How Many Golfers Break 100?

How Many Golfers Break 100?

How many golfers break 100 depends in part on how you define the question. Does it mean to make a score under 100 at least once, or most of the time, or just on average?

Also, who is defined as being a ‘golfer’ affects the answer. Does it have to be a regular golfer, one with a handicap index, or just anyone who has played 18 holes of golf a some point? Does this point in time have to be sometime recently; if so, how recently?

These are not abstract, pedantic considerations, as delving through the statistics thrown around and you come across different, seemingly contradictory answers. But dig deeper into the basis of the stats, and it becomes apparent that they are all answering slightly different questions.

You can come across answers that suggest almost every golfer breaks 100. This seems to based loosely on taking USGA figures that show that only about 4.5% of golfers have a handicap index above 27.9 and using the idea that if a golfer plays 27.9 shots over par on a par-72 layout that is a total of 99.9 shots.

This sort-of works if you exclude the aspect that a player’s course handicap may well be higher than his handicap index – but only if you are defining the question as ‘have the capacity to break 100 when playing well’. Also it only applies to those with official USGA handicaps, which is the minority of golfers in the US – about 10-12% of all those who have played a round of golf in the past 12 months. Those players who have handicaps are likely to play more often and more seriously, so be more practised and more able at the game. 

Trying to get accurate detailed data for all golfers is tricky. Those who have handicaps submit scores for handicapping purpose, but there is no official regularly collected data of round scores for the more casual golfer. But attempts have been made to acquire and collate some data about the latter group’s rounds.

Arising from this analysis comes the stat that 86% of golfers break 100 at some point in their lifetime. The National Golf Foundation reckons, from their own collected data, that around 55% of all golfers break 100 on average.

Breaking 100 is seen as probably the first milestone in a golfer’s journey. The next is then to break 90, but many do not get that far. The National Golf Foundation has calculated that only around 26% of golfers regularly break 90.