00:00Some non-golvers can be forgiven for thinking that a scratch handicapper is equal to a tour professional,
00:05but the truth is there is miles between the two.
00:11So thanks to numbers from Arcos Golf gleaned from some 800 million real shots,
00:17we've been able to take the stats from scratch golfers, 0.0 index golfers,
00:22and compare them against PGA Tour stats to see how big that golf is.
00:27And spoiler warning, it's pretty big.
00:30So let's start with driving.
00:35Let's do distance first between this scratch golfer and tour professional.
00:39We're going to do average tour stats to start.
00:42So a scratch golfer averages 259 yards off the tee,
00:46which would leave them an awful, awful long way back of the average player on the PGA Tour.
00:52And that average is 299.9 yards, so let's just call it 300, shall we?
00:57Meaning scratch players are going to be, on average, just over 40 yards back from their PGA Tour counterparts.
01:04Now, if we then look at that comparison between the longest player on tour, which in 22-23 was Rory McIlroy,
01:10he averaged 326 yards.
01:14So that scratch player would now be about 66 yards behind McIlroy on average,
01:18which is such a huge difference when you think about the irons they'll be hitting into the green,
01:22how far back they are on par fours and par fives, and which par fours and par fives become reachable.
01:28Now, let's look at driving accuracy, and unsurprisingly, once again, the tour pros are much more accurate.
01:36The scratch golfer will find a fairway 51% of the time, which is pretty good,
01:41but the average PGA Tour professional is hitting just under 60, so nearly 10% more there.
01:48During the 2023 season, it was Russell Henley who was the most accurate, and he hit a whopping 72% of fairways across a season, which is pretty huge.
01:58So, ultimately, that driving distance is a huge, huge gulf, while the accuracy of about 10% is pretty significant too.
02:10Right then, next up, let's check greens in regulation approach play.
02:14So, not only are these players now, PGA Tour pros, about 40 yards further up the hole than their scratch counterpart,
02:21but they're hitting more greens too, probably because they're a bit closer on average,
02:25depending on the courses they're playing.
02:26But let's look at the stats. The scratch golfer hits an average of 56% of greens in regulation,
02:31while the PGA Tour average is 66.32.
02:36So, 10% difference there, again, similar to driving accuracy we just looked at.
02:41For some context about who's doing that on the tour at the minute,
02:44world number one at the time of recording,
02:46Scotty Scheffler led the Tour in greens in regulation last year,
02:50and for the past two years, in fact.
02:52So, two years ago, it was 72.29%,
02:56and in 2023, 74.43% of greens hit.
03:01I'm a single-index golfer, and to me, scratch golfers are like, wow,
03:05I'm nowhere near them, and they're nowhere near these PGA Tour players at the end of the day.
03:09So, for Scotty Scheffler, that equates to 13.4 greens in regulation per round,
03:14whereas scratch golfers are averaging just over 10.
03:17So, we're on the green now, and we're putting,
03:23but what is the difference between scratch and tour pros here?
03:27Now, we're going to look at number of one putts, number of three putts,
03:31and then total putts per round on average between these two players.
03:34So, let's start with three putts.
03:36The scratch golfer averages 1.3, three putts per round, which is still pretty low,
03:41whereas the PGA Tour average at the minute stands at 0.49,
03:45which is less than a three putt every other round.
03:48Now, the best for this last year on the PGA Tour was Aaron Baddeley.
03:52Do you remember him?
03:53Not seen him for a while.
03:54However, he averaged just 0.24 three putts per round last season of the Tour,
04:01which is one every what?
04:03Less than one every four, which is pretty crazy to think.
04:06Such a huge goal between these two players at the minute.
04:09Let's look at one putts per round then.
04:11So, zero-digit golfers are one putting 5.2 times per round on average,
04:16which still falls well short of the PGA Tour average, which was 7.07 in 2023.
04:23Now, topping the rankings for that on the Tour was Taylor Montgomery,
04:26who averaged 8.29 one putts per round.
04:29And Montgomery also topped the putts per round statistics with an average of 27.38.
04:35Now, that stat is almost 1.7 lower than the Tour average, which is 29.02 putts per round,
04:42with scratch golfers averaging 30.7 putts per round.
04:46So, about 1.7 more putts than the average Tour pro from last year.
04:51And they add up, really, don't they?
04:53The amount of three putts, the amount of one putts, and those total putts per round,
04:56show you those sort of differences between scratch players and those Tour pros.
05:04So, lastly then, when we're comparing these two golfers,
05:07and I want to just pause for a minute and think about what the actual handicap differences are
05:11between a scratch golfer and a Tour pro.
05:13So, the average handicap of the current PGA Tour players is predicted at around plus 5.4.
05:21So, we're talking five and a half shot difference between your scratch player here.
05:23Tiger Woods in 2008, his handicap was estimated to be plus 11 or plus 12.
05:28I know John Rahms on the World Handicap System was predicted to be around this 18 months ago.
05:34So, we've seen the golf in areas of the game and the stats,
05:37and we can see that ultimately leads to about five shots per round.
05:40That's the key difference there.
05:41But, let's finally look at scoring totals, right?
05:46What happens in birdies and bogeys and how each type of player plays on par 3s, 4s and 5s, right?
05:52So, start with scoring.
05:53Tour pros, shock horror, pick up more birdies, and bogey less than scratch golfers.
05:59But, how many?
06:00So, the Tour leader last year for birdies per round was Ludwig.
06:03Aubert, 4.76 per round, which is pretty whopping.
06:08That's well over double the amount a scratch player will make, which is 2.2.
06:12The Tour average for birdies at the minute is 3.72.
06:15So, that still gives you 1.5 more birdies per round for a PGA Tour pro than a scratch player.
06:21So, for bogeys, the story's very, very similar.
06:24If you look at a scratch player, they're making two more bogeys per round than the PGA Tour pros,
06:29and 2.8 more than the PGA Tour leader, which last year was Scotty Scheffler making just 1.82 bogeys per round,
06:38which is kind of mad to think, really, isn't it?
06:39But, I guess when they're driving it accurately, hitting that many greens, it's going to happen, isn't it?
06:43If we look at the scoring on par threes, fours, and fives, it's actually very similar here,
06:50which I found really interesting when we dived into this.
06:53So, on par threes, a scratch golfer average is 3.1.
06:57A PGA Tour average is 3.06.
07:00So, that's pretty negligible.
07:03Par fours, a bit more of a golf here.
07:05Scratch golfers average 4.2.
07:08The pros average 4.03.
07:10So, just a hair over par on those par fours.
07:14Finally, then, on the par fives.
07:16This is where both scratch and pro golfers take advantage of golf courses and start scoring a bit better,
07:23but the pros do it marginally better, again.
07:25So, the par five average for a scratch golf is 4.7, whereas it's 4.63 for the PGA Tour Pro.
07:32So, we can kind of see there where the scoring chips away,
07:36and it feels, to me at least, like the biggest difference,
07:39and we all knew there was one anyway, but the biggest difference is that driving distance.
07:43Huge amount of driving distance.
07:45And I guess when these pros are playing much longer courses, much tighter courses,
07:49that does play to their advantage.
07:50But, I think ultimately, although we knew the differences were big between these two players,
07:56the stats from Arcos have shown us they're perhaps even bigger than we initially thought.
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