Strokes Gained: Tee to Green
Strokes gained: tee to green is a golf statistic that measures how many strokes a player gains or loses on the rest of the field with every shot except putts. It adds together three categories, off the tee, approach, and around the green, into a single number.
What is strokes gained: tee to green?
The stat rolls up everything a golfer does before the ball reaches the putting surface: drives off the tee, approach shots into greens, and the short game around them. Putts do not count.
Each of those shots is scored against a benchmark, the number of strokes a tour pro would typically need from that same spot. Beat the benchmark, and you gain strokes. Fall short, and you lose them. Add up every non-putting shot in a round, and you have a player’s tee-to-green figure for that round.
A positive number means a golfer moved the ball around the course better than the field. A negative number means worse, and zero is dead average. Because putting is stripped out, the stat shows how well someone struck and controlled the ball without a hot or cold day on the greens muddying the picture. It sits inside the wider strokes gained system that Mark Broadie built and the PGA Tour adopted in 2011.
How strokes gained is measured
Every strokes gained number starts with a benchmark built from ShotLink, the PGA Tour’s shot-tracking system that has logged the distance and lie of millions of shots. From that data, the Tour knows the average number of strokes a pro needs to hole out from almost any position, whether that is 160 yards in the fairway or 20 feet on the green.
A single shot is scored by taking the benchmark where the ball started, subtracting the benchmark where it ended up, then subtracting the one shot played. Picture a 440-yard par 4 where the average pro needs 4.0 strokes from the tee. A drive that leaves an approach worth 2.8 expected strokes has gained 0.2, because 4.0 minus 2.8 minus 1 equals 0.2.
Tee to green simply sums those shot-by-shot values for everything a player hits apart from putts.
The three parts of tee to green
Tee to green is an aggregate, so it only makes sense once you know the three categories feeding into it. The PGA Tour sorts every non-putting shot into one of them.
| Category | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Off the tee (SG: OTT) | Tee shots on par 4s and par 5s. Par 3 tee shots are not included here. |
| Approach (SG: APP) | Shots aimed at the green, including par 3 tee shots. Broadly, anything more than 30 yards from the edge of the green that is not a par 4 or par 5 tee shot. |
| Around the green (SG: ARG) | Any shot within 30 yards of the green that is not a putt, such as chips, pitches, and greenside bunker shots. |
Put plainly: SG: tee to green = off the tee + approach + around the green. If a golfer gains 0.4 off the tee, 0.9 on approach, and loses 0.2 around the green, their tee-to-green figure is +1.1 for the round.
Tee to green vs total vs ball striking
Three strokes gained terms get mixed up constantly, partly because they overlap. The difference comes down to which shots each one includes.
| Metric | How it adds up | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Tee to green | OTT + APP + ARG | Everything except putting |
| Total | OTT + APP + ARG + putting | The complete game, every shot |
| Ball striking | OTT + APP | Long game only, no short game or putting |
The common slip is treating tee to green as driving plus approach. That combination is ball striking. Tee to green goes one step further and folds in the greenside short game, so it captures every stroke played before the ball reaches the putting surface.
What counts as a good tee-to-green number
Since the field is the yardstick, an average tour pro sits at 0.00. A figure of 1.000 means a golfer is a full stroke per round better than everyone else in the field, which over a 72-hole event works out to a four-shot head start, according to Golf Compendium.
Season leaders live well above that. Scottie Scheffler topped the PGA Tour at 2.615 in 2023, 2.401 in 2024, and 2.361 in 2025, per Golf Compendium’s yearly leaderboard. His 2023 mark came to roughly a 10.5-stroke edge on the field across a four-round tournament, as Keiser University College of Golf calculated. The single-season record still belongs to Tiger Woods, who averaged 2.982 in 2006.
The stat tracks closely with winning. When Today’s Golfer grouped the top 90 players on each 2023 leaderboard, the elite tee-to-green group carried an average world ranking around 30, bettered only by strokes gained total. Most amateurs, measured against a tour benchmark, post negative numbers, which is why many tracking apps let players compare against their own handicap level instead.
Where you’ll come across it
Tee to green shows up most often on television, where broadcasts lean on it to explain why a player is contending without holing many putts. The PGA Tour publishes the full leaderboard on its stats pages, updated week to week through the season.
Amateurs can see their own number too. Shot-tracking systems such as Arccos and Shot Scope log every shot and calculate strokes gained against benchmarks for different handicap levels, which turns a tour-only stat into something a weekend golfer can read after a round.
Related Golf Terms
- Strokes gained total — A player’s overall performance versus a scoring baseline.
- One-putt percentage — The rate at which a player needs only one putt on a green.
- Total driving — A combined ranking of driving distance and accuracy.
- Ball striking — A combined measure of driving and approach-play performance.
- Three-putt avoidance — A measure of how rarely a player three-putts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is strokes gained tee to green the same as ball striking?
No. Ball striking is off the tee plus approach only. Tee to green adds the shots played around the green, so it also reflects chipping and greenside bunker play alongside driving and iron shots.
Does tee to green include putting?
No. Tee to green deliberately leaves putting out. It measures every shot played from the tee until the ball reaches the green. Add putting to it, and you get strokes gained total.
Who invented strokes gained?
Mark Broadie, a professor at Columbia Business School, developed the strokes gained method using PGA Tour ShotLink data. He detailed it in his 2014 book, Every Shot Counts, and the Tour adopted the approach in 2011.
What is a good strokes gained tee to green for an amateur?
Against a tour benchmark, most amateurs are negative, since the comparison group is the best players in the world. Measured against golfers of a similar handicap, a positive number means better shotmaking than that peer group.
What does a negative tee-to-green number mean?
It means the player lost strokes to the comparison field on shots outside of putting. The more negative the figure, the further their tee-to-green play fell below the benchmark.
Sources
- PGA Tour. “Strokes Gained.”
https://www.pgatour.com/stats/strokes-gained - Broadie, Mark. Every Shot Counts. Gotham Books, 2014.
https://business.columbia.edu/faculty/research/every-shot-counts-using-revolutionary-strokes-gained-approach-improve-your-golf - Golf Compendium. “PGA Tour Strokes Gained Tee to Green Leaders By Year.”
https://www.golfcompendium.com/2020/09/strokes-gained-tee-to-green-pga-tour.html - The DIY Golfer. “What is Strokes Gained? Explanation, Calculation, and Examples.”
https://www.thediygolfer.com/golf-terms/strokes-gained - Today’s Golfer. “Strokes gained and the stats behind the scorecards on the PGA Tour.”
https://www.todays-golfer.com/news-and-events/tour-news/strokes-gained-stats-on-the-pga-tour/ - Keiser University College of Golf. “The Strokes Gained Statistics Are Explained.”
https://collegeofgolf.keiseruniversity.edu/the-strokes-gained-statistics-are-explained/
