Before we dive into the different ways to view and digest Strokes Gained in PAR Golf, it’s important to understand what Strokes Gained means.
At its core, Strokes Gained is just a comparison of the quality of a shot or shots to a reference. The most common reference is a PGA Tour pro, however references can easily be adjusted to any handicap level for both men and women.
For example, with thousands of shots collected by Shotlink, we know that if you give an average PGA Tour a random 8 foot putt that the chances of them making said putt are 50%. Another way to say that is on average it will take them 1.5 strokes to get the ball in the hole from 8 feet as 50% of the time they’ll make it taking one stroke and 50% of the time they’ll miss it and take 2 (or more) strokes.
So if you have an 8 foot putt and make it, congratulations! You just gained 0.5 strokes on a PGA Tour pro.
Conversely, if you miss that 8 footer, you just lost 0.5 strokes to a PGA Tour pro.
This same logic applies throughout every shot on the golf course. We can quantify how good the any shot or groups of shots are relative to a reference.
So when you are done playing your first round of golf with PAR Golf, you will see a plot similar to the below:
This graphic breaks your game into 4 categories:
It then compares your performance in those 4 categories to your preferred reference or benchmark. In my case I use a 0 Handicap golfer, but PAR Golf goes up to 25 handicap references for both male and female.
So reading the graphic above, I was 1.6 strokes better than a 0 Handicap golfer when driving.
I was 2.2 strokes worse than a 0 Handicap golfer with my approach shots.
I was 1.2 strokes better than a 0 Handicap with short game and 2.1 strokes better with my putter.
Overall, I gained 2.7 strokes on a 0 Handicap on this day when I actually shot a 73.
Breaking up the data in this way is extremely useful. With just a glance, I can see that if my goal is to be a 0 Handicap (my reference), then I need to focus on Approach (irons). I am giving away the most strokes in that category, while actually making up strokes in the other categories. Approach is my biggest area of weakness.
As you play more rounds, you’ll also see the narrow vertical bar overlays for each category representing your typical performance. So for instance, gaining 2.1 strokes with the putting day is a great day for me as typically I gain closer to 0.3 strokes with the putter. This day was a good outlier, but not something I could necessarily count on day in and day out. Whereas losing 2.2 strokes on approach is common for me as the typical performance bar is close to losing 2.1 strokes. I almost always lose strokes relative to a 0 Handicap with my irons. It’s a true area of weakness.
Awesome. So now I can quickly get a gauge for how I’m doing for this round or group of rounds… clicking on the graphic in the summary will take me to a drill down and unlock additional strokes gained statistics such as your trends from round to round as below:
The above bar chart stacks your performances on top of each other for each round. Very bar on the x axis represents a different round played.
Glancing at this new graphic you can see which parts of your game drag you down or lift you up.
For instance, the blue and red bars are almost always on the positive side. That means driving and putting are strengths.
However, the red putting bar can shift dramatically between positive and negative impact, meaning it is less consistent and reliable. That is believable as it’s easy to get hot or cold with the putter.
The green bar represents Approach and it is almost always hurting my game. Sometimes by as much as almost 7 strokes!
The yellow bar has almost no impact on the overall. So at this point in my golf, practicing short game would give me the least benefit.
It’s easy to see what to work on -> Approach.
Your graphics will look different depending on your skill set and preferred reference or goal.
The same data can also be seen in line form if that is easier for you to make sense of as below:
This plot makes it slightly easier to compare variance (the amount of change between rounds) for an individual area.
For example, the green line (Approach) has high peaks and low valleys (lots of variance) indicating inconsistency and opportunity.
Whereas the yellow line (short game) has almost no variance and is almost always positive (little opportunity).
Wherever you’re at on your golf journey, Strokes Gained can help guide your practice and quantify your progress.
Access to these graphics requires a Perform subscription in PAR Golf.
Subscribe to Perfect to also get automated tips and feedback based on the data from the in-app intelligence.
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