GIR is king?

Agree.  I think a golfer with best combined GIR & Putting stat tends to win the particular tournament.

Surely a GUR does...?

GUR is what I say when I get a GOR.

cubdog

Correct, but the "U" is silent.

its the one stat I keep in my head for every hole, including playing a course for the first time. Before teeing off on any of the holes I visually put my myself on the green near the hole and look back at the prefered landing area of tee shot.

Of course it's king.  I've never heard of a bogey golfer who's problem was 3-putting every single hole .

There certainly is a high correlation between GIR and scoring.  Unfortunately, it takes a lot of work to move the needle on GIR.  Most of us are not missing greens because we are too aggressive hunting pins.

I agree on the whole GIR thing - it makes sense to me.    But when I see myself consistently drop 5, 6, 7 or more strokes to similar hcp'd golfers I play with due to my dramatic ineptness at putting ... it just seems the premise I've read on this forum that everybody is about the same at putting & nobody is that much worse than anybody else isn't applicable to all.      Granted I have good & bad putting days - far more bad than good.    From what I've seen, I am an enigma in my lack of a putting game - no matter how much I practice (putting & chipping are where I spend the majority of my practice time - chipping is above average for my hcp), I don't see the results on the course - contrary to popular belief, I just think some people have "it" and some don't when it comes to the feel part of the game.    For me, I know I'll never get to a single digit hcp if my putting doesn't dramatically improve.    I haven't been playing all that long, so I'm hoping that if I keep working at it, it will improve with time and come up to level with the rest of my game.   This year I will start keeping putting stats - it will be interesting to see where I'm at and track progress.   Just had to get that off my chest ...

You'd be surprised if you look at your actual putting statistics, I know I was.

I just looked at my stats for the last 6 months. 1.8 putts per hole or about 33 per round average. I made so many 1 putts, it pulled down the average, or course I had almost as many 3 putts, but not enough to raise the average above 2.

A lot of the stats we get are fairly useless in isolation. The PGA Tour stats are immense, I would love to get those on my game. How many strokes gained tee to green, putts from 3ft, 6ft, 10ft etc. now those are useful. If you tell me I had 25 putts, that might just mean I had a good day chipping but those other stats are real eye openers. Bubba Watson has made 214 of his last 217 putts inside 5ft, now that's something I would like to know but unfortunately we don't have shotlink! Most of us can't get through a round keeping that stat intact!

wow - that should shut up all those that think he's a lousey putter !     Had no idea he was that solid with his short putting game.

This is true, but HC index and putting together can tell you where someone is on GIR and scrambling which gives some meaning to something like putting stats. For instance, I take your 3 HC and can already assume you get around 8-10 greens, that if you putt 33 times it is most likely caused by being farther from the pin on the approaches. This could be because you are playing faster greens or some other factor. Then let's say an 11.5 HC putts 33 times, we could guess that about 1/4 are 2 putts for bogey. So, if the forum indices are accurate, a simple putting stat can have some meaning.

Of course, GIR and really strokes gained on approaches, it's where the money is made, of all the things about the game I find most amazing about pros is their ability to throw darts from 170-200 yds, and longer, it's superhuman to me, you do not see most weekend players doing that often, and it's really the game that separates the leaders from everyone else in a tournament.