LPGA Tour vs Female Amateurs Off The Tee – Shot Scope

October 22, 2024

To celebrate Women’s Golf Month at TROON, our official data partner Shot Scope, have published some interesting stats from their ever-growing on-course database around tee shots from the amateur female golfer.

To provide some context and comparisons, Shot Scope have also pulled data from the LPGA Tour website, to see how the elite female golfer navigates their way off the tee box compared to the average female amateur.

Before delving into the data, it is important to clarify that the LPGA player stats are driving distances which accounts for all clubs. Whereas, the Shot Scope handicap benchmark accounts are driver only.

For the Shot Scope handicap benchmarks, the numbers used are Performance-Average. By excluding 10%of extreme outliers from the dataset, P-Avg. club distances, give golfers a yardage that they can expect a well struck shot to travel.

Looking at distance we can see that even the shortest player off the tee on the LPGA Tour is equal to some of the longest amateur female golfers. Note as well that, typically, lower players hit the ball further than the higher handicappers.

Auston Kim is, at the time of writing, ranked first on the LPGA Tour for average driving distance with an impressive 278yds, 43yds beyond the low single figure female amateur and 100yds past the 21-25hcp.

Lizette Salas, at the time of writing, is the shortest player off the tee on the LPGA Tour with an average driving distance of 235yds, equal to that of the low single figure amateur. However, Lizette makes up for being the shortest on Tour with truly unbelievable accuracy.

The scratch golfer, which makes up 1% of amateur golfers, is 30ft worse in terms of proximity from 175-200y and our 10hcp golfer is 71ft worse, that’s 10 yards and 24 yards respectively!

Our 10 handicapper, on the cusp of single figures, hits the green at this distance every 2 in 10 attempts compared to our Tour player who averages closer to 6 in 10.

When we reduce the distance by 100 yards we see just how dialed in the Tour players are.

Incredibly, having played six tournaments so far this year and with 266 potential fairways to hit, Salas has hit 233! So yes, Lizette may not hit the ball very far compared to her competitors, but she more than makes up for it by putting herself in a position to score, finding the fairway 88% of the time!

For further context, the current leader for driving accuracy on the PGA Tour, Collin Morikawa, hits 78% of fairways, 10% less than Salas.

At the other end of the scale, Yani Tseng finds the fairway 49% of the time, which is less than our amateur golfer benchmarks. However, Tseng averages 249yds off the tee so perhaps there could be somewhat of a correlation between longer hitters hitting fewer fairways compared to shorter hitters.

For instance, the 21-25 handicapper hits the ball the shortest off the tee from the data above but hits the fairway the most (for amateurs). However, this may lend itself somewhat to the distance debate.

Whilst the higher handicapper hits more fairways, as our handicap benchmark goes down, P-Avg. Distance goes up – lower players typically hit the ball further it would appear. We see this trend carry on throughout the bag when we look at one of the most popular clubs in many people’s bags, the 7 iron.

Surprisingly, the average PGA Tour player only gets up and down 5% more than our scratch player – the caveat to this stat, the conditions on course are drastically different from PGA Tour quality to the typical golf club.

That being said, the difference between being inside 10ft as opposed to being beyond it can have a big impact on the likelihood of making a putt.

From just inside 10ft we can see that the scratch player basically has a 50/50 chance of making the putt, but as we will learn below, when we move slightly beyond 10ft, the chances of making it drop considerably. However, the same can be said for the Tour players – there is a large drop off from after 10ft, so hitting inside this distance is key.

This additional length makes a big difference when it comes to hitting shots into the green whether it be an approach shot or par 3. Note that the 21-25hcp golfer hits their 3 wood typically 14yds longer than that of the low single figure players 7i.

So when playing into a green from 165yds, the high handicapper will be using a 3 wood, whereas the low single figure player will likely be using a 6i or 5i.

For additional context and comparisons, Shot Scope’s male scratch golfer handicap benchmark hits, on average, 50% of fairways, so female golfers definitely lead the way in accuracy off the tee – if you are playing a scramble and need to find the short stuff, keep this in mind!

If you want insight into your game check out Shot Scope performance tracking products.

Access data like the above as well as over 100 tour level statistics like what the Pros use with no subscription fees on the Shot Scope mobile app and web dashboard.

Additionally, Shot Scope users can analyze their game using state-of-the-art features and stats like Strokes Gained, course analysis, and shots plotted. The recently launched MyStrategy feature allows golfers to create their very own data-driven strategy with their on course performance data.