Stroke Saver: The One Stat You Should Care About

It always seems that golfers want to know their numbers. Their club yardages, putts per hole, number of fairways hit and even their long drive distance. The strange thing about all of this is that the one stat that is the most important stat on the block is often the most overlooked, greens in regulation. GIR’s are the true measure of how well you are playing. Your fairway percentage doesn’t mean anything if you miss the green on your next shot. Saving yourself from the trees won’t matter if you only hit 5% of the greens the rest of the round. While posting a 92 with 28 putts sounds good, the fact that you took 64 shots to reach the green is not ok.

Golf is set up to be a simple game, taking 36 shots to get to the green and 36 to hole out from there. That makes an even par 72 (or maybe a few more or less depending on the course you play.) When you look at a tour player’s stats, you will see, more often than not, when they hit greens, they place higher. For the majority of players, this means working on your 150 and in game harder than you work on your drives. If you are playing a 350 yard hole, you can hit a tee shot 200 yards into the fairway and nail that green from 150 or you can hit a 250 yard shot down the middle and nail the green from 100. Either way, you have got to hit that green to score better.

For this, I recommend the 150-125-100 drill at the driving range. Begin with the marker closest to 150 yards (at my range, it’s a 151 target) and hit your approach shot at it. Then move to the 125 (mine is 131) and do it again. Finally move in to the 100 yard target (mine happens to be 94 yards) and repeat the process a few times. Try imagining your favorite approach shots at the various yardages. Imagine that big bunker on the left or that water to the right of the green. Try to shape your shot to match the safe route to the hole. That way, the next time that shot faces you on the course, you have it in your bag already.

Hitting greens is obviously the fastest way to shave strokes from your card. If you can hit the center of every green on your course in regulation, you should walk away with a score that will make you proud. Stop worrying about front or side pin placements and start worrying about nailing those greens. From there, it’s just a 2 putt and a par.