What it takes to break 80: a statistical road map for giving yourself a putt for 79

Golf Digest, May, 2006 by Lucius Riccio

TO BREAK 80 IS TO REACH golf's holy grail. Those who've done it can walk you through their first time shot by shot, and those who haven't, well, they'll forever hold out hope. Strangely, with all this fixation on getting it under 80, there's not much information out there on what, mathematically, a player has to do to accomplish it. Is it longer drives or fewer putts, sharper irons or better greenside play?

To answer these and other stats questions, I started a golf research company 25 years ago called The Golf Analyzer, and began collecting data from rounds played by all types of golfers, from 30-handicappers to U.S. open winners. Now, after analyzing more than 20,000 holes played, I'm going to tell you what it takes to shoot 79.

Hitting greens

OF ALL THE STATISTICS IN THE GAME, ONLY TWO really matter when it comes to determining score: greens hit in regulation (example: you hit a par-4 green in two) and putts. Breaking 80 usually goes with reaching certain benchmarks in these areas. To help you get there, Shelby Futch, who heads the Golf Digest schools, has provided some quick tips (below). My job is to show you the numbers.

Most golfers think putting is the biggest factor in scoring, but greens in regulation (GIRs) are much more important. So important, you almost don't need to look at anything else to predict your score. The most useful score-analysis tool I've developed, called "Riccio's Rule" and first published in Golf Digest in 1987, predicts score based on GIRs: score = 95 - 2 x GIRs. The chart below, based on this rule, shows how GIRs relate to score:

Here's a quick way to remember the effect of GIRs on your score: "Three greens break 90, eight greens break 80, and 13 greens break 70." That prediction is fairly accurate for any single round, and within one stroke about 90 percent of the time when you take the average of four or more rounds.

So that's our first part: To consistently break 80, you should average eight or more GIRs. Take a few recent scorecards, or record your next few rounds, and average your scores, then average your GIRs. Compare your results to the chart at left. I bet you're right at, or very close to, where the chart says you should be. But if you score better than your GIRs would predict-say, you hit four greens but average 83-you probably have an extraordinary short game. You need to focus on hitting more greens. If you score worse than your GIRs would predict-say, you hit seven greens but average 85-then your putting is weak, or you tend to have blowup holes, which throw off any system for predicting score:

 GiRs     1    2    3    4    5    6    7 Score   93   91 89   87   85   83   81 GiRs     8    9   10   11   12   13 Score 79   77   75   73   71   69 

Putting

THE SECOND PIECE OF THE SCORING PUZZLE IS putting. When it comes to breaking 80, putting is less important than GIRs but much more important than everything else. After all, more than a third of all strokes are putts. Although the "eight greens break 80" rule is a good predictor, it is possible to break 80 with fewer than eight GIRs, and possible to not break 80 with more than eight. The difference in these cases usually (but not always) is putting.

How many putts should you take to shoot 79? The chart below, also derived from my number crunching, shows how putting relates to score in a typical round by golfers at various skill levels. statistically, putting is a weaker score predictor than GIRs, but it's useful to see how your stats measure up to average performance levels. Here's a sampling:

 Putts   37   36   35   34   33   32   31   30   29   28 Score


        
    
    
    
    
  95   92   88   86   83   80   77   74   71   68 

As you can see, the golfers who regularly break 80 average 32 or fewer putts per round. (for comparison, the best putters on the PGA Tour average just less than 28.) how many putts do you take? Again, go back to a few recent scorecards, or keep track of your putts over the next four or five rounds, and see where you fall.

OK, let's recap. Hitting eight greens in regulation and taking 32 putts is the most conventional or "well-rounded" way to break 80, but there are others. You can hit half that many greens, but you'd have to be a better putter than any player on tour. On the flip side, if you take two putts on every green (36 putts per round), you'd have to hit more than half the greens (11 to be exact).

That takes us to one last chart. Here are the various combinations of GIRs and putts that result in a score of 79:

 GiRs


        
    
    
    
    
  4    5    6    7    8    9   10   11   12   13 Score   26   28 29   30   32   33   34   36   37   38 

HOW TO HIT MORE GREENS

grip down

SHORTER MEANS EASIER: Gripping down on the handle (about an inch) is an easy way to improve your accuracy. Sure, it might shorten the distance you hit each club, but not enough to offset the fact that reducing the shaft length makes it easier to square the clubface at impact. That's one reason you hit a wedge straighter than a 6-iron.

shorten swing

REDUCE YOUR MARGIN FOR ERROR: There's no need to take an iron back any farther than you see me doing above. A shorter backswing means less time to get the club into a bad position before hitting the ball. It also gives you the feeling that you need to accelerate to hit the ball with any power. Acceleration is a good thing.