Strokes Gained Around the Green
Strokes gained around the green is a golf statistic that measures how many strokes a player gains or loses on the field with short shots played from within 30 yards of the green, not counting putts.
What is strokes gained around the green?
Strokes gained around the green is one of the strokes gained categories tracked on the PGA Tour. It covers the short shots a player hits close to the putting surface: chips, pitches, and greenside bunker shots. Putts do not count here because those belong to a separate category called strokes gained putting.
The number tells you how a player performed on those short shots compared to the rest of the field. A positive figure means the player chipped and pitched better than average that round. A negative figure means worse. The “around the green” zone covers any non-putt shot inside 30 yards of the green’s edge.
The statistic exists because older measures of the short game were blunt. They could not separate good chipping from good putting, nor account for how hard each shot actually was. Mark Broadie, a professor at Columbia Business School, fixed that. He built the strokes gained method from the PGA Tour’s ShotLink data, and the Tour rolled out the full set of categories, including around the green, by 2014.
How strokes gained around the green is calculated
Every spot on a golf course has a benchmark: the average number of strokes a tour pro needs to finish the hole from there. A chip or pitch moves the ball from one spot to another, usually onto the green and closer to the cup. Strokes gained compares how much the benchmark improved against the one stroke the player used to do it.
Strokes gained = benchmark at the start position − benchmark at the end position − 1
Picture a greenside bunker shot from 10 yards. Using the benchmark tables in Broadie’s book Every Shot Counts, a 10-yard sand shot takes about 2.47 strokes to hole out on average. The player splashes it to 5 feet, and a 5-foot putt averages about 1.23 strokes. Run the numbers: 2.47 − 1.23 − 1 = +0.24. That bunker shot gained roughly a quarter of a stroke on the field. Whether the 5-footer drops is irrelevant to this stat, since the putt is measured separately.
Strokes gained around the green vs. approach and putting
Three strokes gained categories deal with shots that are not tee shots, and they get mixed up often. The line between them comes down to where the shot starts.
| Category | Where the shot starts | Shot types | Putts counted? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Around the green | Within 30 yards of the green edge | Chips, pitches, greenside bunker shots | No |
| Approach | Outside 30 yards, plus par-3 tee shots | Iron and wedge shots into the green | No |
| Putting | On the putting surface | Putts only | Yes |
Drawing the boundary at 30 yards keeps chips and pitches in their own bucket, away from longer approach shots that test a different skill.
What counts as a good number
Because the figure is measured against the field, the field average always sits at zero. Any positive number means a player beat the average that round. But the gains here stay small. Even the best short-game players on Tour rarely clear half a stroke per round.
Jonathan Byrd led the PGA Tour in 2023 at 0.527 strokes gained around the green per round, according to PGA Tour data. The single-season record is higher still: 0.728, set by Chris Riley in 2009, per Golf Compendium. Marks above 0.500 are rare. Only a handful of players reach one in any given year. So a per-round figure of 0.3 already points to a genuinely sharp short game.
Amateurs can track an approximate version through services like Arccos and Shot Scope, which compare a player’s shots against others of a similar handicap.
How it differs from scrambling
Scrambling, also called the up-and-down percentage, counts how often a player holes out in two shots after missing the green. The PGA Tour average sits around 59%, while most amateurs land below 50%, according to PGA Tour scrambling data.
It is a handy number, but it hides a lot. Scrambling lumps the chip and the putt together, so a chunked chip to 50 feet followed by a made putt still scores as a successful up and down. It also ignores the lie and the difficulty of the shot. Strokes gained around the green strips the putt out, accounts for whether the ball sat in sand, rough, or fairway, and rewards a tough shot hit close, even when the par save slips away.
Related Golf Terms
- Stroke — Any forward movement of the club made with the intention of hitting the ball.
- Strokes gained — An advanced statistical method comparing a player’s performance to a baseline.
- Strokes gained approach — How much a player gains or loses on approach shots compared to the field.
- Stroke index — A ranking of holes by difficulty used to allocate handicap strokes.
- Stroke play — The most common format where the total number of strokes for the round determines the winner.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does strokes gained around the green include putts?
No. Putts are measured under strokes gained putting. The around-the-green stat only counts non-putt shots played within 30 yards of the green.
What yardage counts as “around the green”?
The official PGA Tour statistic uses shots within 30 yards of the edge of the green. Some consumer tracking apps draw the line at 50 yards instead, so the exact cutoff can vary by source.
Who created strokes gained?
Mark Broadie, a Columbia Business School professor, developed the method using PGA Tour ShotLink data and detailed it in his book Every Shot Counts.
Can amateur golfers measure their strokes gained around the green?
Yes. Shot-tracking systems such as Arccos and Shot Scope estimate it by comparing a player’s short shots to a benchmark drawn from golfers of a similar skill level.
Is a negative strokes gained around the green number bad?
It means the player chipped and pitched below the field average for that round. On a single tough shot it is normal and says little on its own, but a steady negative trend points to a short game that loses ground to the field.
Sources
- PGA Tour. “Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green.” Accessed May 2026.
- Mark Broadie. “Every Shot Counts.” 2014.
- Golf Compendium. “Yearly PGA Tour Strokes Gained Around the Green Leaders.” Accessed May 2026.
- GolfWRX. “Do you actually understand Strokes Gained stats? Here’s a breakdown.” Accessed May 2026.
- The DIY Golfer. “What is Strokes Gained Around the Green? Explained.” Accessed May 2026.
