TRENDING: How Do Amateur Golfers Handle the Old Course

This week brings what could be one of the biggest, most exciting golfing moments in 2022. It is the 150th Open Championship, a landmark event in itself. And to make sure it’s being played at a venue that matches the lofty expectations, the Old Course at St. Andrew’s will be hosting. But adding that extra bit of excitement, Tiger Woods—who’s, unfortunately, limited himself to Major play—will be returning to a venue where he’s had success.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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And as excited as we are to see how the pros will handle the oldest test in the game, many of ask will be asking ourselves:  how would the amateurs handle the Old Course?  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hopefully much better than that, but likely considering more than 45,000 rounds get played at the famed Old Tom Morris routing.

Fortunately, Shot Scope—a leader in shot data collection and analyses with the help of their current-gen V3 GPS tracking watch and new tracking-enabled PRO LX+ rangefinder or H4 handheld—has data points from more than 100,000 golfers from 162 different countries, and over 180 million shots. And from that wealth of information, Shot Scope’s data for St. Andrews is built from 6,780 rounds and over 564,000 shots.

New developments in technology have enabled Shot Scope to also view a heat map of every hole on the Old Course—or any course in the world—to view exactly where amateur golfers are playing. Add to this an array of performance statistics, and Shot Scope can identify ground-breaking data on how exactly amateur golfers perform on any course in the world.

So let’s start with a summary, which we’ll follow up with a front and back nine deep dive in subsequent articles:

• Old Course plays to an average score of 83.2
• Hardest hole = No. 17 (Par-4)
• Easiest hole = No. 9 (Par-4)
• Highest FIR and GIR % of all The Open Championship courses
• 3rd easiest course on The Open rota, behind Troon and St. George’s
• Higher handicaps struggle more on the back 9 than lower handicaps
• Green with the most 3 putts = 13th
• Tee shots going OB on 17 and 18 result in an average score of 7
• Par 5s are the easiest for low handicaps and hardest for higher handicaps

Digging a little deeper, Shot Scope data shows that the stroke index rating for the holes on the scorecard doesn’t exactly match up with amateur player data:

For example, the Par-4 17th hole (The Road Hole), is the most difficult for amateur golfers, who must wrestle with a demanding tee shot and approach shot, resulting in an average score on this hole is 5.31, higher than the Par-5 5th hole (5.28 average score).

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On the opposite end of the spectrum, the 5th and 14th holes (both are Par-5s) are ranked 1 and 2 by St. Andrews Links, but the Shot Scope database shows that amateurs actually play these long holes remarkably well—average scores of 5.28 and 5.95, respectively. Golficity/Shot Scope Insider Tip:  Remember to press on the 5th and 14th holes if you’re playing a money match with some more accomplished golfing buddies.

If we break golfers down by handicaps, there’s something interesting separating some of the handicaps.

Perhaps the most substantial and interesting difference among amateurs golfers is that while there’s less than 15% difference between 0 (scratch) and 25 handicap golfers hitting fairways in regulation (FIR) on the Old Course, there’s more than 40% difference between the same range of golfers when evaluating greens in regulation (GIR). While the similar percentage of fairways in regulation can be chalked up to the Old Course’s wide, forgiving fairways, the higher handicaps golfers clearly struggle with controlling their ball, despite the Old Course’s oversized greens (indeed, golfers of all handicaps outperformed their average GIR when playing the Old Course).

In the next two follow-up articles, we’ll examine the front and back 9s to see how amateur golfers handle each of the Old Course’s 18 holes.

Cover Image Via GolfChannel