We know that putting is 40% of the game based on the simple equation of the average number of putts divided by the average score, which is true across basically every handicap level from the PGA Tour up to the 30-handicap. The putting game has two different but important skills: direction, which is most important on shorter putts, and distance control, which becomes more important as you move away from the hole.
These two important skills come together when we talk about the two areas of your putting stats that can have the biggest impact on your score: the distance at which you make 50% of your putts gets proportionally closer as the handicaps increase; and the distance at which you average 2.0 putts.
As you can see, the PGA Tour average from 35 feet is 2.0 putts whereas a 16-25 handicap needs to be some 20 feet closer to reach that average. Therefore, in order to improve your putting stats, you need to do two things: increase the distance at which you make 50% of your putts as well as the distance at which you routinely two-putt.
Peter Sanders is the President and a founding partner of ShotByShot.com, a unique strokes gained analysis program that helps golfers determine the precise strengths and weaknesses of each facet of their golf game, the system SwingU uses for its Versus product.
Peter has worked with PGA Tour players and major champions such as Zach Johnson, Lucas Glover, Smylie Kaufman, Zack Sucher, Sepp Straka, Dylan Frittelli and Michael Thompson to analyze and interpret their data for game improvement.
Read more from Peter on his Niblicks of Truth blog at ShotByShot.com.
