How many greens do amateur golfers hit?

9 February 2024

It will come as no surprise that hitting more greens positively impacts your overall performance on the golf course – but just how many greens do amateur golfers hit?

Here we have a baseline overview of greens hit per round:

The above stat is the percentage of greens hit in regulation over the course of an 18 hole round of golf, are there any numbers in there that surprise you?

This may upset some players, in fact, a lot potentially.

Speaking to the masses here, the most common handicap in golf is somewhere between 10 and 15. Unfortunately, you guys do not hit as many greens in regulation as you might think (my very keen golfer Dad included).

The typical 10 handicapper hits 6.3 greens per round and this drops to 4.14 for the 15 handicapper – this translates to about 1 every 3 holes for a 10hcp and 1 every 4 holes for a 15hcp. 

Golfers are eternally optimistic and this is by no means intended to dishearten anyone thinking of teeing it up at the weekend but instead to help with the mental side of the game.

When we learn more about the game of golf and utilise features like handicap benchmarking on the FREE-to-use Shot Scope mobile app and web dashboard we can compare our game to our peers.

This helps to manage our expectations and should prevent us from being too tough on ourselves when we miss greens – easier said than done I know!

What about everyone’s favourite benchmark number, the 100 yard shot?

Often where players can be heard saying ‘I can’t believe I missed from there!’

100 yard – Fairway – Green Hit%

Does anything surprise you here?

Again, an interesting stat that we can see, is once again the typical golfer, 10-15hcp, is still pretty close to a 50/50 chance of hitting the green from 100 yards in the fairway.

Our 1% Club members, the scratch golfer, misses 1/4 of attempts at this distance and at the opposite end of our handicap spectrum, the 25hcp golfer misses ⅔’s of their attempts.

What does this mean for the amateur golfer ahead of their next game? Don’t be so hard on yourself! Missing the green is a lot more common than you think. Here is how you can remove emotion from your bag.

Missing the green forces us to try and convert an up and down attempt, which is not easy and often leads to dropped shots.

Give yourself the best chance to successfully get up and down by reading this blog. Short game saves strokes when out of position and like a lot of things in golf, it isn’t that easy, the tips we share in our blog can and will help.

Our Law of Averages blog series looks more closely at each handicap bracket and suggests areas to improve. For example, a 25hcp or 10hcp golfer.

Do you want statistics like this for your game?

Shot Scope performance tracking products provide all this information and more! We have a product to suit every golfer and with no subscription fees, we offer premium performance data without the price tag. 

We also offer highly valuable features like full course aerial maps and MyStrategy at no additional cost. MyStrategy is the ultimate data-driven course management tool and will help you create the optimal plan of attack for any course you play – save strokes and stress before playing.

Still not convinced, check out why you should pick Shot Scope for your next golf purchase here.

The future of golf, and lower scores, are powered by Shot Scope.