Sand Save Percentage
Sand save percentage is the percent of times a golfer gets the ball up and down from a greenside bunker in two shots or fewer, no matter what score is made on the hole.
What is sand save percentage?
Sand save percentage measures how well a golfer recovers after hitting into a greenside bunker. It answers one narrow question: once the ball is in the sand near the green, how often does the player get it into the hole in two shots or fewer? One bunker shot and one putt counts. So does holing out straight from the sand.
The number turns up on tour broadcasts, scorecards, and golf tracking apps, a fast read on short-game skill from the sand. Save half the time, and a player is dependable in bunkers. At 20%, they are leaking strokes. The stat looks only at greenside bunkers, and only at the holes where a player actually found one. Fairway bunkers, and holes with no bunker visit at all, sit outside it entirely.
One quirk trips people up: the final score on the hole does not matter. Getting up and down from the bunker is the whole test. A golfer who reaches a greenside bunker, splashes out, and one-putts has made a sand save even if earlier trouble on the hole added up to a bogey or worse.
How sand save percentage is calculated
The formula is short:
Sand save percentage = (successful sand saves ÷ greenside bunkers found) × 100
The part most people miss is the denominator. It counts only the holes where the ball landed in a greenside bunker, not every hole in the round. If a player never visits a bunker, there is nothing to save, and the stat does not apply to that round.
A quick example makes it concrete. Suppose a golfer finds four greenside bunkers in a round and gets up and down on two of them. The sand save percentage is 2 ÷ 4 = 50%. It makes no difference whether the two saves came on a par 3 or a par 5, or how many strokes the player took elsewhere on those holes.
What counts as a sand save
Three requirements decide whether a bunker visit becomes a sand save.
| Requirement | For a sand save |
|---|---|
| Bunker type | Must be a greenside bunker; fairway bunkers are excluded |
| Strokes from the sand | Two or fewer to hole out (one bunker shot plus one putt) |
| Hole score | Does not matter; only the up-and-down counts |
The PGA Tour defines the statistic as the percent of time a player gets up and down in two shots or fewer from a greenside bunker, regardless of the score on the hole. Recreational golfers often use a looser version, counting a “sandy” whenever they make par or better after visiting a bunker. For most amateur rounds, the two versions line up, because taking more than one bunker shot usually means par has already slipped away.
Sand save vs up-and-down vs scrambling
These three terms overlap, which is why golfers mix them up. Each measures recovery, but from a different starting point.
| Term | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Up-and-down | Getting the ball into the hole in two shots or fewer from anywhere off the green |
| Sand save | An up-and-down that starts in a greenside bunker |
| Scrambling | Making par or better on a hole after missing the green in regulation, from any lie |
A sand save is a specific kind of up-and-down: the one that starts in the sand. Scrambling is the widest of the three, since it covers every missed green, and a player’s scrambling percentage usually sits above their sand save percentage because sand ranks among the harder places to get up and down from.
What is a good sand save percentage?
Even the best players in the world miss more sand saves than casual fans expect. Broadcasts tend to show the spectacular splash to a foot, not the shots left in the bunker.
On the PGA Tour, players average roughly 50% from greenside sand, according to golfity’s review of tour data. The season leaders climb higher. Brooks Koepka led the tour at 65.38% in 2021, and the highest single-season mark since the tour began tracking the stat in 1980 is 71.54%, set by Michael Kim in 2025, per Golf Compendium’s records. The lowest figure ever to lead the tour was 60.14%, by Tom Watson in 1981.
Amateurs sit well below tour numbers. Shot Scope, drawing on data from hundreds of thousands of tracked rounds, found that players with handicaps of 20 or higher save par from the sand less than once in twenty attempts, while a tour pro saves more than half the time. The average score from a bunker visit reflects the same gap: about 2.45 strokes for tour pros against 3.70 for 20-plus handicappers.
| Player level | Typical sand save rate |
|---|---|
| PGA Tour leader | 65–71% |
| PGA Tour average | About 50% |
| Low-handicap amateur | 30–45% |
| Mid-handicap amateur | 15–30% |
| High-handicap amateur (20+) | Under 10% |
Amateur figures are approximate and shift between tracking sources.
What sand save percentage doesn’t tell you
The stat records a yes or no for each bunker: saved or not. That simplicity is its appeal and its blind spot. It treats a gentle splash from a flat lie the same as a buried lie in a deep bunker, and it cannot separate a bunker shot to a foot from a poor shot rescued by a long putt.
Sample size is another limit. A player who finds two bunkers in a round and saves both reads 100% for the day, which says almost nothing. Over many rounds, the number settles into something meaningful. This is why analysts who follow the work of Mark Broadie pair sand save percentage with strokes gained around the green, which weighs each bunker shot against the difficulty of the lie rather than reducing it to a single yes or no.
Related Golf Terms
- Front nine score — The total strokes taken on holes one through nine.
- Back nine score — The total strokes taken on holes ten through eighteen.
- Carding — The act of recording a score on the scorecard.
- Up-and-down percentage — The rate of getting the ball in the hole in two from around the green.
- Total score — The combined number of strokes for an entire round.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a sand save the same as an up-and-down?
Almost. A sand save is an up-and-down that begins in a greenside bunker, whereas a plain up-and-down can start anywhere off the green, including the fringe grass.
Do fairway bunkers count toward sand save percentage?
No. Only greenside bunkers count. Shots from fairway bunkers are tracked under other categories.
What is a sandie in golf?
“Sandie” (or “sandy”) is the informal name for a sand save. It also names a common side bet where a player wins a point or a set amount for getting up and down from a bunker.
What is the highest sand save percentage on the PGA Tour?
The highest single-season mark since 1980 is 71.54%, recorded by Michael Kim in 2025, according to Golf Compendium.
How many bunker shots does an average golfer face per round?
Usually one to three greenside bunker shots, so the stat rests on a small sample in any single round.
Sources
- PGA Tour. “Sand Save Percentage.” Official statistic definition. Accessed August 2026.
https://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.111.y1983.html - Golf Compendium. “Yearly Sand Save Leaders on the PGA Tour.” Accessed August 2026.
https://www.golfcompendium.com/2018/10/sand-save-leaders-pga-tour.html - golfity. “What Is Sand Save Percentage?” May 2026.
https://golfity.com/blog/what-is-sand-save-percentage/ - GolScore. “Sand Save Rate: How Bunker Play Impacts Your Overall Score.” April 2026.
https://golsco.app/en/blog/sand-save-impact - Shot Scope. “Sand Save Statistics.” Accessed August 2026.
https://shotscope.com/blog/stats/ - LiveAbout (Brent Kelley). “How to Earn a Sandy (Sandie) in Golf.” Accessed August 2026.
https://www.liveabout.com/how-to-earn-a-sandy-in-golf-1560975 - Golf News Net (Ryan Ballengee). “What is a ‘sand save’ in golf?” July 2021.
https://thegolfnewsnet.com/ryan_ballengee/2021/07/15/what-is-a-sand-save-in-golf-and-what-does-a-sandie-mean-for-a-score-123467/ - Pelz, Dave. Dave Pelz’s Short Game Bible. Broadway Books, 1999. (print)
