What is putts gained and how do you calculate it? Read on to learn about the one and only metric to measure how well you are putting.
Mark Broadie is a professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. On top of that, he's an avid golfer and has spent a lot of time analyzing the causes of golfers' success.
After his first article, "Assessing Golfer Performance Using Golfmetrics", which revolutionized golf metrics with the strokes gained metric, he published another article about measuring putting on the PGA Tour.
As in his previous article, he starts by telling us the limitations of current stats for putting:
So, Broadie says we need a better measure of putting skill, and that is putts gained.
Putts gained measures the number of putts better or worse than the field from a given distance.
Putts gained = PGA TOUR average putts to holeout from the distance - Actual putts to holeout
If we add the putts gained for each hole we will get the putts gained for a round, which is a very sound metric of the quality of the putting in that round.
You can calculate your putts gained for any round using Golfity and you can also use our simple strokes gained putting calculator for a quick calculation, free and no sign up needed.
Strokes Gained Putting is the best measure of your putting skill and you can now use our free Strokes Gained Putting Calculator to calculate it.
Everybody talks about strokes gained but do you really know what it is?
Data Golf is one of the best sites for fans of golf analytics.
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