Strokes Gained Putting: What It Means and How to Read Yours

Quick answer: Strokes gained putting compares every putt you hit to the expected number of putts from that distance. From twenty feet a tour player averages about 1.87 putts, so holing it gains 0.87 strokes and three putting it loses 1.13. Add every hole together and you get one number for your round: how many strokes your putting was worth against the standard you are measured against. It is a fairer measure than putts per round because it accounts for how far away you started, which is the thing putts per round completely ignores.

In this post, WhysGuy will cover:

• What strokes gained putting measures, and what it deliberately leaves out.
• The expected putts table, distance by distance.
• The arithmetic, hole by hole, on a full round.
• What a per round number of plus or minus 1.5 actually means.
• Three putt avoidance vs holing more, and which one is worth your practice time.
• What the number tells you to work on, in order.

What Strokes Gained Putting Measures

Putts per round is the stat everyone quotes and it has a glaring hole in it: it does not know how far away you were.

Thirty two putts means nothing on its own. If you missed sixteen greens and chipped to four feet all day, thirty two putts is a bad putting round dressed up as a good one. If you hit fifteen greens and half your first putts were from thirty feet, thirty two putts is excellent work.

Strokes gained putting closes that hole. It measures each putt against the expected putts from where it started, so credit lands where it was earned. A forty footer cosied to two feet gets credit for being a very good putt. A missed six footer takes the blame it deserves.

One important boundary: only strokes played from the putting surface count. A putt from the fringe is an around the green shot, not a putting shot. That keeps the category honest, because putting from off the green is usually a sign of a good short game shot rather than a putting event.

The Expected Putts Table

This is the heart of it. Expected putts by distance, from published PGA Tour averages based on ShotLink data, as set out in Mark Broadie's Every Shot Counts. Figures are rounded.

Two things worth sitting with.

Eight feet is the coin flip, and that is for the best putters on the planet. If you have been beating yourself up for missing from eight feet, the tour expectation is that half of them miss.

The curve flattens fast past twenty feet. From twenty feet to sixty feet, the expectation only moves from 1.87 to 2.28. Forty extra feet costs less than half a putt, because long putting is a distance control skill and distance control scales better than most golfers assume. That is why the way to improve long putting is speed, not line.

Amateur baselines sit higher than these across the board, and they rise most steeply in the five to fifteen foot range. The shape of the curve stays the same though, which is why the lessons below hold whatever level you play at.

The Arithmetic, Hole by Hole

The calculation on a hole is as simple as it gets:

Strokes gained putting on a hole = expected putts from your first putt distance, minus the number of putts you took.

Here is a full round. Thirty two putts, which most golfers would call an ordinary day with the putter.

Thirty two putts, and the putter cost 2.2 strokes against the tour baseline. Now look at where those 2.2 strokes went:

• The two three putts (holes 5 and 13) cost 1.67 strokes between them. That is three quarters of the damage, from two holes.
• Two misses from inside eight feet (holes 4 and 16) cost 1.24 strokes.
• Everything holed across the round returned +1.86, and the biggest single contribution was one ten footer.

Against a tour baseline, minus 2.2 is a perfectly respectable amateur round. The point is not the total. The point is that two long lag putts and two short misses account for almost three strokes of movement, and neither of those categories is "I am a bad putter". They are two specific, separately practisable skills.

What Your Per Round Number Means

A round figure of plus 1.0 or minus 1.5 only means something once you know the baseline behind it.

• Against the PGA Tour baseline. Zero is tour average, which is an extremely high bar. Most amateurs land between minus 1 and minus 4 per round. Minus 2 here is a good putting day for a mid handicapper, not a bad one.
• Against a handicap level baseline. Zero means you putted like a typical golfer at your handicap. This is the version that makes the number honest, because it puts the comparison where you actually live.
• Against your own rolling average. The most useful of the three for improvement. Over ten or fifteen rounds, is the number drifting up.

Putting is the fastest category to stabilise, because you hit roughly thirty of them a round. Five to ten rounds usually gives you something real, which is quicker than any other part of the game. Driving, by comparison, can take twenty rounds to settle. The full picture on all four categories is in what is strokes gained in golf.

Three Putt Avoidance vs Holing More

The worked round above answers this, and so does every set of amateur putting data.

Three putts are the bigger prize. They cost roughly 0.8 to 1.2 strokes each, they are almost entirely a speed control problem on the first putt, and speed control is genuinely trainable. Eliminate one three putt a round and you have found a stroke.

Holing more long putts is not a plan. From thirty feet, a tour player is expected to take two putts. Nobody holes enough of these for it to become a reliable source of gains, and practice aimed at holing thirty footers tends to produce aggressive speed, which produces more three putts.

The short range is the second prize. The six to ten foot band is where the curve is steepest and where a small improvement pays repeatedly. A putt from eight feet is worth 1.50 expected, so every extra one you hole is worth half a stroke.

Put in order of what to work on:

1. Speed control from outside twenty five feet. Target a three foot circle, not the hole. This is the three putt killer.
2. The six to ten foot range. Start line and green reading. High frequency, high value.
3. Inside four feet. Expected 1.13 or better, so a miss is nearly a whole stroke. Not usually a skill problem, more often a routine and commitment problem.
4. Everything else. Which is to say, not much.

For drills that target the first two of those specifically, see putting drills.

What the Number Cannot Tell You

Strokes gained putting tells you how much your putting cost or earned. It does not tell you why.

A minus 2.5 putting round can come from bad green reading, poor speed, a face angle problem, or simply putting on greens rolling at a speed you never see. The number ranks your problem against the rest of your game, and then the diagnosis is a separate job.

It also says nothing about how you got to the green, by design. A round where you hit two greens and still putted plus 1.0 is a good putting performance inside a poor round of golf. Read the category on its own terms and use the other three categories for everything else.

One practical caution: greens vary. A month of soft, slow greens followed by a month of fast ones will move your number without your stroke changing at all. Trends across a season are more reliable than a comparison between two individual rounds.

Common Mistakes

• Judging putting by putts per round. It rewards missing greens. Two golfers with thirty putts can be a stroke and a half apart in reality.
• Counting fringe putts. They belong to the around the green category. Including them flatters your putting number.
• Practising the wrong distance. Most range time on the practice green goes to three footers and thirty footers. The six to ten foot band is where the strokes are.
• Reading minus 2 as a disaster. Against a tour baseline it is a normal, decent amateur round.
• Chasing holed long putts. They are a bonus, not a skill you can bank on, and hunting them produces three putts.
• Comparing rounds on different greens. Speed, grain and slope move the number independently of your stroke. Use the trend.

Getting Your Own Number

You need two things: the distance of your first putt on each hole, and the number of putts you took. Everything else is arithmetic against the baseline.

The WhyGolf app captures both while you play. You track your shots during the round, and strokes gained comes back broken out by category, so putting sits next to your off the tee, approach and around the green numbers and you can see which one is actually the problem. It is the same round that gives you GPS distances and your scorecard, and the scorecard posts to GHIN when you finish. Most of it is free.

Once you have five or ten rounds recorded, the ranking across those four categories is the most useful piece of information about your golf you will ever have, and it is usually not the one you expected.

Key Takeaways

• Every putt is scored against the expected putts from its distance. Baseline minus putts taken, hole by hole, added up for the round.
• Eight feet is a coin flip for tour players. Missing from there is normal. The curve is steepest between six and ten feet, which is where practice pays.
• Three putts are the main leak. Each one costs close to a stroke, and speed control from long range is the fix.
• Long putts holed are a bonus, not a plan. From thirty feet, two putts is the expectation for everybody.
• Only strokes from the putting surface count. Fringe putts belong to around the green, and counting them flatters the number.