Assessing Golfer Performance Using Golfmetrics: The Birth of Strokes Gained

Mark Broadie is a professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. He’s also an avid golfer who has spent years analyzing what drives success on the golf course.

In 2008, Broadie published “Assessing Golfer Performance Using Golfmetrics”, a paper that would revolutionize how we measure golf performance. While he used the term “shot value” rather than “strokes gained”, this research laid the foundation for modern golf analytics.

The paper remains highly readable despite its academic rigor. Here are the key concepts every golfer should understand.

Why Traditional Golf Statistics Fall Short

Broadie’s paper opens with a compelling critique of traditional statistics like putts per round or greens in regulation. These conventional metrics have two fundamental problems:

They measure shot combinations, not individual shot quality. Consider putts per round: if you chip close to the hole consistently, your putt count drops, but that doesn’t mean your putting improved. The metric conflates chipping skill with putting skill.

They use simple counting without measuring error magnitude. Missing a fairway by 1 yard counts the same as missing by 30 yards. A golfer who barely misses fairways appears equal to one who sprays drives into adjacent holes.

These limitations make traditional stats unreliable for identifying what actually needs improvement in your game.

How Golfmetrics Captured Shot-Level Data

Broadie and his team built software called Golfmetrics to “capture and store golfer shot data and quantify differences in shot patterns between players of different skill levels.”

The research team entered 40,000 shots from over 500 rounds played by more than 130 golfers across all skill levels. This comprehensive dataset enabled statistical analysis that was previously impossible.

With golfity, you can now capture the same shot-level data for your own game and get the same analytical insights that were once available only to researchers and touring professionals.

Understanding Shot Value and Fractional Par

Shot value—what we now call strokes gained—measures “the quality of a shot relative to a scratch golfer’s average shot from a given situation.”

The calculation requires first understanding fractional par: the average number of strokes a scratch golfer needs to complete a hole from any given position. Fractional par depends on:

• Distance to the hole
• Lie (tee, fairway, rough, sand, recovery)
• Green conditions for putting

For example, a scratch golfer averages about 2.8 strokes from 150 yards in the fairway, but 3.1 strokes from 150 yards in the rough.

Shot value formula:

Shot Value = Fractional Par (start) - Fractional Par (end) - 1

A positive shot value means you outperformed expectations—your shot reduced the expected strokes by more than one. A negative shot value indicates a shot that hurt your score relative to a scratch golfer baseline.

Consider a 150-yard approach from the fairway: if you hit it to 10 feet (fractional par 1.6), your shot value is 2.8 - 1.6 - 1 = +0.2 strokes gained. If you chunk it 50 yards, leaving yourself still 100 yards out (fractional par 2.6), your shot value is 2.8 - 2.6 - 1 = -0.8 strokes lost.

As Broadie notes, “there are many ways to shoot the same score on a hole, but the shot value calculation shows which shots contributed more (or less) to the overall score.”

Measuring Consistency Through Awful Shots

Broadie identifies consistency as “an overlooked golf performance measure.” Consistent golfers have few very poor shots and few blowup holes.

Using shot value, the paper defines an awful shot as any shot with a value below -0.8, and a great shot as one exceeding +0.8. These thresholds mark shots that significantly hurt or help your score.

For amateur golfers, a relatively small number of awful shots often accounts for a large portion of extra strokes. Reducing awful shots—whether from poor swings or overly risky strategy—represents one of the fastest paths to lower scores.

You can track your awful shots in golfity using our strokes gained calculator and see exactly where your scoring disasters originate.

Key Research Findings on Golf Performance

Broadie’s analysis of the 40,000-shot dataset revealed several important findings:

Shot value aggregation enables meaningful performance assessment for individual golfers or groups. Unlike counting stats, shot value accumulates in a way that directly correlates with scoring.

Individual golfers can identify specific strengths and weaknesses across different aspects of their game. Shot value analysis reveals where practice and improvement efforts will yield the greatest returns.

Lower-scoring players outperform in all areas, but the magnitude varies significantly by skill category.

The long game creates the largest scoring differences between pros and amateurs, and between low and high handicap amateurs. While conventional wisdom focuses on putting, the data shows that approach shots and tee shots generate more strokes gained separation between skill levels.

This final point challenges decades of golf instruction that emphasized “drive for show, putt for dough.” The data tells a different story—one where the long game deserves far more attention than it typically receives.

Applying Shot Value Analysis to Your Game

Mark Broadie’s Golfmetrics research transformed how we understand golf performance. The strokes gained methodology is now used by the PGA Tour and every serious golf analytics platform.

With golfity, you can apply these same analytical techniques to your own rounds. Track your shots, calculate your strokes gained across all categories, and identify exactly where to focus your practice time for maximum improvement.

Your path to lower scores starts with understanding where you’re actually losing strokes—not where you think you’re losing them.