Strokes Gained Calculator
Analyze any golf shot using the strokes gained method. Compare your performance to PGA Tour baselines based on distance and lie.
About this calculator
Strokes gained, the metric Mark Broadie developed as a professor at Columbia University and the PGA Tour now uses officially — built on ShotLink shot-by-shot data the PGA Tour began making available to researchers in 2007 — measures shot quality against a baseline rather than just counting strokes. This calculator looks up the expected number of strokes a PGA Tour pro would need to hole out from your shot's starting distance and lie (tee, fairway, rough, or sand) using a piecewise-linear table built from tour data spanning 5 to 600+ yards, with rough and sand adding a small stroke penalty on top of the fairway baseline. Once on the green, it switches to a logarithmic putting model (roughly 0.546 × ln(distance in feet) + 0.396) since putting distance and stroke count relate very differently than full-swing distance does.
Strokes gained for your shot is then: expected strokes from where you started, minus the shots you actually took, minus expected strokes from where you ended up (treated as zero if you holed out). A positive number means you gained ground on the tour baseline; a negative number means you lost ground. The key thing to understand is that this compares you to PGA Tour professionals specifically, not to golfers at your own skill level — so even strong amateur shots often show as slightly negative, and the value is really in tracking your own trend over many shots rather than judging any single shot in isolation.
Inputs
Results
Strokes Gained
0.38
Figures current as of 2021. Source: Golf Monthly, "What Is Strokes Gained In Golf?" (Barry Plummer)
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter the number of Shots Taken for this specific shot (usually 1).
- Set the Hole Par and the Starting Distance to the pin in yards.
- Select the Starting Lie (Tee, Fairway, Rough, Sand, or Green).
- Enter the Ending Distance to the pin and Ending Lie after the shot.
- Review Strokes Gained (positive = better than PGA Tour average), Expected Strokes from Start and End, and Performance Rating.
How the result changes with Starting Distance (yards)
| Starting Distance (yards) | Strokes Gained |
|---|---|
| 200 | -0.77 |
| 300 | -0.17 |
| 600 | 1.18 |
| 650 | 1.33 |
What each input means
- Shots Taken
- Number of strokes used for this shot (usually 1).
- Hole Par
- Par for the hole being played.
- Starting Distance (yards)
- Distance to the pin before the shot.
- Starting Lie
- Where the ball is before the shot.
- Ending Distance (yards)
- Distance to the pin after the shot. Use 0 if holed.
- Ending Lie
- Where the ball ended up after the shot.
What each result means
- Strokes Gained
- Strokes gained (positive) or lost (negative) vs PGA Tour baseline.
- Expected Strokes from Start
- PGA Tour average strokes to hole out from the starting position.
- Expected Strokes from End
- PGA Tour average strokes to hole out from the ending position.
- Par
- Par for the hole.
- Shots Used
- Number of strokes taken.
- Performance Rating
- Shot quality rating compared to PGA Tour average.
How this is calculated
Worked example, using the default values
- Identify Input Parameters4 parametersShots Taken = 1, Hole Par = 4, Starting Distance (yards) = 400, Starting Lie = 1 = 6 input(s) provided
- Calculate Strokes GainedStrokes Gained = expectedFromStart - shotsTaken - expEnd0.38 = 0.38
- Calculate Expected Strokes from StartExpected Strokes from Start = expectedStrokes(startDistance, startLie)4.1 = 4.1
- Calculate Expected Strokes from End2.72 = 2.72
Figures and sources
- Strokes Gained methodology, developed by Mark Broadie (Columbia University) (2021) — Golf Monthly, "What Is Strokes Gained In Golf?" (Barry Plummer)
Engine last updated . Checked against 3 independently-derived tests — how we verify calculators. Built by Paul Gunder, a software engineer, not a licensed financial, medical, or legal professional.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my strokes gained negative even though I hit a good shot?
The baseline this calculator compares you to is a PGA Tour professional's expected strokes-to-hole-out from your exact starting distance and lie, not an average golfer at your skill level. Since tour pros are exceptionally good, even solid amateur shots frequently land a bit short of that baseline and show as slightly negative — the number is most useful for tracking your own trend across many shots, not for judging one shot against your peers.
How does the calculator treat putts differently from full-swing shots?
For a green lie, it switches from the piecewise-linear tee/fairway/rough/sand table to a logarithmic model — roughly 0.546 times the natural log of distance in feet, plus 0.396 — because expected putts and distance don't relate the same way full-swing shots and yardage do. Putts of a foot or less are effectively floored at a single expected stroke.
Why does rough or sand add extra expected strokes compared to the fairway?
The lie-penalty table adds about 0.15 expected strokes for rough and about 0.30 for sand on top of the fairway baseline at the same distance, reflecting that a PGA Tour pro statistically needs a few extra strokes on average to escape a bad lie and still reach the green and hole out, even from an identical yardage.
What happens to expected strokes when I enter an ending distance of 0?
The calculator explicitly treats a 0-yard ending distance as holed out, forcing expected strokes from the end to zero rather than looking it up from the table, which would otherwise assign roughly 1.0 stroke as its minimum. That's what lets strokes gained fully credit a holed shot instead of unfairly docking it for an ending position that doesn't exist.
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