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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.
00:25All 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.
00:44Right, we're here at the incredible Elsa course at Trump Turnberry, let's dive into those different
00:48distances and also those different handicap ranges to see how you compare.
00:55Right, 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
01:13misses putts 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.
01:35Basically, 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.
01:44It'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.
01:56So, where you might think it's a gimme or a tap-in, definitely reconsider because
02:00every ability of golfer does miss this putt from time to time.
02:04Hopefully, I'm not going to be one of those right now.
02:09Would you believe it?
02:10There you go, everyone misses them.
02:16All right, so now we've moved back slightly into this three-to-five-foot range. As you would
02:22expect, you can see the percentages in terms of the make percentages for the different handicap
02:26abilities does drop quite significantly. For 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. You see it
02:39just dropped down considerably again for a five-index golfer, make 59%,
02:43a 10-index golfer makes 55% of this length of putt, 15-index makes 47%, and a 20-index
02:50makes
02:5145%. A couple of interesting things here. If you look at the PGA Tour average from this distance,
02:57it's just shy of 97%. There's quite a big difference between the best players in the world and the best
03:04amateur players in the world in terms of that difference between a scratch golfer and a PGA Tour
03:08player. Definitely, if you're a scratch golfer or a single-figure golfer, this is the distance where
03:12you can really make up some ground. The other thing that's interesting about this particular distance
03:17is that towards the latter part of it, look at those make percentages. This is around about the
03:22distance where 10 handicap golfers, 15 handicap golfers are missing as many as they're making. It's
03:28that really critical distance if you want to try to improve your game and you're in that handicap bracket,
03:33practicing from within this three to five-foot range, especially towards the latter part of that
03:37distance, so towards that four and five-foot range. This is a really crucial length of putt to practice.
03:42If you can improve your putting consistency from this range, you're going to make really good inroads
03:47on your scores and hopefully lower your handicap. Let's see if I can be better from this distance than
03:52I was at two feet. Phew, that's a relief. Some food for thought there in terms of the make percentages
03:59from this three to five-foot range. Clearly, it's an area to work on for the majority of golfers.
04:05If you make some strides in this area, you should definitely see your scores come down.
04:13Now we move on to the six to nine-foot range. I have to say, I was very surprised by
04:18the make percentages from the Arcos data. I would consider anything within this six to nine-foot range
04:23as a relatively decent chance if it's for birdie or saving par. I'd like to think that maybe whole
04:28slightly more of these than I would miss, but actually, if you look at the Arcos data, it tells
04:33us that every ability of golfer misses more putts from this range than they do make. Scratch golfer,
04:4040%, five handicap index, 34%, 10 handicap, 33%, so not a big drop from a five to 10 handicap there,
04:4915 handicap, 29%, and a 20 handicap, 26%. Actually, if you look at the difference between
04:57a scratch golfer and a 20 handicap index, there's not much disparity between the make percentages,
05:03around about 11%. Clearly, the range is a lot tighter from this distance. Ability seems to have
05:09less of an impact from six to nine-foot range. A couple of other interesting observations about
05:14this distance. If you look at the PGA Tour average from this distance, it's around about 53%
05:20from eight feet and 47% from nine feet. The sort of 50-50 make percentage is actually around about
05:28eight and a half feet for tour players. Even from nine-foot, tour players are missing more putts
05:33than they're making. Also, from this particular distance, around the seven-foot mark, so the
05:38closer end of this spectrum, is around that 50-50 make percentage for a five-index golfer. Again,
05:45that's a really critical distance to focus on in your practice. I think, generally speaking,
05:50this is a range of putts where you can really keep the momentum of your round going if you're
05:56holding a lot of putts from six to nine feet, especially in the six to seven-foot range. You're
06:00going to make some really big inroads on your scores if you can become more prolific from this area.
06:05I've got a putt here from about seven feet. Let's see if I can talk the talk and roll this
06:11one in.
06:15Lovely. There we go. Obviously, clearly, a lot better from mid-range than I am short-range.
06:20Six 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.
06:35All right, so now we've moved a little bit further away. This T-peg is 10 foot away from the
06:41hole.
06:41Actually, the difference in ability level make percentage from 10 foot and out is remarkably
06:46close, even closer than it was from six to nine feet. Even from this distance, the percentages
06:52are very tight. Actually, if you move a little bit further away from the hole, so 25 feet to 39
06:57feet,
06:57the difference between all the handicap ranges that we've talked about from scratch, all the way up to
07:0120 handicap is only 1%. Very little difference there between your make percentages from that slightly
07:07longer distance. Obviously, we know from further away from the hole, we know that higher handicap
07:13index golfers are going to be three-putting a little bit more frequently than lower handicap
07:16golfers, but in this video, we're only really talking about make percentages. It's interesting
07:19to note that from this sort of distance, 10 foot and out, the difference between those ability
07:25levels is negligible. If you look at the stats from the PGA Tour, the best player on tour from outside
07:3025 feet only makes 10% of putts. That was Wyndham Clark in the season just gone. The tour average
07:36from outside 25 feet in terms of make percentage is 5.5%. Clearly, even tour players are not banging
07:43in those 25 footers all that often. Clearly, you can't be expected, regardless of your ability, to make
07:51an awful lot of putts from at 10 feet and longer. Clearly, where the gains are to be had is
07:57from shorter
07:58range. That's where you can make really big progress versus your competitive set. This boy,
08:04in particular, is 10 foot away. Let's see if I can buck the trend of make percentages and knock this
08:09one
08:09in. That looks tasty. Oh my God, it's broken loads. Clearly, I'm among my peers in missing putts
08:17from 10 foot as a three handicap index golfer. Don't be expected to be making putts from 10 foot and
08:23out.
08:24Your best strategy is to make sure you get the pace right and try and eliminate those three
08:28putts, especially if you're in those higher handicap brackets, 15 and 20. That's where the three putt
08:34percentages really rise, and you could definitely make some progress on your scores in terms of
08:38keeping those three putts off your card from 10 foot and out. Hopefully, you found this data useful
08:44in terms of seeing where you fit in among those make percentages from different distances. Clearly,
08:49the beauty of it is it really shows you where you can make big inroads on your handicap level if
08:54you're looking to improve and break into the next handicap level. Seeing where those 50-50 splits
08:59are in terms of make and miss percentages is really crucial. For most golfers, watching this video is
09:05probably closer to the hole than you thought it was before you started watching this video. Hopefully,
09:10that managed your 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 from quite
09:20close to the hole. We saw the disparity between putts from outside 10 foot was very close indeed,
09:26regardless of the handicap level. If you're looking to improve your putting, clearly, from shorter
09:31range is the way to really hone in your practice and spend a lot of time practicing your putts from
09:35those sorts of different distances inside nine feet. The USGA say that the average golfer takes around 40 putts
09:44per round, which is just over two per hole. Clearly, another way to improve your scores is to eliminate
09:50the number of three putts you have on any given hole. Improving your putting from short range is going
09:55to really help contribute to reducing the number of three putts. If you are interested in improving your
10:00putting from short range, do check out the Golf Monthly website because there's an incredible array of
10:05tips, drills, and practice routines that you can try that would definitely help your consistency from
10:10short range. Don't forget, if you've enjoyed any of the data in this video and you want to get hold
10:14of a set of Arcos smart sensors for yourself to get your own data on your own game, do click
10:19the link
10:19in the description to get your hands on those for the best price in your area. Don't forget to use
10:24the
10:24code GOLFMONTHLY at checkout to get 15% off. Hopefully, you enjoyed this video. The one takeaway I'd
10:30want you to have from watching this video is that you're probably not as bad at putting as you thought
10:34you
10:34were. That's all from me here from the Elsa course at the beautiful Trump Turnberry. Hope you enjoyed
10:40the video and I'll see you next time.
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