Traditionally, one of the most common measures of a good round for amateur golfers is the amount of fairways hit. I often hear this stat being referenced in conversations, both on the course and in the clubhouse, but should we be obsessing about finding the short grass?
Well, thanks to the latest data from Arccos, it appears we may be placing to much emphasis on the importance of finding fairways...
How important is it to hit fairways in golf?
There is no denying that crushing your driver down the middle of the fairway is one of the greatest feelings in golf, but the impact it has on your performance is not actually as profound as you think.
As referenced in the graph below, the average number of fairways hit by a scratch player in comparison to a 15-handicapper (best rounds) is less than one per round. That is also the case when you look at the worst rounds shot by the same players and when you consider the number of strokes gained, the number is even less significant.
Graph showing the average number of fairways hit by handicap, measured over the best and worst rounds
As you can see in the table below, if a 10-handicapper misses the fairway with 200 yards remaining it will only cost them 0.06 shots on average. If that same golfer missed every fairway on the golf course, say 14 in total, they would only lose 0.84 strokes.
Losing less than one stroke across an entire round, for not hitting a single fairway, certainly suggests that our obsession with putting it down the middle might be misinformed.
The difference increases slightly as you get closer to the hole, but a 5-handicap golfer, with 100 yards remaining on average at each hole, would still only lose one and a half strokes across the entire round.
Table showing the number of strokes lost by missing the fairway, broken down by distance and handicap
Interestingly, the number of shots lost by missing the fairway varies very little across the entire spectrum of measured handicaps. With 100 yards remaining to the hole, golfers from scratch to 20-handicap lost around 0.1 strokes per hole.
It would be inaccurate to suggest that hitting fairways doesn't provide golfers with a scoring advantage, but the impact appears to be negligible and perhaps we should focus our attention instead on the plethora of stats that can significantly affect our performance on the golf course.
What about the pros?
When you think about some of the best ball strikers in the world, like World No.1 Scottie Scheffler, you might assume that they practically hit every fairway. The truth in fact is very different, as the former Masters Champion found less than two thirds of fairways last season. In fact, Scheffler has not managed to achieve more than 62 percent of fairways hit in any season across his entire PGA Tour career.
The PGA Tour average currently stands at 59 percent, so give yourself a break the next time you see your ball wander into the rough.
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