How well should you putt?

I picked up some stats from the book, "How Well Should You Putt?" by Clyne Solley. He collected putting statistics from amateurs and pros in the 1970s and published his findings in 1977. These are the number of putts per round for a scratch golfer and a 40-handicapper:

One-putt greens:
Scratch        5.3
40-Hand.      2.4

Two-putt greens:
Scratch        11.7
40-Hand.      11.6

Three-putt greens:
Scratch        0.9
40-Hand.      3.6

This works out to a total number of putts for the scratch player of 31.3 and 36.4 for the 40H. Five strokes on the green sounds like there isn't that much of a gap between the two talent levels, but let's look deeper.

The one-putt greens for the scratch player are birdie putts primarily of lengths that the 40H player never makes, and the back end of a few up-and-downs. The 40H has many more up-and-down opportunities and still converts fewer of them.

The numbers of two-putt greens are the same, but they are put together in different ways. The scratch player tends to get on the green from the fairway, and is likely starting to putt from distances that would put the 40H in three-putt territory. The 40H more often than not gets on the green with a chip. A good number of the 40H's two-putt greens represent the up-and-down that didn't get converted.

Three-putt greens for the 40H are likely sequences that started at distances from which the scratch player routinely gets down in two. I would bet that the 5.1-stroke gap in total putts would be a lot wider if both players started putting from the same place every time.

What you can learn from this is to keep track of the distances you start putting from and practice those distances. The higher your handicap, the more important getting down in two from beyond 20 feet is, whereas the better player would do well to practice from the 6 to 15-foot range, where approaches from the fairway (occasionally) and pitches from under 100 yards (generally) should be ending up.


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