Strokes Gained in Golf, Explained

Strokes gained is a golf statistic that measures how much better or worse than average a golfer plays by comparing every single shot to a baseline of expected strokes from that exact position. If the average benchmark player would need 2.8 shots to hole out from 150 yards in the fairway and you do it in two, you have gained 0.8 strokes on that stretch of the hole.

The idea replaced blunt old stats like “putts per round” and “greens in regulation,” which could hide as much as they revealed. Strokes gained was developed by Columbia Business School professor Mark Broadie and adopted by the PGA Tour, which powers it with ShotLink, the system that records the location of virtually every shot hit in competition. Here is how the metric works, why it beat the old numbers, and how to read it for your own game.

The core idea: a baseline of expected strokes

Everything in strokes gained rests on one concept, the baseline: the average number of strokes it takes a reference group of golfers to hole out from a specific distance and lie. Tour data shows, for example, that pros need roughly 2.8 strokes on average to finish from 150 yards in the fairway, and closer to four from a green-side bunker at 20 yards. Those averages are stored in large tables built from millions of recorded shots.

Your strokes gained on any shot is the difference the shot made against that baseline. Take the expected strokes from where the ball started, subtract the expected strokes from where it finished, then subtract one for the stroke you just used. A great shot that leaves a tap-in gains a big positive number; a shank into the trees gains a negative one.

A simple worked example

Say you are 150 yards out in the fairway, where the baseline is 2.8 expected strokes. You hit your approach to three feet, a spot where the baseline to hole out is about 1.05 strokes.

Your strokes gained on that swing is 2.8 minus 1.05 minus 1 (the stroke you took), which equals about +0.75. You made the field average look slow. If instead you had chunked it into a bunker where the baseline was 2.5, you would have gained 2.8 minus 2.5 minus 1, or negative 0.7, losing most of a shot.

The categories that make it useful

The reason strokes gained changed how golf is analysed is that it splits cleanly into parts of the game. Each shot is filed into a category, and the totals tell you exactly where you win and lose.

Category	What it measures	Everyday read
Off-the-tee	Drives and tee shots on par 4s and 5s	Are you gaining ground from the tee?
Approach the green	Shots aimed at the green from distance	Usually the biggest separator of good players
Around-the-green	Chips and pitches inside about 30 yards	Your short-game scrambling
Putting	Every stroke on the green	Replaces the misleading “putts per round”
Tee-to-green	The first three added together	Everything except putting

Broadie’s research showed that for most players, approach play and driving explain far more scoring than putting does, which overturned the old belief that “drive for show, putt for dough.” Elite ball-strikers gain most of their edge before they ever reach the green, which is part of why the game’s greatest players tend to pile up wins and, in some cases, the most Masters wins.

Why it beat the old stats

Traditional numbers lacked context. “Greens in regulation” treats a 40-foot approach and a two-foot tap-in the same once you are on the green, and “putts per round” punishes a good player who chips close and then one-putts less than a poor one who misses greens and lags from distance. Strokes gained fixes this by weighting every shot against what actually tends to happen from that spot.

That context is why a routine up-and-down from a tricky lie can show up as a clear strokes-gained positive: you turned a below-average situation into a par, beating the baseline. It is also why a tour pro can shoot a good number while “feeling” like they struck it poorly, the data separates a hot putter from crisp iron play in a way the scorecard cannot.

Reading your own numbers

For everyday golfers, apps and launch-monitor systems now calculate strokes gained against a scratch (zero-handicap) baseline. The rule for interpretation is simple: positive is good, negative is bad, and zero means you played exactly to the reference level. Look at the categories rather than the total, because the total only tells you that you scored well or badly, while the categories tell you why.

If your approach number is deeply negative every round, no amount of putting practice will fix your scores, your irons are the leak. That diagnostic power, pointing you to the one or two areas costing the most, is the whole point. It will not turn a bogey into a birdie by itself, but it tells you exactly where the strokes are hiding so your practice time goes to the right place.

The bottom line

Strokes gained reframes golf around a single honest question: compared with a known baseline, did this shot help or hurt? Because it accounts for distance and lie on every stroke and splits the game into meaningful buckets, it has become the standard language of golf analytics, used by tour players, coaches and stat nerds alike. Master the one rule, positive beats the average, and you can read any strokes-gained chart at a glance.