Strokes gained

Going from a 20 to a 10 means finding seven strokes per round. They do not come out evenly, and they do not come out in the order most golfers expect. Here is the route the data actually takes.

Break 80. Get to single digits. Those are outcomes, not goals. Here is how to build goals out of your own round data so you know each week whether you are on track.

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.

For most of its existence golf measured itself with one number per round. It took until 2003 for anyone to record where the ball actually went, and until the 2010s for that idea to reach club golfers.

A 25 mph day can wipe two strokes off your round before you make a single bad swing. Wind does not get subtracted from your strokes gained, so it pays to know exactly where it takes the strokes from.