Lou Stagner's Newsletter #135

Are Fairways Useless?

Author

Lou Stagner
May 15, 2026

Weekly Quiz!

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The typical scratch player will make 8 or more bogeys (or worse) in what percent of their rounds?

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Are Fairways Useless?

Today we're looking at how much hitting fairways helps versus how much hitting greens helps. The tables below show average score for ONLY par 4s. I pulled Arccos data across five skill levels (scratch through 20 index) and broke out average score by whether the player hit the fairway and by whether they hit the green in regulation.

I also broke it down by hole handicap so you can see how that impacts scoring. (Hole handicap 1 is the hardest hole, 18 is the easiest).

Look at the bottom row of every table. The difference in average score for when you hit the fairway versus when you miss the fairway is between 0.24 and 0.32 strokes across every skill level. The difference in scoring when you hit the green in regulation versus when miss it? 0.85 to 1.29 strokes. Three to four times bigger!

Hitting fairways helps. It just doesn't help anywhere NEAR as much as hitting greens does.

My Thoughts

I have said this a million times. Hitting the green is the biggest scoring lever you can pull on any hole. Hitting the fairway helps, but just not as much as hitting the green.

A drive in the rough still has a real shot at the green. A drive deep in the trees, the water, or OB does not. So the job off the tee is simple… keep the ball in play. That’s it. The penalty for missing a fairway is small. The penalty for losing a ball is enormous.

Fairways are definitely not “useless”, it’s just that hitting the green is so much more important.

Enjoy the rest of the PGA Championship!

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    Have a great week!

Lou Stagner