Statistics

A total is the least interesting thing about most rounds. Here is how to pick the golfity share card that tells the actual story, and what to write underneath it.

Scores are noisy and handicaps lag. If you know where to look, your stats will tell you that you are getting better long before the scorecard does.

Your scoring average can drop a shot and a half without you improving at all. A structured mid-season check separates the real progress from the noise.

Your handicap tells you almost nothing about why the season went the way it did. A structured end-of-season review does.

Ranked by predictive power: the 10 golf stats that actually tell you what you will shoot, and the popular ones that tell you almost nothing.

Strokes gained has been around long enough to collect a set of misconceptions that survive because they sound reasonable. Here are seven of them, and what your own numbers say instead.