Strokes Gained Putting and Your Baseline

[iacas]

The unlikely story of the greatest putting day in modern PGA Tour history | Golf News and Tour Information | GolfDigest.com

First, a moment to make a little fun of the math in this article.

On the front nine one day, Denny "McCarthy had gained an astounding 5.56 strokes on the field on the greens alone. … The PGA Tour's Jack Ryan dusted off the record books: In the strokes-gained era, dating back to 2004, the single best one-round putting performance belonged to J.J. Henry, who accumulated 8.36 strokes gained …  By comparison, in order for McCarthy to catch Henry’s record, he would essentially have to duplicate his absurd back-nine performance on the front. And even if he somehow managed it, he'd still just barely catch Henry.

Uhmmm, 5.56 * 2 = 11.12. He needed only to do half as well on the back nine (2.8 SG:P) to tie Henry.

Then:

"On the top-10 list, he's a full stroke clear of Paul Goydos in second place"

Uhmmmm,

The silliness aside…

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The gist of the post is this.

• Anyone can have a hot putting day. Even a slightly above-average putter.
• Your average is established over a long time. It will tend to form a bell curve.
• Your "hot days" are almost more defined by "luck" than anything else. So are your cold days.
• Raise your baseline, and you'll raise your average and shift your bell curve to the right. You may not have an 8.36 SG day, but you'll have more +3 or +4 days.