Three-putts are incidents any golfer hopes to avoid in a round. After all, the par of a hole is always determined with the idea that a professional golfer will need two putts to complete it.
So, a par-3 assumes one shot to the green and two to putt, while a par-4 calculates it should take two shots to reach the green and two putts to finish. Similarly, a par-5 should take three shots to reach the green, followed by two putts.
A 3-putt – taking three putts on the green to finish the hole – is far from ideal and will more than likely result in a bogey or worse. But how often do PGA Tour pros 3-putt? Fortunately, there is a definitive answer to that question.
The PGA Tour has maintained the category since 1992, so we can see how players have fared since then. Perhaps surprisingly, only one player has a 3-Putt Avoidance percentage beneath one in any year. That man is Greg Norman, who achieved 0.97% in 1994. The Australian endured just 11 3-putts out of 1,134 holes that year. At the other end of the scale stands Matt Hansen’s 2006 record of 6.14% of holes ending in 3-putts – still an envious enough total for most amateurs, but far from a recipe for PGA Tour success.
The stats tell us something else, too – that after a long period where the yearly average didn’t fall beneath three percent, recent years have seen an improvement on the PGA Tour. After it averaged 2.99% in 1996, the number didn’t dip beneath three percent again until 2014, with 2007 and 2013 particularly poor putting years, with an average of 3.38% of holes leading to 3-putts. In contrast, the years 2019 through 2021 all averaged beneath three percent.
