The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship took place last week at Fields Ranch, bringing with it the thrill of Major golf once more.
With the top female golfers in the world competing on one of the game’s grandest stages, on course performance data experts Shot Scope decided to take a deep dive into the data behind women’s golf.
What differentiates the game’s best from elite amateurs and the average golfer? Read on to find out.
The Distance Divide
In the modern game, distance is often at the forefront of conversations on equipment, course setups, and players’ desires.
Hitting the ball longer leads to better scoring opportunities, and it comes as no surprise that the top players in the world hit it considerably further than top female amateurs.
For the 2024 season, Thailand’s Natthakritta Vongtaveelap averaged over 290yds off the tee, 54yds longer than the typical scratch golfer and an eye-watering 121yds longer than the average female golfer.
This distance advantage allows LPGA players to approach courses in an entirely different way. Target lines, second shot club selection, and scoring opportunities are vastly different from those of the amateur.
Does this extra distance come with an accuracy sacrifice? No. Quite the opposite.
Unparalleled accuracy off the tee
On a course with four par 3s, the scratch and average female golfer hit roughly 8 fairways per round. Whereas, the top LPGA player for driving accuracy, Allisen Corpuz, averages 15.
Off the tee, LPGA players have a lethal combination of length and accuracy, which means that penalty shots and lost balls are very uncommon.
The highly contested distance vs. accuracy debate does not come into play in elite women’s golf, where players hit it long and find the short stuff more often than not.
In the amateur game, we see that both the scratch and average female golfer hit the same number of fairways, so what contributes to the significant handicap difference?
Unlike the LPGA player, the scratch player with their added distance does not have the same level of precision. The average player may hit one more fairway per round, but they are also close to 70yds behind their scratch counterpart, which translates to a significant difference in terms of greens in regulation.
Setting Up Scoring Opportunities by Greens In Regulation
Greens in regulation is a key component, and indicator, of low scoring. Players are required to hit the green in two strokes fewer than par, leaving them two putts for par and one for birdie.
The difference between the benchmark data highlights the correlation between scoring and greens hit. Last season’s top ranked LPGA player, Jeeno Thitikul, in GIR hits 7x more greens than the average golfer and averages two more, per round, than the scratch golfer.
It is worthwhile noting that Thitikul’s impressive 77% is for the entire 2024 season, not a single round, such consistency is remarkable and highlights the elite level of ball striking on display on the LPGA Tour.
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When missing the green, which is uncommon for the top level players, how do they fare at getting up and down?
Around the Greens and On Them
If hitting greens is a key component in scoring, the ability to recover when you miss them cannot be ignored.
Once again, the LPGA Tour leader in scrambling last season, Ayaka Furue, highlights the finesse of a top touring professional, successfully saving her par 2/3s of the time.
For the scratch player, the likelihood of getting up and down is essentially a coin toss and for the average player, it’s closer to 1 in every 4 attempts.
The difficulty of getting up and down, and the potential for further dropped strokes, reiterates how important finding the putting surface in regulation is.
Putting Prowess
On the green, we see how missing it and attempting an up and down leads to dropped shots with three-putts an ugly aspect of the amateur game.
Shot Scope data, collected by our range of performance tracking products, reveals that for the average golfer, 2-3 three-putts per round is not uncommon. Contrasted with the scratch player that is around the 2 rounds mark, and the Jin Young Ko at nearly 3 rounds (fewest three-putts on LPGA Tour 2024 season).
Golf may be a game of margins, but the top players on the LPGA Tour highlight the gulf in skill between elite amateurs and the top Touring professionals.
Min Jee Lee came out on top at Fields Ranch, with only three other players under par. With the data in this article, can you imagine how the amateur golfer would handle the challenge?
Note: LPGA Tour Data taken from https://www.lpga.com/stats-and-rankings
