Written by: Tanner
Improving your putting is the easiest way to shave strokes off of your game. Below, we’ll dive into how to use Roundabout stats to improve your putting quickly.
To get into your putting analysis, click on Analyze, then click on your profile, then click on the Putting category on the right. Scroll through the graphs and click on the different points and lines to get feedback. The ? icon will provide more context for the graph.
Understanding Putting Data
Data taken from my round at The Emerald Golf Club in St. Johns, Michigan on May 7th, 2022
Putting Stats
A few important stats to analyze when understanding where your short game stands is your total feet of putts made, and the number of putts you accumulate throughout a round.
By clicking on a point on the red line, you can see the total number of feet in made putts throughout a round. On this particular day I had 52 total feet. That comes out to a little less than 3ft a hole.
This number makes sense considering I missed a good amount of greens on approach shots leaving myself a lot of shorter shots from just off the green and lag putts. I’d like to see this number get closer to 5ft this summer.
By clicking on a point on the green graph, you can see the total number of putts you recorded throughout a round. My total number of putts during this round was 33, which comes out to about 1.8 putts per hole.
This number is just as indicative of my short game play around the greens as it is my actual putting. The greens were running extremely fast on this particular day and I had trouble holding greens with my approach shots. This left me many short shots from just off the green leading to shorter putts to finish holes.
Strokes Gained
‘Strokes Gained’ is simply a measure of the quality of a shot vs. a reference.
The simplest example is an 8 foot putt. A pro golfer makes a random 8 foot putt roughly 50% of the time. If they make the putt half of the time and miss the putt half the time, then on average it takes 1.5 strokes to make an 8 foot putt. Therefore, if you 1 putt from 8 feet, you gain 0.5 strokes on a pro. If it takes 2 putts from 8 feet, you lose 0.5 strokes to a pro. Using Strokes Gained is a great way to compare your performance to a consistent gold standard, rather than just comparing yourself to your playing partners.
The green line shows the trend of your Strokes Gained putting performance.
By clicking on a point on the green line, you can see your Strokes Gained putting for a specific round. For this particular round I gained 1.3 strokes on the field. This is a relatively good number considering the speed of the greens and the wind conditions.
Since I am focusing on my short game, I like using this metric to give myself a goal each time I go out- to beat my average line (white line).
*Tip: Customizing your Strokes Gained
To customize your Strokes Gained reference, click on the white hamburger menu, then select Reference: Tour Pro. This will open the menu to change your Strokes Gained reference
Putts by Distance
On this graph, each bar represents a different distance from the hole increasing from <3ft on the far left to over 55ft on the far right. The green section represents 1-putt percentage, the navy section represents 2-putt percentage, and the red section represents 3-putt percentage. The light blue line shows your average strokes gained putting performance per round from each putt distance.
Click on a point on the light blue line to see your average strokes gained for each distance.
The data on this graph is from my most recent 5 rounds played. This graph is particularly useful in recognizing which putting distances I need to focus on while practicing. I can see that my lowest strokes gained comes from putts between 15 and 20ft. This distance is what I should be practicing the most.
There are even more graphs available in Roundabout like Putting Trends and Missed Putt Details. You can always click the question mark (?) to read more about these specific graphs.
V1 GOLF Drill Suggestions
With V1 GOLF app version 3.0.11 or newer, you can filter drills by topic. Click the filter icon, then select Putting to view all available putting drills. If you’re using an old version of V1 GOLF be sure to upgrade so you can see all of the new drills we’ve added. Here are some we suggest to help you improve your putting:
- Putting Setup Basics by Brian Mogg of Brian Mogg Golf Academy (free)
- Putting Setup by Paul Weyland of Paul Weyland Golf (V1 GOLF+)
- Putting Distance Control Drill by Nancy Quarcelino of Nancy Quarcelino School of Golf (V1 GOLF+)
