Drive for Show, Putt for Dough?

There's an old saying among golfers: "Drive for show, putt for dough." Hitting the ball far and straight is impressive, but putting is what wins you games. We wanted to know... is it true?

We'll use data from the 2022 PGA Tour to find out. (If you need a refresher, click here for some golf basics)

• A round of golf typically consists of 9 or 18 holes.
• One swing of the club at the ball is called a shot or, more formally, a stroke.
• The first stroke at each hole is taken from the tee (a small stand that makes it easier to hit the ball cleanly).
• Successfully hitting the ball into the hole is called "holing out."
• "Par" is the number of shots it should take to get the ball from the tee into the hole. It is higher for more difficult holes, lower for easier ones.
• A player's score on a course is his or her total number of strokes, so lower scores are better. Sometimes the score is compared to par for the course, so if the total number of expected shots across all holes of a course was 70, and a player finished in 67 shots, then you could say his score was 67 or -3.
• There are five distinct types of terrain on a golf course:
  • Fairway: the main body of the course. The grass in the fairway is short and easy to hit from.
  • Rough: the outskirts of the course. The grass in the rough is long and harder to hit from.
  • Green: the area immediately surrounding the hole. The grass in the green is cut very short for the smoothest hitting experience.
  • Sand traps: just what it sounds like. You want to avoid sand.
  • Water and other out-of-bounds areas: if you hit your ball into water, you take a one-stroke penalty to your score and have to drop the ball next to the body of water to resume play.

Comparing Player Stats

Start by exploring the radar charts below. The left chart shows stats related to driving; the right shows stats related to putting. Both include two possible measures of a player's performance throughout the season: the amount of money they won, and their average score in tournaments they competed in. (Remember, a lower score is better.)

In particular, look at the difference between the player who earned the most money that year, Scottie Scheffler, and some of the players who earned no money that year, such as Chris Gotterup, John Pak, or Ryan Fox.

This initial exploration lets you start getting a feel for how driving and putting relate to one another and to overall performance.

Predicting Performance

As you may have noticed, not all the best-performing players are exceptional in every area, and not all the worst-performing players are bad in every area. For example, although Chris Gotterup received no prize money, he has one of the strongest drives of anyone in the Tour. The correlation between some stats and overall performance isn't as strong as you might think.

A natural next step is to quantify the correlations. The scatterplots below show the precise relationship between the six driving and putting statistics and the two performance metrics. Make some predictions before you check them out: which broad skill do you think will better predict performance, driving or putting? And within those skills, which specific stat? (Click here for definitions of each stat.)

Monetary Success

So we see that Strokes Gained: Putting is the strongest predictor of score, and Strokes Gained: Driving is the strongest predictor of money earned. Score is the most natural metric of overall performance, buT some people would say that when it comes down to it, money is what talks. (Plus, the phrase is "putt for dough.")

So for one more angle, we'll look at the bubble chart below. It shows how SG: Driving and SG: Putting relate to each other for the top and bottom performers in several tournaments. Each bubble represents a player. The size of the bubble shows the money he won; the horizontal position shows how well he drove; the vertical position shows how well he putted. A value above zero means he drove or putted better than the average pro, and below zero means he performed worse (that's how Strokes Gained is defined: 0 means "average for a pro").

You’ll see that great driving or great putting can carry a player surprisingly far. Some successful players sit comfortably in the top-right quadrant (they're good at both), but others have a lopsided game, excelling in one but just holding their ground in the other. And considering how much the sizes of the bubbles vary, this shows that strong play in even one part of the game can translate into a massive financial difference.

So is it true? Drive for show, putt for dough? It's not so clear.

Players can have different strengths and weaknesses and still be world class, placing high in tournaments and winning hundreds of thousands of dollars despite below average driving or putting. When it comes to score, strong putting correlates more strongly, but if we're talking about dough, per the saying, then driving turns out to be the better predictor (or at least, it was in the 2022 PGA Tour). (This is outside our current scope, but there's good evidence that approach shots are actually the most essential skill, more than either driving or putting.)

Thanks for reading! We hope you found it interesting and learned something new. Now, you better go work on your puttin...er, your driv... oh, whichever you like ;)