Hi there,
headline:
Fewest putts in a round in Tour history
I saw this headline this morning of Cameron Smith’s 18 putts in 18 holes at the WGC FedEx St Jude invitational yesterday.
It sounds impressive, right?
But was this really the greatest Putting performance for 18 holes in PGA Tour history?
Reading the headlines, it’s easy to believe that no player has ever putted better than this for a round.
Let’s take a deeper look.
Using putts per round as a way of measuring Putting skill has become outdated, since it does not take into account the length of putts or even whether a player holed a shot from off the green.
There is a much better way to measure Putting skill, it’s called Strokes Gained golf stats.
Observing the Strokes Gained Putting stats for round 2 of the WGC FedEx St. Jude invitational, it’s clear that Cameron Smith was not even the best putter for the round, let alone in the history of the Tour.
Abraham Ancer outperformed him on the day with a +3.54 SG Putting vs. a +3.17 SG Putting, with Louis Oosthuizen in a close third position, just 0.37 shots back.
So if you want to get a clear and accurate idea of how good your putting really is, stop counting putts and start tracking your Strokes Gained Putting stats.
Golf Stats Coach is a Strokes Gained Golf Stats App that you can use to do exactly this.
Till next time,
Martin
PS. Check out this Strokes Gained Putting Calculator you can use for FREE.
