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Weekly Quiz!

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Short Game Performance by Age

This is a question I have received many times through the years. Do older golfers have better short games?

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The tables below show average and median strokes gained around the green per round. It is broken down by age for specific handicap indexes.

All of the strokes gained numbers are strokes gained compared to a scratch golfer.

PLEASE NOTE: all of the strokes gained numbers below are negative.

Which means, as seen in this first table below, that -0.30 is better than -0.73.

Key takeaways:

• 5 index players

  • Players age 60+ are 0.43 strokes better per round than players in their 20s

• 10 index players

  • Players age 60+ are 0.68 strokes better per round than players in their 20s

• 15 index players

  • Players age 60+ are 0.63 strokes better per round than players in their 20s

• All players

  • Players age 60+ are 0.51 strokes better per round than players in their 20s

My Thoughts

At every handicap level, as player age increases, their strokes gained around the green gets better. This isn’t surprising seeing that as players age, they tend to lose distance.

If older players want to maintain a certain handicap index, they will need to offset any distance loss by improving another part of their game.

I am sure there are also older players that have:

1. Lost distance

2. Had their handicap indexes get worse from that loss of distance

3. Maintained their short game skill even though their index got worse

It would be interesting to look at short game (and putting) performance for the same person(s) over many decades. I would be curious to see if short game actually improves as golfers age.

For all those that have asked about this, hope you enjoyed this issue!
 

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