If you watch professional golf, you've heard the term: Strokes Gained. It's rattled off by commentators as they analyze a player's round, and it's displayed on screen in a dizzying array of charts and numbers. You hear things like, "He gained 2.3 strokes on the field with his approach play today," or "She's leading the field in Strokes Gained: Putting this season."
For many recreational golfers, this is where the conversation ends. It sounds complicated, like a statistic reserved for tour pros with access to an army of data analysts and ShotLink cameras tracking every ball flight. It feels like a foreign language, something interesting to glance at on a broadcast but irrelevant to your Saturday morning game.
But what if I told you that Strokes Gained is not only simple to understand, but it is also the single most powerful tool you can use to lower your handicap? What if the reason you've been stuck at the same score for years is precisely because you haven't been using it?
Understanding this one concept is the key to unlocking a new level of insight into your own game. It's the dividing line between the "guesswork golfer" who guesses what's wrong and the "System Player" who knows with certainty. So, what is Strokes Gained in golf, and why should every serious golfer be tracking it?
Beyond Traditional Stats: Why the Old Numbers Lie
For decades, golfers have relied on a set of traditional statistics to measure their performance: Fairways Hit, Greens in Regulation (GIR), Putts per Round, and Scrambling Percentage. These stats are better than nothing, but they are deeply flawed. They lack context. They tell you what happened, but they don't tell you how good or bad it actually was. And in many cases, they actively mislead you.
Let's take "Putts per Round" as an example, because it's the stat that deceives the most golfers. Imagine two players, Golfer A and Golfer B. Both had 32 putts in their round. According to traditional stats, their putting performance was identical. But let's add some context:
Golfer A consistently hit their approach shots to 15 feet and two-putted every green. Their iron play was excellent, giving them manageable birdie looks all day. Two-putting from 15 feet is a perfectly average result.
Golfer B consistently hit their approach shots to 60 feet. They were on the wrong tier, on the wrong side of the green, leaving themselves with monster lag putts. But their speed control was phenomenal. They lagged every putt to tap-in range and two-putted every green.
Who was the better putter? Clearly, Golfer B. Their performance from long range was exceptional and saved them from what should have been a three-putt nightmare. Golfer A's performance was merely average. The traditional stat of "32 putts" fails to capture this crucial difference. It treats a two-putt from 60 feet the same as a two-putt from 15 feet, which is absurd.
The same problem plagues "Greens in Regulation." Hitting a green from 120 yards is not the same as hitting a green from 210 yards. "Fairways Hit" doesn't distinguish between a drive that splits the fairway at 290 yards and one that dribbles into the short grass at 200. Traditional stats are blunt instruments. They count events without measuring quality.
This is the problem that Strokes Gained was created to solve.
How Strokes Gained Works: The Simple Explanation
Developed by Professor Mark Broadie of Columbia University and detailed in his book Every Shot Counts, Strokes Gained is a framework that measures the quality of every shot relative to a benchmark. It gives you a precise value for how much each shot helped or hurt your score. It is the most significant advancement in golf statistics in the history of the game.
The core concept is surprisingly simple. The system starts with a massive database of shots from a specific benchmark population (e.g., PGA Tour players, or scratch amateurs). From this data, we know the average number of strokes it takes a player of that skill level to hole out from any position on the course: any distance, any lie, any location.
For example, from the PGA Tour benchmark:
- From 150 yards in the fairway, it takes an average of about 2.8 strokes to get the ball in the hole.
- From 8 feet on the green, it takes an average of about 1.5 strokes.
- From 20 yards in a greenside bunker, it takes an average of about 2.2 strokes.
Every shot you hit is a transition from a starting state to an ending state. Strokes Gained is simply the change in the expected number of strokes, minus the one stroke you just took.
Strokes Gained = (Expected Strokes from Start) - (Expected Strokes from End) - 1
Let's walk through a concrete example. You are on a par-4, and your tee shot leaves you 150 yards from the hole in the fairway.
Starting Value: From this position, the data says it takes a tour pro an average of 2.8 strokes to hole out.
You hit your shot. It's a beauty. You stick it to 8 feet from the pin.
Ending Value: From your new position (8 feet on the green), it takes a tour pro an average of 1.5 strokes to hole out.
Strokes Gained = 2.8 (Start) - 1.5 (End) - 1 (The stroke you just took) = +0.3
You gained 0.3 strokes on the field with that single approach shot. It was a high-quality shot that performed better than the tour average from that distance.
Now let's imagine a different outcome. From the same starting position of 150 yards, you hit a poor shot and end up in a greenside bunker, 20 yards from the hole.
Strokes Gained = 2.8 (Start) - 2.2 (End) - 1 (The stroke you just took) = -0.4
You lost 0.4 strokes to the field with that shot. It was a low-quality shot that put you in a significantly worse position than the average outcome.
By applying this logic to every shot in your round, you can get a precise breakdown of where you are gaining and losing strokes. The system categorizes these into four main buckets:
| Category | What It Measures |
|---|---|
| Strokes Gained: Off the Tee (SG:OTT) | All tee shots on par-4s and par-5s. Measures both distance and accuracy. |
| Strokes Gained: Approach (SG:APP) | All shots that are not tee shots and are not around the green. This is your iron and wedge play from the fairway, rough, and other lies. |
| Strokes Gained: Around the Green (SG:ARG) | All chips, pitches, and bunker shots within approximately 30 yards of the green. |
| Strokes Gained: Putting (SG:PUTT) | All putts on the putting surface. |
Your total Strokes Gained is the sum of all four categories. A positive number means you played better than the benchmark. A negative number means you played worse. And the breakdown by category tells you exactly where the gains and losses came from.
Why This Matters for Amateur Golfers
This isn't just a tool for the pros. For amateurs, Strokes Gained is arguably even more valuable, because it cuts through the noise and self-delusion that holds most golfers back. It replaces emotional "feel" with objective fact. Here are three reasons why every serious amateur should be tracking their Strokes Gained data.
1. It Identifies Your True Weaknesses, Not Your Perceived Ones.
As we've discussed, most golfers are terrible at self-diagnosing their game. You think your driver is the problem because a bad drive is emotionally devastating. But the data might show that your putting is quietly costing you four strokes per round while your driving is only costing you two. By looking at your Strokes Gained breakdown, you can see, in black and white, which part of your game is your biggest liability. This allows you to stop wasting time practicing the wrong things and start investing your limited time where it will actually move the needle.
2. It Makes Your Practice Purposeful and Specific.
Once you know your biggest leak, you have a clear mission. If you are losing 3 strokes per round on approach shots, your practice plan is obvious: you need to dedicate the majority of your time to your iron play from specific distances. Strokes Gained analysis gives you a laser-focused target for your practice, ensuring that the time you invest will have the maximum impact on your scores. This is the foundation of a real, effective golf practice plan, not a random bucket of balls on the range.
3. It Tracks Real Improvement Over Time.
How do you know if your practice is working? The guesswork golfer judges this by "feel." They had a good range session, so they must be getting better. The System Player looks at the data. If you've been working on your putting for four weeks, you should see your Strokes Gained: Putting number trend from, say, -2.5 to -1.5 over your last 10 rounds. This provides a powerful, objective feedback loop. It gives you the confidence that your hard work is paying off. It tells you when you need to adjust your approach. And it tells you when it's time to shift your focus to the next biggest leak. It is the ultimate accountability tool.
The System Player's Edge
Strokes Gained is more than just a statistic. It's a philosophy. It's a commitment to replacing guesswork with certainty, emotion with evidence, and hope with a plan. It is the operating system for the modern golfer who is serious about improvement.
You don't need a PhD in statistics to use it. You don't need ShotLink cameras on your local muni. You just need to commit to the process: debrief your rounds honestly, look at the data without ego, identify your leaks, and practice with purpose. This is the path out of your plateau. This is how you become a System Player.