- 5 minutes ago
In this video, Joel Tadman from Golf Monthly takes a deep dive into putting statistics from Arccos to reveal when you should be holing putts depending on your handicap.
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00:00Now when you watch professional golfers on TV, it seems like they're holding putts every
00:04time from all over the place, but what in actual fact is the reality of how often players
00:09of different abilities hold putts, especially from within that sort of 10-foot range?
00:14In this video, I'm going to be touching on the different handicap ranges and what your
00:17expectations should be in terms of holding out from different distances, and spoiler
00:22alert, you're probably not as bad at putting as you thought you were.
00:26All the data that I'm going to present in this video comes courtesy of Arcos, one of the
00:30leaders when it comes to performance tracking and analysis.
00:33If you're interested in getting a set of their smart sensors, I've put some handy links in
00:37the description below where you can get your hands on those for the best price in your area
00:40and use the code GOLFMONTHY to get 15% off.
00:43Right, we're here at the incredible Elsa course at Trump Turnberry.
00:47Let's dive into those different distances and also those different handicap ranges to see
00:51how you compare.
00:53Right, so we're going to start with inside two feet.
00:58Now, for most golfers, most players, this would be inside the circle of friendship.
01:03You'd have a gimme.
01:04For a lot of players, it would be deemed as simply a tap-in, but actually, if you look
01:07a bit more closely at the Arcos data, it's interesting to see that every ability of golfer misses
01:13putts from this distance.
01:15Even scratch golfers are not holding this putt every single time.
01:19The data suggests that 97% of the time scratch golfers are holding this goes down to, you
01:24see, five handicap, 95%.
01:26Arguably, the most interesting is that the 10 handicap range from inside two foot, 10 handicap
01:31golfers are making this length of putt 91% of the time.
01:36Basically, every 10 times a 10 handicapper has a two foot putt, they're going to be missing
01:40it one out of 10 times, which is, I think, relatively high.
01:43It's interesting, if you're playing in a match against a 10 handicapper and you'd be thinking
01:48about giving them a putt from this distance, maybe you want to think again, especially if
01:52the putt's got a bit more break on it, that will obviously add a level of difficulty.
01:55Where you might think it's a gimme or a tap-in, definitely reconsider because every ability
02:01of golfer does miss this putt from time to time.
02:04Hopefully, I'm not going to be one of those right now.
02:10Would you believe it?
02:11There you go.
02:12Everyone misses them.
02:13Now we've moved back slightly into this three to five foot range.
02:21As you would expect, you can see the percentages in terms of the make percentages for the different
02:26handicapped abilities does drop quite significantly.
02:29For a scratch golfer, it goes right down to 69%.
02:33Just under three-quarters of the time, scratch golfers are making this length of putt.
02:38You can see it just drop down considerably again for a five-index golfer makes 59%, a 10-index
02:44golfer makes 55% of this length of putt, 15-index makes 47%, and a 20-index makes 45%.
02:52A couple of interesting things here, if you look at the PGA Tour average from this distance,
02:57it's just shy of 97%.
02:59There's quite a big difference between the best players in the world and the best amateur
03:04players in the world in terms of that difference between a scratch golfer and a PGA Tour player.
03:09Definitely, if you're a scratch golfer or a single-figure golfer, this is the distance
03:12where you can really make up some ground.
03:15Another thing that's interesting about this particular distance is that towards the latter
03:19part of it, look at those make percentages.
03:21This is around about the distance where 10 handicap golfers, 15 handicap golfers are missing
03:27as many as they're making.
03:28It's a really critical distance if you want to try to improve your game and you're in that
03:31handicap bracket, practicing from within this three-to-five-foot range, especially towards
03:36the latter part of that distance, so towards that four- and five-foot range.
03:40This is a really crucial length of putt to practice.
03:43If you can improve your putting consistency from this range, you're going to make really
03:47good inroads on your scores and hopefully lower your handicap.
03:50Let's see if I can be better from this distance than I was at two feet.
03:54Phew, that's a relief.
03:58Some food for thought there in terms of the make percentages from this three-to-five-foot
04:01range.
04:02Clearly, it's an area to work on for the majority of golfers and if you make some strides in
04:07this area, you should definitely see your scores come down.
04:10Now, we move on to the six-to-nine-foot range.
04:16I have to say, I was very surprised by the make percentages from the Arcos data.
04:20I would consider anything within this six-to-nine-foot range as a relatively decent chance if it's
04:25for birdie or saving par.
04:26I'd like to think that maybe hole slightly more of these than I would miss, but actually,
04:31if you look at the Arcos data, it tells us that every ability of golfer misses more putts
04:36from this range than they do make.
04:39Scratch golfer, 40%, five-handicap index, 34%, 10-handicap, 33%, so not a big drop from
04:46a five to 10-handicap there, 15-handicap, 29%, and a 20-handicap, 26%.
04:53Actually, if you look at the difference between a scratch golfer and a 20-handicap index, there's
05:00not much disparity between the make percentages, around about 11%, so clearly the range is a
05:06lot tighter from this distance.
05:07Ability seems to have less of an impact from six-to-nine-foot range.
05:12There's a couple of other interesting observations about this sort of distance.
05:15If you look at the PGA Tour average from this distance, it's around about 53% from eight
05:21feet and 47% from nine feet, so the sort of 50-50 make percentage is actually around about
05:28eight and a half feet for a tour player, so even from nine-foot, tour players are missing
05:33more putts than they're making.
05:34Also, from this particular distance, around the seven-foot mark, so the closer end of this spectrum,
05:40is around that 50-50 make percentage for a five-index golfer, so again, that's a really
05:46critical distance to focus on in your practice.
05:48I think, generally speaking, this is a range of putts where you can really keep the momentum
05:55of your round going if you're holding a lot of putts from six to nine feet, especially in the six
05:59to seven-foot range.
06:00You're going to make some really big inroads on your scores if you can become more prolific
06:04from this area.
06:05I've got a putt here from about seven feet.
06:07Let's see if I can torque the torque and roll this one in.
06:15Lovely.
06:16There we go.
06:17Obviously, clearly a lot better from mid-range than I am short-range.
06:19So, six to nine feet, some really interesting data there, but I think if you've got expectations
06:24around making more putts than you miss from this distance, think again, because actually,
06:28every ability of golfer is missing more than they make from this range.
06:32All right, so now we've moved a little bit further away, this T-peg is 10-foot away from
06:40the hull. Actually, the difference in ability level make percentage from 10-foot and out is
06:45remarkably close, even closer than it was from six to nine feet. Even from this distance,
06:51the percentages are very tight. Actually, if you move a little bit further away from the hull, so 25-feet
06:56to 39 feet, the difference between all the handicap ranges that we've talked about from scratch,
07:01all the way up to 20 handicap, is only 1%. So, very little difference there between your make
07:06percentages from that slightly longer distance. Obviously, we know from further away from the
07:11hull, we know that higher handicap index golfers are going to be three-putting a little bit more
07:15frequently than lower handicap golfers, but in this video, we're only really talking about make
07:18percentages. It's interesting to note that from this sort of distance, 10-foot and out,
07:23the difference between those ability levels is negligible. If you look at the stats from the
07:27PGA Tour, the best player on tour from outside 25 feet only makes 10% of putts. That was Wyndham
07:33Clark in the season, just gone. The tour average from outside 25 feet in terms of make percentage
07:39is 5.5%. Clearly, even tour players are not banging in those 25-footers all that often. Clearly,
07:48you can't be expected, regardless of your ability, to make an awful lot of putts from
07:52at 10 feet and longer. Clearly, where the gains are to be had is from shorter range.
07:59That's where you can make really big progress versus your competitive set.
08:03This boy, in particular, is 10-foot away. Let's see if I can buck the trend of make
08:07percentages and knock this one in. That looks tasty. Oh my God, it's broken loads. Clearly,
08:14I'm among my peers in missing putts from 10-foot as a three handicap index golfer.
08:20Don't be expected to be making putts from 10-foot and out. Your best strategy is to make sure you get
08:25the pace right and try and eliminate those three putts, especially if you're in those higher handicap
08:30brackets, 15 and 20. That's where the three-putt percentages really rise and you could definitely
08:36make some progress on your scores in terms of keeping those three putts off your card from 10-foot and out.
08:41Hopefully, you found this data useful in terms of seeing where you fit in among those make
08:46percentages from different distances. Clearly, the beauty of it is that it really shows you
08:51where you can make big inroads on your handicap level if you're looking to improve and break into
08:56the next handicap level. Seeing where those 50-50 splits are in terms of make and miss percentages
09:02is really crucial. For most golfers, watching this video is probably closer to the hole
09:07than you thought it was before you started watching this video. Hopefully, that managed
09:11your expectations a bit and maybe helped you realize that you're not as bad at putting
09:15as you thought you were and that the biggest amount of progress could definitely be made
09:19from quite close to the hole. We saw the disparity between putts from outside 10-foot was very close
09:26indeed regardless of the handicap level. If you're looking to improve your putting, clearly from
09:30shorter range is the way to really hone in your practice and spend a lot of time practicing your
09:35putts from those sorts of different distances inside nine feet. The USGA say that the average golfer
09:43takes around 40 putts per round which is just over two per hole. Clearly, another way to improve your
09:48scores is to eliminate the number of three putts you have on any given hole. Improving your putting
09:54from short range is going to really help contribute to reducing the number of three putts. If you're
09:59interested in improving your putting from short range, do check out the Golf Monthly website because
10:03there's an incredible array of tips, drills, and practice routines that you can try that would
10:08definitely help your consistency from short range. Don't forget, if you've enjoyed the data in this video
10:13and you want to get hold of a set of ARCOS smart sensors for yourself to get your own data on your own
10:18game, do click the link in the description to get your hands on those for the best price in your area.
10:23And don't forget to use the code GOLFMONTHLY at checkout to get 15% off.
10:27So hopefully you enjoyed this video and the one takeaway I'd want you to have from watching this
10:31video is that you're probably not as bad at putting as you thought you were. But that's all from me
10:36here from the ELSA course at the beautiful Trump Turnberry. Hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you
10:41next time.
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