year-round climate and a killer campus course.

With his move to New York in 1983, Broadie adapted to the rhythms of the city, which is to say he pretty much mothballed his clubs. They remained mostly in storage until 1987, when Broadie, prompted by his interest in financial markets, took a one-year sabbatical to work as a researcher at Lehman Brothers. His Wall Street tenure brought him into closer contact with other golfers. Soon, he was bitten by the bug once more.

In 1991, Broadie joined Pelham, attracted by the club’s diverse membership and its proximity — just 30 minutes away — to his home in Manhattan. That same year, he surprised himself, and many in his cohort, by winning the club championship.

“Mark had a kind of funny swing that has only gotten funnier over the years,” says Mike Diffley, Pelham’s frank-talking head pro, then and now. “But he was clutch that week and he made a lot of putts.”

That’s one view. As Broadie sees it, how critical a factor his flatstick was is impossible to know because there are no detailed records of his matches. Which brings us to the crux of his golf-research career. The more golf Broadie played, the more the game presented him with questions for which he had no answers. To find them, he was certain he needed data. And golf data in those days wasn’t merely scarce. It was nonexistent.

By the early 2000s, Broadie resolved to start amassing it himself. Of the game’s many riddles, the first one he hoped to untangle was what separated an elite player from an 80-shooter such as himself, and an 80-shooter from a 90-shooter, and so on across all levels of the game. The simple answer, of course, was that better players carded lower scores. But what enabled them to do so? Their distance o the tee? Their deadliness with wedges? Their limited numbers of balls lost in the woods? Organized around such questions, a groundbreaking research project was born.

Broadie’s first subject was his head pro, Diffley, an accomplished player and former winner of the Met Open. Broadie asked to join him for a round. Their first 18 together gave way to multiple outings, each of which followed the same routine: Diffley would hit shots, and Broadie, scribbling in a scale-model course map, would note exactly where each one settled. Broadie would also play his own ball, and jot down the results of his shots, too.

“I knew Mark was a smart guy — you know, professor and all — so I figured he wasn’t doing all this just for fun,” Diffley says. “But I can’t say I knew everything he was up to.”

Other Pelham members didn’t have a clue. “We’ve got lot of New Yorkers here, so they use colorful language,” Diffley says. “They would look at Mark measuring all my drives and pacing o the distance to the hole of every putt, and they’d turn around and say, ‘What the f— is going on?’”

What was going on at Pelham was also happening at dozens of New York area courses. With help from colleagues, graduate students and computer programmers, Broadie was collecting and collating detailed information on amateur-player-reported shots around the region — more than 100,000 before all was said and done. Around the same time, the PGA Tour’s ShotLink system, launched in 2003, was filling up with data from the game’s best players.

From the Tour’s perspective, the numbers were a way to enliven TV broadcasts and improve fan engagement. Broadie put them to a different use. Ultimately, all the info he and his team gathered was fed into a computer program called Golfmetrics.

A new day in golf analytics had arrived. Although Broadie hadn’t set out to rattle the establishment, many of his findings proved convention-shaking. Notable among them was one that poked a hole in the gospel of the short game: the familiar observation, widely taken as adage, that the fastest way to lower scores was to sharpen your skills from 100 yards and in. Not that the data showed the short game didn’t matter. What it demonstrated, though, was that a better measure of a player’s prowess was how he or she performed on longer approaches — specifically, from 150 yards.

“Of course, every golfer has their own DNA, with different strengths and weaknesses,” Broadie says. “But the basic idea is that if you tell me your median leave from 150, I can tell you how good you are.”

Broadie’s revelations exposed the flaws in other of the game’s more stubborn assumptions. Drive for show and putt for dough? Maybe sometimes. But on average, the strokes-gained-putting differential between a golfer who shoots 70 and one who shoots 80 is a relevant pittance (1.5 strokes) compared to strokes gained or lost from 100 yards and out (6.5). A similar differential holds true in comparisons of golfers across the board. The takeaway: In a battle of importance, ballstriking reigns supreme.

The beauty of Broadie’s research was that it offered something for almost everyone. Just as a top instructor like Pat Goss could draw on the data to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in Luke Donald’s game, and devise a practice strategy that maximized the former and minimized the latter (focusing on Donald’s wedge game turned out to be key in his rise to number one in the World Golf Rankings), so could a weekend duffer discover in the numbers a vital lesson about expectations.

To wit: If you’re inclined to throw a club after failing to stuff an approach from 150 yards, get over yourself; the average Tour pro leave from that distance is 23 feet.

Broadie’s research has paid dividends for Broadie, too, in his work as a GOLF columnist (p. 28) and a FoxSports consultant, interpreting stats for U.S. Open broadcasts; and as a consigliere for TaylorMade. Although Broadie declines to discuss the details of his dealings with the club maker, he’s comfortable saying that his data-based projections of future performance helped solidify the company’s decision to sign Jon Rahm to an endorsement deal.

As for future projections for golf analytics, Broadie sees nearly boundless opportunity for exploration, limited only by the availability of good data. One area he has in mind is strokes-gained categories that account for factors such as wind, turf conditions and the contours of a shot. Another is quantifying performance under pressure, a topic Broadie has been working on of late. He believes he’s onto something.

“For mental toughness, the only stat that attempts to measure it is bounce-back,” he says. “And I think there are better ways.”

But even Broadie needs a break from analyzing other golfers. As the afternoon wore on at Pelham, the performance of most interest to him was his own. Despite a rusty swing, he was getting along nicely, aided by a strategy rooted in sound data. Among the records he keeps in his office at Columbia are computerized logs of many of his rounds, replete with scores and shot-dispersion patterns — handy information for a guy who likes to have a plan for every hole.

Take the par-three eighth, where he’d now arrived. At 145 yards, the hole ranks as the easiest at Pelham, but it has a history of giving Broadie trouble. In 2005, the year he started cataloging his own rounds, Broadie played it 18 times, always with a nine-iron, but only hit the green on a third of those occasions. His scoring average was 3.22. Intent on improving, Broadie scoured his records and noticed a pattern: nearly all of his misses were short of the green. Lesson learned. Time to swap the 9-iron for a three-quarter 8.

“The challenge to that was that a three-quarter 8 is not a shot I’ve worked on much,” Broadie said. “But there’s no doubt it is the right play.”

Pulling an 8-iron, he waggled and swung. Riding a light wind, the ball landed on the green and settled at the back of the putting surface, 21 feet from the pin. By any measure, it was a better-than-average shot.

Table of Contents

Last updated Jan 17, 2024

What is Strokes Gained Around the Green? Explained.

Strokes gained around the green is an objective way to measure a golfer's chipping. In this post, I'll explain how it is calculated and why it matters.

Written By: Zach Gollwitzer

Posted in: Golf Statistics

Tags: Data-Driven Golf

If I asked you to hit a 20-yard pitch shot from behind a bunker, do you think you would gain or lose an advantage over your playing competitors?

What if your short game is not actually as important as you think?

In this post, we're going to use the strokes gained around the green statistic to find out.

The strokes gained around the green (SGAG) statistic tells us how skilled a golfer is with their chipping and pitching (i.e. short game).

What is measured?

Strokes gained around the green measures all golf shots that are within 30 yards of the edge of the green.

Calculation and Formula

The formula for strokes gained around the green (SGAG) is:

SGAG = Avg. Strokes to hole out (start) - Avg. Strokes to hole out (end) - 1

Where "Avg. Strokes" is a "benchmark" calculated from hundreds of thousands of shots from the tour's ShotLink system .

Can Amateurs use this stat?

Yes, I recommend Arccos for tracking your strokes gained statistics.

What's wrong with "Up and Down" and "Scrambling" Stats?

An up and down , often referred to as "scrambling" is a traditional golf statistic known as "Scrambling Percentage". It tracks how often a player successfully chips ("up") onto the green and makes the putt ("down") in just 2 strokes.

The PGA Tour average for this statistic is generally around 59% , while amateurs are generally below 50%.

This statistic is a great simple measure of short game prowess, but has several limitations:

• It doesn't factor in the lie of the ball (i.e. fairway, sand, rough, hazard)
• For example, if a golfer chunks a chip to 50 feet and makes the putt, it counts as an "up and down". But it certainly doesn't tell us how bad at chipping the golfer is!

To better assess the short game of a golfer, we need something more objective. That's where strokes gained around the green comes in.

What is Strokes Gained Around the Green?

As mentioned above, strokes gained around the green measures all golf shots that are within 30 yards of the edge of the green.

Strokes gained around the green is one of several strokes gained statistics tracked by the ShotLink system on Tour. You can find the official statistics on the PGA Tour website . Amateur golfers can track this through systems like Arccos as I'll explain later in this post.

In the screenshot above, you can see that during the 2023 season, Jonathan Byrd led the tour in strokes gained around the green. On average, Byrd gained 0.527 strokes on the field per round, and during the 2023 season, gained 19.49 strokes on the field over all his rounds.

While the official stat measures strokes gained around the green by round, we can measure it in many different ways. Given the right data, we could measure strokes gained around the green:

• For a single golf hole
• For a round of golf
• For a full golf tournament
• For an entire golf career
• Between two golf courses
• Between two golf tournaments

In other words, we could say that Rory Mcilroy "gained 2.2 strokes on the field around the greens during the Players Championship".

We could also say, "Over his career, Rory Mcilroy has lost 0.2 strokes against his peers around the greens"

I know, I know, this is confusing! Let's take a look at some examples to better understand the elusive strokes gained approach metric.

Calculating strokes gained approach is simpler than you think! At its core, this metric revolves around comparing a player's approach shot performance to a benchmark, typically derived from data collected on professional tours like the PGA Tour. It's a great way to objectively assess ball striking ability of a golfer.

Strokes Gained Approach Formula

The basic formula for strokes gained around the green is:

For example, let's say a golfer hits an iron shot and misses the green to the right. His ball ends up in the greenside bunker, 10 yards from the hole.

He hits the bunker shot to 5 feet. On average, a 10-yard bunker shot takes a tour pro ~2.47 shots to hole out (aka 55% probability of getting up and down). And on average, a 5-foot putt takes a pro 1.23 strokes to hole out.

So our formula is:

SGAG = 2.47 - 1.23 - 1 = 0.24

In this example where a player hits a 10-yard bunker shot to 5 feet, they have gained 0.24 strokes on the field.

We also must subtract 1 at the end to account for the stroke taken.

As you can see, SGAG is a function of location (fairway, rough, sand, etc.) and proximity (how close the ball ended to hole). Furthermore, notice how I didn't consider whether the 5-foot putt was made because that's not part of this statistic (it's part of strokes gained putting ). Our goal here is to independently assess each part of our game.

Let's walk through the in-depth methodology.

Basic Calculation Methodology

As with other strokes gained statistics , strokes gained approach is tracked using the following basic methodology:

• Establish a Baseline : The baseline is the average number of strokes a player takes to hole out from a given location and distance . For example, if a golfer is 10 yards from the fringe , the baseline might be ~2.17 strokes. If an amateur is calculating strokes gained, they will typically compare to players of similar handicaps (skill levels) through an ecosystem like Arccos.
• Compare Individual Performance : Next, we compare a player's performance to this baseline. If a golfer hits a 20-yard bunker shot to a few inches from the hole, this is clearly better than tour average (benchmark) and he will have "gained strokes on the field".
• Aggregate Data Over Rounds : This process is repeated for every shot in a round, and the values are aggregated. Positive values indicate better-than-average chipping and pitching, while negative values suggest there's room for improvement.

Step 1: Establish a baseline

For our baseline, we'll look at a small sample of PGA Tour benchmarks. These numbers are not exactly what is used on tour (those numbers are constantly being updated), but are very close as they were sampled from Mark Broadie's book, Every Shot Counts .

The first table is for chipping and pitching, while the second table is for putting.

Again, this is just a small sample to use for our examples. To calculate official statistics, more data points are used.

Step 2: Compare Individual Performance

For this example, let's take a look at Jordan Spieth getting up and down on the 16th hole at the 2015 Tour Championship:

Let me start with an important note —we're ONLY looking at strokes gained around the green here. Remember, strokes gained putting and strokes gained around the green are separate metrics, so the putt Jordan makes in the video above won't affect our statistic.

On this hole, Jordan has a 10-yard chip shot from the sand. He hits it to 8-feet and makes the putt. From 10 yards in the sand, based on our table above, the benchmark is 2.47. Likewise, the benchmark for an 8-foot putt is 1.50. So our strokes gained is:

SGAG = 2.47 - 1.50 - 1 = -0.03

In this scenario, by hitting it to 8 feet from this location (bunker) and distance (10 yards), Jordan actually lost 0.03 strokes to the field.

Step 3: Aggregate

Now that you understand the individual calculation, we just need to go through this process for every hole during this round and sum them all up to get the official strokes gained approach metric that the PGA Tour tracks.

Finally, we can average it for all rounds of a season to get an annual metric. Below, you can see Jordan's strokes gained around the green stats for 2015. While he may have lost strokes on that bunker shot from above, he ranked 24th on tour for strokes gained around the greens and on average, gained 0.264 strokes per round on the field with his chipping and pitching alone!

Can Amateur Golfers Use Strokes Gained Approach?

At the time of writing, the golf industry has come a long way with consumer-grade technology. With the proliferation of shot trackers and personal launch monitors , it has become easier for amateur golfers to assess their games with real on-course data.

That said, tracking strokes gained around the green statistics still proves difficult for many golfers.

Because as we talked about earlier, strokes gained calculations require benchmark data.

This means that for a 15-handicap golfer to assess their game with strokes gained around the greens data, all of the following things must be tracked:

• Every chip/pitch shot must be tracked (location AND distance)
• Thousands of golfers who play to a 15 handicap must also track their chip/pitch shots
• All this data must be aggregated in one spot (ecosystem)

For the PGA Tour, this is easy. ShotLink tracks every golf shot from every tournament for every tour pro automatically.

For us amateurs, we don't have this luxury (and frankly, most of us probably don't want all of our shots tracked!)

There are a few options though and I'm excited to see how this evolves in the next decade!

Option #1: Automatic Tracking

In my opinion, automatic strokes gained tracking is the best option. Tracking every shot for every round you play is exhausting and most golfers do not have the discipline to keep this up over a long enough period for it to start helping their games.

At the time of writing, here are a few shot trackers that also have strokes gained statistics built-in to their ecosystems:

• Arccos Shot Trackers: The Arccos system has strokes gained calculations available to users (via the app) and thanks to all the amateur data they have collected, you can compare your rounds against golfers of similar skill levels. This is a huge benefit and allows for the most accurate strokes gained data.
• ShotScope Trackers: A close second to Arccos, ShotScope offers shot trackers and an app that calculates strokes gained data. From what I've seen, ShotScope does not have quite as many data points as Arccos, but is a great alternative.

Option #2: Manual tracking

Several apps allow you to track all of your shots manually and then review strokes gained data within the dashboard. While this can be cumbersome and exhausting to some golfers, it is a great option if you are highly disciplined and dedicated to improving your golf game.

Here are a few to check out:

• My Round Pro
• PinPoint Golf
• Decade Golf: This is more of a system than an app. While it does have an app, this is a premium service you pay for to help learn better golf strategy based on strokes gained data.

Other Types of Strokes Gained Statistics

At this point, you might be thinking—"Zach, we've talked a lot about chip shots, but what about the rest of my game?"

And you would be correct.

Strokes gained is more than just chip shots . It is an entire framework for measuring relative golf performance in all areas of a golfer's game:

• Strokes gained around the green (this article)
• Strokes gained putting
• Strokes gained approach
• Strokes gained off the tee (driving)

Concluding Thoughts: Big Takeaways

While measuring your scrambling percentage can be a great start to tracking stats, the only true way to measure your performance with chipping and pitching is proximity to the hole, which is what strokes gained around the greens tracks.

About the author: Loading...

About the author: zach gollwitzer.

Hey, I‘m Zach, the founder of The DIY Golfer! I created this site while playing D1 collegiate golf with a simple mission—I wanted to learn the golf swing and get better at golf myself.

Fast forward a few years, and my “journal“, The DIY Golfer, has been viewed by millions of golfers worldwide looking to do the same with their games. my mission is to make golfers more consistent in just a few hours a week through advanced practice strategies and timeless, first-principle golf instruction.

This Page is Mentioned in...

Strokes Gained

Strokes gained is a golf stats methodology popularized by Mark Broadie and adopted by the PGA Tour which measures a golfer's skill by each part of their game.

Strokes gained putting is a golf statistic used by the PGA Tour that provides an objective measure of putting skill across golfers, courses, and tournaments.

Strokes gained off the tee is an objective way to measure a golfer's driving ability. In this post, I'll explain how it is calculated and why it matters.

Strokes gained approach is an objective way to measure a golfer's ball-striking ability. In this post, I'll explain how it is calculated and why it matters.

Other Articles in 'Golf Statistics'

This post outlines the most common golf statistics you should be tracking to improve your game and see your progress over time.

In Every Shot Counts, Mark Broadie introduces a revolutionary approach to game improvement—the strokes gained approach. But will it help your game?

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Who made biggest improvement, and drop, in strokes gained approach the green in 2019, share this article.

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Last week, Golfweek  revealed the players on the PGA Tour who made the biggest leaps in strokes gained off the tee and noted that while Cameron Tringale made the biggest year-over-year improvement, Rory McIlroy went from being an elite driver to the best on planet Earth.

This week, in the second of our four-part series, we focus on which players made the biggest strides (and the largest drops) in strokes gained approach the green. This stat measures how a player compares to other golfers on shots hit off the tee on par 3s, as well as non-tee shots hit beyond 30 yards of the green. In other words, it gauges the quality of a player’s fairway wood and iron game.

For decades, many golfers felt that to be successful in golf a player needed to be an outstanding putter, but more and more pros have come to understand that ballstriking is the real key. No one would argue that putting is meaningless, but consider this: The average Official World Golf Ranking of the golfers who finished in the top 10 in strokes gained putting last season was 151 and they averaged $1,239,126 in PGA Tour earnings. The average world ranking of players who finished in the top 10 in strokes gained approach the green was 34 and they earned an average of $3,338,488 in PGA Tour prize money.

By the way, Brooks Koepka and McIlroy finished 11th and 12th last season in strokes gained approach the green, respectively, and they are Nos. 1 and 2 in the world. Combining their prize money and FedEx Cup winnings, they won about $35 million in prize money.

Based on that, improving in strokes gained approach the green would benefit any player. The chart below shows all the players who had official PGA Tour stats at the end of the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, along with how they either improved or worsened in strokes gained approach the green. Hover your mouse over a dot or touch it to see each player.

The most-improved player was J.T. Poston, who went up by 0.596 to an average of 0.223 last year. After giving away shots from the fairway two seasons ago, he’s now gaining shots. It’s no coincidence that Poston’s world ranking has also improved since the start of the year, rising from No. 347 to No. 72 in 2019, and he won the Wyndham Championship in August.

Other strong improvements were made by Emiliano Grillo (0.581), Trey Mullinax (0.576), Kevin Kisner (0.573) and 49-year-old Jim Furyk (0.562). Koepka went up 0.404, McIlroy improved by 0.364 and Jon Rahm’s strokes gained approach the green average went up 0.358 last season.

Phil Mickelson reacts after playing his second shot on the 18th hole during the final round of the 2019 Desert Classic. (Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports)

On the other side of the ledger, the players on the bottom of the chart saw their performance from the fairway drop. Among them is Phil Mickelson, who went from being a strong iron player with an average of 0.555 to a player who gave away shots and averaged -0.065. Lefty made the second-largest drop in strokes gained approach the green last season (-0.62). Only Tyler Duncan’s drop of -0.628 was worse.

Jordan Spieth struggled nearly as much as Mickelson, finishing the year down -0.607. He ended the year ranked 145th in strokes gained approach the green and for the first time since he has played enough to have official year-end stats, Spieth finished with a negative average.

Other well-known players who experienced drops in strokes gained approach the green last season were Brendan Steele (-0.559), Dustin Johnson (-0.541), Patton Kizzire (-0.513) and Rickie Fowler (-0.336).

Next week: The biggest movers in strokes gained around the green.

Who made the biggest improvement, and drop, in driving on the PGA Tour?

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PGA Tour Power Rankings: Two stops 'til the Masters

Pat McAfee praises Scottie Scheffler for defending his Players Championship title after Wyndham Clark's heartbreaking putt lipped out on 18. (2:09)

• Senior college football writer
• Author of seven books on college football
• Graduate of the University of Georgia

There are only 15 days remaining before the opening round of the 88th Masters at Augusta National Golf Club, the first major championship of the men's professional golf season.

While defending champion Jon Rahm is playing in the LIV Golf League, world No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler has emerged as a heavy betting favorite after back-to-back victories on the PGA Tour. The 2022 Masters champion also knows his way around Augusta National pretty well.

With the PGA Tour headed to Texas for the last two stops before the Masters, starting with this week's Texas Children's Houston Open, it's a good time for the latest edition of the PGA Tour power rankings.

Of course, there's no surprise at No. 1. But during a season in which rookies and other lesser-known first-timers have won tournaments, you might have to look further down the list for superstars.

1. Scottie Scheffler

The world No. 1 golfer is coming off back-to-back victories at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship. He has two top-10 finishes at Memorial Park Golf Course, including a tie for second in 2022. He could become the first player since Dustin Johnson in 2017 to win in three straight starts. Rory McIlroy was the last to do it in three consecutive starts in stroke-play events (DJ's streak included the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play).

2. Wyndham Clark

The reigning U.S. Open champion was runner-up to Scheffler in each of his past two starts, finishing 5 strokes back at the API and 1 back at the Players Championship -- after his birdie putt on the 72nd hole cruelly lipped out. He was ranked No. 189 in the Official World Golf Ranking when he played in the 2022 Texas Children's Houston Open. Now, he's one of the best players in the world, ranking third on tour in shots gained: total (1.869), eighth in tee to green (1.214) and 12th in putting (.656).

3. Xander Schauffele

Schauffele couldn't hold a final-round lead at the Players Championship, but there's no question he has played spectacular golf lately. He has already piled up six top-10 finishes in eight starts this season, including top-5s in three of his past four. One of the top golfers in the world without a major championship victory, the former Olympic gold-medal winner will be riding a lot of momentum heading into the Masters, where he'll try to finally bag a big one.

4. Hideki Matsuyama

The 2021 Masters champion picked up his ninth PGA Tour victory at the Genesis Invitational in February. He followed that with a tie for 12th at the API and a tie for sixth at the Players Championship. Despite battling a back injury again, Matsuyama has been great from tee to green and around the green, but he ranks 134th in strokes gained: putting (-.378).

5. Ludvig Åberg

After picking up his first PGA Tour victory in his last start in 2023 at the RSM Classic, the former Texas Tech star hasn't slowed down. He has three top-10s in seven starts, including a runner-up finish at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. He hits it long and straight and doesn't make many mistakes. He'll make his first start in a major championship at the Masters.

6. Will Zalatoris

Zalatoris missed the cut in his most recent start at the Players Championship, but his form has returned after he underwent back surgery in April that sidelined him for the rest of 2023. He had a pair of top-5s against loaded fields in signature events -- a tie for fourth at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and for second at the Genesis Invitational. His ballstriking is as good as ever; he ranks sixth in strokes gained: approach (.789).

7. Rory McIlroy

McIlroy seemed poised for a fast start after he tied for second at the Dubai Invitational and won the Hero Dubai Desert Classic for a record fourth time on Jan. 21. That success hasn't carried over to the PGA Tour, however, as he has just one top-20 finish in five starts so far -- a tie for 19th at the Players Championship. He ranks second in strokes gained: off the tee (.938) but 119th in approach (-.176).

8. Brian Harman

Harman's missed cut at last week's Valspar Championship might have been the result of a hangover from his narrow miss at the Players Championship. He finished 1 stroke behind Scheffler and had a good look for a tying birdie on the 72nd hole. The reigning Open Championship winner tied for 12th at the API.

9. Nick Taylor

The Canadian picked up his fourth PGA Tour victory -- and his second straight in a playoff -- by outlasting Charley Hoffman in two extra holes at the WM Phoenix Open on Feb. 11. Taylor ranks 127th in strokes gained: off the tee (-.158) but makes up for it with stellar iron play (15th in approach) and putting (20th).

10. Matthieu Pavon

On Jan. 27, the 31-year-old became the first golfer from France since 1907 to win on the PGA Tour when he defeated Nicolai Hojgaard by 1 stroke at the Farmers Insurance Open. He also tied for seventh at the Sony Open in Hawaii and was solo third at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

11. Sahith Theegala

Theegala seems close to winning something big. He has four top-10s in eight starts this season, including in each of his past two -- a tie for sixth at the API and for ninth at the Players Championship. He's fourth on tour in shots gained: total (1.446) and seventh in putting (.821).

12. Sam Burns

Burns is tied with Theegala for third-most top-10 finishes on tour this season with four. He tied for third in the WM Phoenix Open and for 10th at the Genesis. He ranks 24th in shots gained: total (.875) and 23rd in putting (.542).

13. Cameron Young

Young narrowly missed out on picking up his elusive first PGA Tour victory again last week, finishing 2 strokes behind Peter Malnati at the Valspar Championship. It was Young's seventh runner-up finish in 60 tour starts, the most of any player without a victory dating back to 1970, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Young is too talented not to end the drought at some point.

14. Patrick Cantlay

The eight-time PGA Tour winner's results have been hit or miss so far this season. He tied for 11th at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and for fourth at the Genesis. Cantlay had four other finishes outside the top 35. His inconsistent play off the tee and iron play are to blame -- he ranks 143rd in strokes gained: approach (-.359) and 135th in driving accuracy (55.2% fairways hit).

15. Viktor Hovland

The reigning FedEx Cup champion, who looked ready to challenge Scheffler for world No. 1 at the end of last season, has limped through the first three months of 2024 with an average finish of 39.4 in five starts. He had just one top-20 -- a tie for 19th at the Genesis Invitational. Hovland has been frustrated with his swing and is working with a new coach, Grant Waite. His chipping woes have reemerged as well.

16. Jake Knapp

A nightclub bouncer just three years ago, Knapp became the third PGA Tour rookie to win this season when he captured the Mexico Open at Vidanta on Feb. 25. The former UCLA golfer has three top-5 finishes in 12 starts.

17. Chris Kirk

Kirk has cooled off a bit after capturing his sixth PGA Tour victory at the season-opening Sentry in Hawaii in January. It was his second win in 11 months after he came out on top at the Honda Classic in February 2023. He's 140th in strokes gained: putting (-.404) but has been more than solid off the tee and on approach.

18. Justin Thomas

JT's struggles seemed to be in the rearview mirror after he had four top-12 finishes in his first five starts this season. He took a couple of steps back with missed cuts at the Genesis Invitational and Players Championship and a tie for 64th at the Valspar Championship. Still, his form seems headed in the right direction again.

19. Shane Lowry

After a slow start to 2024, Lowry has rebounded with three consecutive top-20 finishes, including a tie for fourth at the Cognizant Classic and a solo third at the API. Lowry announced this week that he'll play with McIlroy in next month's Zurich Classic of New Orleans team event.

20. Matt Fitzpatrick

After a so-so start to the 2024 season, Fitzpatrick seems close to putting everything together after a solo-fifth finish at the Players Championship. He had missed cuts at the Sony Open, Genesis Invitational and API before he bounced back at TPC Sawgrass. He is driving the ball better off the tee after removing a 4-gram weight from the grip of the club. Fitzpatrick told PGATour.com that he forgot the weight was even there.

21. Max Homa

Homa came out of the gates well this season, tying for 14th at the Sentry and 13th at the Farmers Insurance Open. He also tied for eighth at the API. Homa has been wildly inconsistent off the tee, ranking 150th in driving accuracy (54.2%) and 115th in strokes gained: off the tee (-.117).

22. Byeong Hun An

The South Korean golfer lost to Grayson Murray in a playoff at the Sony Open in Hawaii and has played consistently well since. He has three top-10s and five top-25s with only one missed cut in eight starts. After losing his PGA Tour card in 2021, he has climbed back to No. 42 in the Official World Golf Ranking.

23. Jason Day

The former world No. 1 golfer played some of his best golf at the tour's biggest stops this season. He had three top-10s against elite fields at signature events, tying for 10th at the Sentry, for sixth at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and had a solo ninth at the Genesis. He has finished 16th or better in two of his three starts at Memorial Park, where his elite short game is a weapon.

24. Tom Hoge

Hoge has been a model of consistency this season, making the cut in nine of 10 starts with a pair of top-10 finishes. He performed well on the West Coast swing with a tie for sixth at Pebble Beach and solo eighth at the Genesis. His iron play continues to be among the best on tour -- he ranks second in shots gained: approach (1.234) and proximity (34 feet, 7 inches).

25. Peter Malnati

Bucket hats off to the PGA Tour policy board director, who picked up his second career PGA Tour victory -- and his first in 3,058 days -- at the Valspar Championship. He earned a two-year exemption, his first invitation to the Masters and a spot in the remaining four signature events of the season. He jumped from 184th to 65th in the world after the win.

Just missed the top 25: Harris English , Tommy Fleetwood , Austin Eckroat , Jordan Spieth , Collin Morikawa , Christiaan Bezuidenhout , J.T. Poston , Erik van Rooyen , Eric Cole , Grayson Murray, Min Woo Lee

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2024 valero texas open odds, picks and pga tour predictions, share this article.

Players will have one last chance to tune their game before the Masters this week at the 2024 Valero Texas Open , which is once again being held at TPC San Antonio. Corey Conners will look to defend his title after winning the event last year with a score of 15-under par.

Below, we look at the 2024 Valero Texas Open odds and make our PGA Tour picks and predictions .

Rory McIlroy typically doesn’t play the week before the Masters but he’s in the Texas Open field this year and the betting favorite to win at +1000. Ludvig Aberg (+1200), Hideki Matsuyama (+1800) and Collin Morikawa (+2500) are among the other big names teeing it up this week.

TPC San Antonio is a par 72 and plays at 7,438 yards with very little elevation change throughout the course. It’s not an overly challenging course, with the winning score being between 11-under and 20-under par over the last 8 years. However, if the wind picks up it will have a big impact on scoring.

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Valero Texas Open – Expert picks

Odds provided by BetMGM Sportsbook ; access USA TODAY Sports Scores and Sports Betting Odds hub for a full list. Lines last updated Monday at 3:53 p.m. ET.

Ludvig Aberg (+1200)

Aberg is only in his 1st full season on the PGA Tour, but he’s already one of the best ball strikers in the world and that’s highly advantageous on this course. He ranks 24th in strokes gained: tee-to-green this season and his putting isn’t holding him back too much (57th in SG), so he’s a perfect fit for TPC San Antonio, even after missing the cut here last year.

Corey Conners (+2200)

It’s always hard to expect the defending champion to win in back-to-back years but Conners’ course history and ball-striking prowess make him too good to ignore. He’s won here twice since 2019 (his only 2 PGA wins)  and hasn’t finished worse than 35th in his last 5 starts in this event, using his stellar iron play to propel him to 2 victories.

Valero Texas Open picks – Contenders

Keith mitchell (+5500).

After blowing a 54-hole lead at the Valspar Championship 2 weeks ago, Mitchell missed the cut at the Texas Children’s Houston Open over the weekend after finishing 3-over in his last 5 holes to miss it by 1 shot. He’s still among the best players on tour from tee to green, ranking 8th in strokes gained, and he’s finished 17th and 26th in 2 starts here during his career. He’s due for a bounce-back.

Erik van Rooyen (+6600)

van Rooyen has not been good around the greens this season, which is holding him back from contending more, but he’s 48th on tour in strokes gained: tee-to-green and 19th total. Before he missed the cut at the Players Championship, he finished 8th, 2nd and 25th in 3 consecutive tournaments.

Valero Texas Open picks – Long shots

Ryan moore (+10000).

Moore is quietly playing well right now, finishing 31st, 5th and 45th in his last 3 starts. Impressively, he’s 12th in SG: tee-to-green, including 4th in approach, but his putting has been horrific (173rd). TPC San Antonio is more about ball striking than putting, which has helped him finish in the top 10 twice before, so he’s a worthy long shot this week.

Matt Kuchar (+12500)

Kuchar has finished 3rd, 2nd, 12th and 7th in his last 4 starts at this tournament, an event he plays every year. Looking at his stats from this season gives you pause when it comes to betting him because he isn’t playing well (6 missed cuts in 8 starts), but it’s hard to ignore his recent finishes at TPC San Antonio.

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• Who PGA Tour players want to see on the next season of ‘Full Swing’ on Netflix
• Scottie Scheffler explains what he saw (or didn’t see) on missed birdie putt at 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open

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2024 Masters odds, field: Surprising PGA picks, predictions from advanced golf model that nailed 10 majors

T he 88th edition of the Masters gets underway on Thursday, April 11, when golf's top players will descend on Augusta National Golf Club. It's the first major championship of the PGA Tour season and there are plenty of storylines unfolding as we inch closer to one of golf's most historic tournaments. With a victory at the 2024 Masters, Rory McIlroy will join elite company as just the sixth player to win golf's Grand Slam. McIlroy, who secured a runner-up finish at Augusta in 2022, enters the Masters 2024 as one of the favorites at 10-1.

Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 ranked player in the world, is listed as the 5-1 favorite according to the 2024 Masters odds, while defending champion Jon Rahm is going off at 13-1. A star-studded 2024 Masters field that includes past champions like Jordan Spieth (21-1), Hideki Matsuyama (31-1) and Dustin Johnson (36-1) will be in heavy pursuit. Before locking in any 2024 Masters picks of your own, be sure to see the 2024 Masters golf predictions and projected leaderboard from the proven computer model at SportsLine .

SportsLine's proprietary model, built by DFS pro Mike McClure, has been red-hot since the PGA Tour resumed in June 2020. In fact, the model is up nearly $9,500 on its best bets since the restart, nailing tournament after tournament.

McClure's model predicted Scottie Scheffler would finish on top of the leaderboard at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players Championship this season. McClure also included Hideki Matsuyama in his best bets to win the 2024 Genesis Invitational. That bet hit at +9000, and for the entire tournament, McClure's best bets returned nearly $1,000.

The model also predicted Jon Rahm would be victorious at the 2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions and The American Express. At the 2023 Masters, the model was all over Rahm's second career major victory heading into the weekend. Rahm was two strokes off the lead heading into the third round, but the model still projected him as the winner. It was the second straight Masters win for the model, which also nailed Scheffler winning in 2022.

In addition, McClure's best bets included Nick Taylor (70-1) winning the 2023 RBC Canadian Open, Jason Day (17-1) winning outright at the 2023 AT&T Byron Nelson, and Rickie Fowler (14-1) finishing on top of the leaderboard at the 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classic. This same model has also nailed a whopping 10 majors entering the weekend. Anyone who has followed it has seen massive returns.

Now that the Masters 2024 field is taking shape, SportsLine simulated the tournament 10,000 times, and the results were surprising. Head to SportsLine now to see the projected leaderboard.

Top 2024 Masters predictions 

One major surprise the model is calling for at the 2024 Masters: Rory McIlroy, a four-time major champion and one of the co-favorites, fails to complete the career grand slam and barely cracks the top five at Augusta National. The world's No. 2-ranked golfer is off to a rough start in 2024, with his highest finish through his first five starts being 19th at the Players Championship.

Putting was an issue for McIlroy at the start of the season, as he previously ranked 129th in that area (-0.246). While he has improved to 83rd on the PGA Tour (0.036) and his total shots gained (0.610) is 40th, he is still 123rd in shots gained approaching the green (-0.176). While there appears to be small improvements in his game, his finishes this season are why the model is low on him.

Another surprise: Jordan Spieth, a 21-1 longshot, makes a strong run at the title. He has a much better chance to win it all than his odds imply, so he's a target for anyone looking for a huge payday. Spieth has racked up 13 wins on the PGA Tour, which includes a victory at the Masters in 2015. He's had plenty of success at Augusta National throughout his career, finishing fourth or better in six of his 10 starts there.

He's finished fourth or better in two of his last three starts at Augusta and will enter the 2024 Masters Tournament as one of the best putters on tour. The 30-year-old currently ranks fourth in putting average (1.688), 10th in strokes gained: putting (0.757) and 14th in putts per round (28.05). Those impressive stats, plus his long odds, make Spieth a strong play for your 2024 Masters predictions, according to the model.  See who else to pick here .

How to make 2024 Masters picks

The model is also targeting six other golfers with odds of 20-1 or longer to make a strong run at the green jacket. Anyone who backs these longshots could hit it big. You can only see the model's picks here .

Who will win the 2024 Masters, and which longshots will stun the golfing world? Check out the Masters 2024 odds below and then visit SportsLine to see the projected Masters leaderboard, all from the model that's nailed 10 golf majors, including last year's Masters and Open Championship .

2024 Masters odds, field

Full set of Masters picks, best bets, and predictions here.

Scottie Scheffler +500

Rory McIlroy +1000

Jon Rahm +1300

Brooks Koepka +2100

Jordan Spieth +2100

Will Zalatoris +2100

Viktor Hovland +2100

Xander Schauffele +2400

Ludvig Aberg +2400

Patrick Cantlay +2800

Justin Thomas +2800

Cameron Smith +3100

Hideki Matsuyama +3100

Collin Morikawa +3100

Joaquin Niemann +3100

Wyndham Clark +3100

Matt Fitzpatrick +3600

Dustin Johnson +3600

Tony Finau +4400

Max Homa +4400

Brian Harman +4600

Shane Lowry +4600

Cameron Young +4600

Jason Day +4600

Bryson DeChambeau +4600

Sam Burns +5500

Min Woo Lee +5500

Sahith Theegala +5500

Tommy Fleetwood +5500

Sung-Jae Im +7500

Tyrrell Hatton +7500

Corey Conners +9000

Tom Kim +9000

Justin Rose +9000

Patrick Reed +9000

Russell Henley +12000

Adam Scott +12000

Rickie Fowler +12000

Jake Knapp +12000

Phil Mickelson +16000

Harris English +16000

Sergio Garcia +16000

Tiger Woods +16000

Gary Woodland +19000

Keegan Bradley +19000

Si Woo Kim +19000

Chris Kirk +19000

Ryan Fox +19000

J.T. Poston +19000

Nick Dunlap +19000

Cameron Davis +19000

Thorbjorn Olesen +19000

Adrian Meronk +19000

Sepp Straka +19000

Nick Taylor +19000

Eric Cole +19000

Matthieu Pavon +19000

Emiliano Grillo +19000

Nicolai Hojgaard +19000

Luke List +21000

Adam Hadwin +21000

Charl Schwartzel +28000

Kurt Kitayama +28000

Bubba Watson +28000

Ryo Hisatsune +28000

Erik van Rooyen +28000

Danny Willett +34000

Denny McCarthy +34000

Lee Hodges +34000

Taylor Moore +43000

Adam Schenk +43000

Lucas Glover +43000

Grayson Murray +55000

Christo Lamprecht +55000

Mike Weir +100000

Jose Maria Olazabal +100000

Fred Couples +100000

Vijay Singh +100000

Zach Johnson +100000

Stewart Hagestad +100000

Jasper Stubbs +100000

Santiago De La Fuente +100000

Neal Shipley +100000

Alex Noren Betting Profile: Texas Children's Houston Open

Betting Profile

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Alex Noren hits the links March 28-31 in the 2024 Texas Children's Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course following a 19th-place finish in THE PLAYERS Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida his last time in competition.

The Texas Children's Houston Open Tournament & Course Info

• Date: March 28-31, 2024
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Course: Memorial Park Golf Course
• Par: 70 / 7,435 yards
• Purse: $9.1M
• Previous Winner: Tony Finau

At the Texas Children's Houston Open

• Over his last two trips to the Texas Children's Houston Open, Noren has an average score of -8, with an average finish of fourth.
• Noren last participated in the Texas Children's Houston Open in 2022, finishing fourth with a score of -8.
• With numbers of 4.236 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (second in field), 5.299 in SG: Approach the Green (ninth), and 7.931 in SG: Putting (second), Tony Finau won this tournament in 2022.
• In addition, Finau's average driving distance was 302.4 (20th in field), he hit 77.78% of greens in regulation (first), and he averaged 28 putts per round (seventh).

Noren's Recent History at the Texas Children's Houston Open

Noren's recent performances.

• Noren has finished in the top 20 twice over his last five appearances, finishing as high as the top 10 in one of those outings.
• Over his last five appearances, Noren has finished within five shots of the leader one time and finished with a better-than-average score four times.
• He has an average score of -10 across his last five events.
• Alex Noren has averaged 289.3 yards off the tee in his past five tournaments.
• Noren is averaging 0.790 in terms of Strokes Gained: Putting in his past five tournaments.
• Noren is averaging 3.272 Strokes Gained: Total in his past five tournaments.

Noren's Advanced Stats and Rankings

• Noren owns a Strokes Gained: Off the Tee average of 0.400 (28th) this season, while his average driving distance of 289.9 yards ranks 137th on TOUR.
• In terms of Strokes Gained: Approach, Noren owns a 0.106 mark (72nd on TOUR).
• On the greens, Noren's 0.156 Strokes Gained: Putting mark places him 72nd on TOUR this season, and his putts-per-round average ranks first. He has broken par % of the time (first).

Noren's Best Finishes

• Noren has not won any of the six tournaments he has taken part in this season, though he has earned one top-10 finish.
• In those six events, he made the cut six times (100%).
• Currently, Noren has 262 points, ranking him 67th in the FedExCup standings.

Noren's Best Strokes Gained Performances

• This season Noren's best Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee mark came at the WM Phoenix Open in February 2024, as he produced a 2.728 mark, which ranked him 15th in the field. He finished 53rd in that tournament.
• Noren's best Strokes Gained: Approach effort this season came at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches, where his 5.734 mark ranked sixth in the field.
• In terms of Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green, Noren's best performance this season was at THE PLAYERS Championship, where his 1.867 mark ranked 23rd in the field.
• At the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches in February 2024, Noren delivered his best Strokes Gained: Putting mark this season (1.618). That ranked 35th in the field.
• Noren posted his best Strokes Gained: Total mark this season (7.627) in February 2024 at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches. That ranked ninth in the field.

Noren's Strokes Gained Rankings

Noren's past results.

All stats in this article are accurate for Noren as of the start of the Texas Children's Houston Open.

Note: The PGA TOUR has created this story via a machine-learning model using data from ShotLink , powered by CDW, in addition to player performance data. While we strive for accuracy and quality, please note that the information provided may not be entirely error-free.