What is Strokes Gained?

Published | Apr 17, 2023

Who created Stokes Gained

Mark Broadie is a professor of business at Columbia University and the creator of the strokesgained concept in golf. His strokes gained methodology goes beyond simply comparing a player’s score to the benchmark score for each hole or round. Instead, it measures a player’s performance relative to every other shot taken by every other player on the same hole, on the same golf course, and in the same tournament.

Broadie’s strokes gained approach is based on ShotLink, a data collection system used by the PGA Tour. ShotLink records the location and outcome of every shot taken by every player in a tournament, allowing for a detailed analysis of each player’s performance. Using this data, Broadie developed a formula to calculate the expected number of strokes it would take a professional golfer to complete a hole or round based on the distance and lie of each shot.

The difference between a player’s actual score and their expected score using this formula is their strokes gained or lost for each shot. For example, if a player hits their tee shot to within 10 feet of the hole on a par-4 hole where the expected score for a professional is 4.1, and they make a birdie, their strokes gained for that shot is 0.9.

By measuring strokes gained for each shot, Broadie’s methodology provides a more accurate and precise measure of a player’s performance than traditional statistics like fairways hit or greens in regulation. It also allows for a more nuanced understanding of a player’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the ability to compare players across different tournaments, courses, and conditions.


Let’s take a look at an example of Strokes Gained

There are lots of great apps on the market that now track strokes gained and you can compare yourself to different benchmarks. For example it wouldn’t be realistic for a 20 handicap player comparing themselves to a PGA tour player. It would be much more beneficial to see what their game is like compared to a 15 or 10 handicap player. Check out the example below to get a better understating.

Example of strokes gained of 9 handicap benchmark

As you can see we have a typical Par 5. You can see from the first two shots the player gained a little on a typical 9 handicap player due to the distance they have hit the ball and where (fairway) they have hit it. Notice on shot 3 they have dropped shots. This is due to the fact that on average from where shot 3 is played from (44.4yds) a typical 9 handicap would hit that 3rd shot closer on average, therefore the player lost -0.22 of a shot.

Check out some great apps to track your game

If you would like to understand more about strokes gained I would highly recommend checking out the founder of strokes gained Mark Brodie’s book “Every Shot Counts”. It goes into more in depth look at the system and gives great insight into how the very best in the world play this crazy game we calll golf.

Mark Broadie

– Every Shot Counts

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