Frequency of Birdies

[bkuehn1952]

PGA Tour Pros average over 3 birdies a round during the course of a season. But I am interested in amateur golfers. 

A college professor who did some research quite a while ago published the following: 

Average Score / Birdies a Round 
71 - 3.2 birdies a round 
75 - 2.4 birdies a round 
79 - 1.8 birdies a round 
81 - 1.5 birdies a round 
85 - 0.8 birdies a round 
89 - 0.1 birdies a round 
91+ pretty much make so few as to be irrelevant. 

It would have been helpful if the professor had categorized the results via handicap index.  Maybe next time.

Since these are averages, some people who average "81" as a score will make more birdies and others fewer.  It will be unlikely any of us will fall exactly on the number.  In looking at the data, my season average score is closer to 81 than 85 but my birdie numbers are more like an 85 shooter. I wonder why?  Any thoughts?  Does anyone keep stats for themselves that they want to share?
 

Edited March 4, 2016 by bkuehn1952
Grammar

[Fourputt]

Back when I was shooting 80-82 fairly consistently, my birdie percentage was lower than that.  My talent was stringing pars, and minimizing mistakes.  I'd go on a run of 5 pars, then break it with a bogey, followed by 3 or 4 more pars.  A lot of my rounds were 3 or 4 bogies, a double, then a whole slew of pars spaced throughout.  I could go for three or four rounds without a birdie, yet never shoot higher than 84. 

Most of my birdies seemed to come in the rounds where I shot 80 or better.

[Dave2512]

I've tracked stats for 3 seasons now, 2015 my average score was 81.2. Birdie average just 3%, 34 birdies in 81 rounds.

IMO the professor's chart looks inflated. I don't see many of my playing partners making birdies often. Certainly not in the 1 a round range. A good chunk of mine are dumb luck. Most of the birdies earned via good play are on the same three holes at the home course.

[RandallT]

My stats for last season were 7 rounds tracked, averaged 87, and shot just 1 birdie in those 7 rounds. Or 0.14 birdies per round. Spot on your chart.

I've got some stats from a few other guys here on TST to look at various aspects of our games regarding strokes gained and LSW stats. Most of that data is for players shooting over 90, however.  When I put them all together, it's an average score of about 95 and just under 0.1 birdies per round.

I don't know anyone who shoots better than mid-80s, so I can't speak for anyone in the more interesting ranges of your chart!   

I usually play with bogey golfers or worse, and it's definitely rare I see one.

 

[bkuehn1952]

I suppose one could look at two golfers of similar handicap/scoring average and try to contrast their games. Play A tries to hit to the middle of the green. Player B is more aggressive. So player A has longer 1st putts but player B misses more greens or his misses are worse. At the end of the day, player A has 4 more pars than player B while player B has 2 more bogies and 2 more birdies. They shoot the same score. Have the same handicap. But player B averages 2.0 birdies a round and player A 0.0

A simplistic example but not totally unreasonable.  I better fit the profile of player "A" and that might explain why I am below the average.

[DaveP043]

I can't say I track my stats, but these numbers seem reasonable, at least for me.  Based on Ghin, my average over the last year was 80.2.  I'd say I generally have one or two birdies most days.  Some are odd days like last Sunday, when I shot 83 with 3 birdies, some are off-balance the other way, shooting 75 with just one.  Of course, as with most things golf-ish, I may be kidding myself about how many birdies I make.

[Dave2512]

7 minutes ago, bkuehn1952 said:

I suppose one could look at two golfers of similar handicap/scoring average and try to contrast their games. Play A tries to hit to the middle of the green. Player B is more aggressive. So player A has longer 1st putts but player B misses more greens or his misses are worse. At the end of the day, player A has 4 more pars than player B while player B has 2 more bogies and 2 more birdies. They shoot the same score. Have the same handicap. But player B averages 2.0 birdies a round and player A 0.0

A simplistic example but not totally unreasonable.  I better fit the profile of player "A" and that might explain why I am below the average.

Yep I am admittedly conservative on the course. Less about risk vs reward in that as a self deprecating golfer I don't have much conviction unless shots are very straight forward. I suspect taking more chances could lead to more birdies but it would also lead to more bogey or worse and I can live without birdies. On all but two holes at the home course my goal is par, the two are not worse than bogey.

[paininthenuts]

Ummm. I have only been playing 6 months, and have had one. That means I have a frequency of two a year. Is that very good ?

[bubble]

2015 average 1,2 birdies per round for 82 strokes average (+10)

[Club Rat]

My Game Golf stats show 5% birdies in 27 rounds, (21-birds) from rounds I've had since I began using the Game Golf. (Dec-Feb)

My stats from last summer of games played in Mens Game events - 55 birdies in 31 rounds. (April-Sept)

[coachjimsc]

Game Golf avg score - 74.9

Rounds - 16

Birdies - 38

Avg Birdies per round - 2.375

Dead on the chart.

[Golfingdad]

2 hours ago, bkuehn1952 said:

Average Score / Birdies a Round 
71 - 3.2 birdies a round 
75 - 2.4 birdies a round 
79 - 1.8 birdies a round 
81 - 1.5 birdies a round 
85 - 0.8 birdies a round 
89 - 0.1 birdies a round 
91+ pretty much make so few as to be irrelevant. 

My gamegolf "scoring" stats say that I make birdie 8% of the time ... which comes to 1.44 per round.  Gamegolf also has me at an average score of 83.1, so I'm not far from that chart but I make a few more birdies than the "average" 83 shooter, it appears.  That makes sense to me, because I think I make more "others" too. 

[billchao]

My GG average is 95.4 and I have birdied 2% of my holes (actually 2.25%, 6 out of 269? holes), which is good for 0.36 (or 0.4, not that the difference matters) birdies per round.

Once again I am a statistical anomaly 

[GolfLug]

3 rounds on GG with 2 birdies. Although 3 rounds is not enough to represent actual birdie average, I think pretty close in my case. I don't make birdies every round. Maybe because I am not very long off the tee, so I rely on my irons and hybrids to get my GIRs/nGIRS for pars mostly.

 

   

[saevel25]

36 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

My gamegolf "scoring" stats say that I make birdie 8% of the time ... which comes to 1.44 per round.  Gamegolf also has me at an average score of 83.1, so I'm not far from that chart but I make a few more birdies than the "average" 83 shooter, it appears.  That makes sense to me, because I think I make more "others" too. 

Similar to me as well. More birdies than my scoring average. 

Over my last 15 rounds I had a Birdie Rate of 9% (1.62 / Round). It was drowned out by my Double Bogey Rate of 14% (2.52 / Round)

My average score is 82-83 on Gamegolf

 

[RandallT]

32 minutes ago, billchao said:

My GG average is 95.4 and I have birdied 2% of my holes (actually 2.25%, 6 out of 269? holes), which is good for 0.36 (or 0.4, not that the difference matters) birdies per round.

Once again I am a statistical anomaly 

Hi Bill,

I do remember when I ran your numbers through to analyze them for Game Golf and their new strokes gained module that your scores had a great variance in them. For some reason, your scores weren't part of my compilation I mentioned above in my earlier post, but I should've added your batch to that compilation (I just forgot), as your scoring average was right in line with those averages.

But anyway, in your rounds that I reverse engineered from Game Golf to calculate for that analysis, you had 4 birdies in 10 rounds (0.4 birdies/round, mid90s average). Definitely an anomaly.

Your scores ranged from low 80s to 109. For the low 80s round, you had 3 of your 4 birdies! Whew, does the rollercoaster ride get tiring? 

 

[sjduffers]

I really brought up my average number of birdies per round last year: I had 91 birdies out of 132 rounds, or nearly 0.7 birdie per round, and my scoring average was 84.3.  So, almost on the mark of that chart.  In the previous couple of years, the birdies per round was around 0.4-0.5 and the scoring average was 85-86.

The difference? Primarily a putter that fits my stroke better. Previously, I was lipping out a lot, i mean a lot.  I still have lip-outs of course, but a larger proportion now goes in. Proximity to the hole and GIR% of course play a role too, but that was not the main factor in my improvement.

Edited March 4, 2016 by sjduffers

[Dave2512]

17 minutes ago, sjduffers said:

I really brought up my average number of birdies per round last year: I had 91 birdies out of 132 rounds, or nearly 0.7 birdie per round, and my scoring average was 84.3.  So, almost on the mark of that chart.  In the previous couple of years, the birdies per round was around 0.4-0.5 and the scoring average was 85-86.

The difference? Primarily a putter that fits my stroke better. Previously, I was lipping out a lot, i mean a lot.  I still have lip-outs of course, but a larger proportion now goes in. Proximity to the hole and GIR% of course play a role too, but that was not the main factor in my improvement.

Interesting post and it made me look at my Game Golf stats closer. My strokes gained stats are better than my handicap for approach and scoring but I lose strokes putting. I had a weird period of excessive 3 putting last year but generally a decent putter. But it can't be that great if I hit 8.3 greens a round with my low birdie %, I am right at 2 PPH.