What is Strokes Gained and Why Does it Matter?

Strokes Gained is a way to answer one simple question:

Did that shot help you MORE than most shots from that same spot?

That’s it. It doesn’t care if the shot looked pretty. It cares if the shot made it easier to finish the hole.

Think about it like a destination…

Think of the hole like a destination, and your ball like your car. Your phone says: “You’ll arrive in 20 minutes.”

Then traffic changes.

If you take a road and now it says 15 minutes, you gained time.
If you take a wrong turn and now it says 30 minutes, you lost time.

Golf is the same.

Before your shot, there’s an “expected shots to finish” number.
After your shot, that number changes.

If the number drops more than expected, you gained strokes.
If it doesn’t drop much (or gets worse), you lost strokes.

Why this is better than regular stats

Some stats are too simple.

“Fairways hit” doesn’t tell you if you’re in a great spot or a bad spot.
“Putts per round” doesn’t care if your putts were short or long.

Strokes Gained uses context:

how far you are
what kind of lie you have (fairway, rough, bunker, green)
and what usually happens from there

How it’s calculated

There’s a “usual shots to finish” number for:

where you start the shot
and where you end the shot

The math is basically:

Usual shots from the start − (1 shot you took + usual shots from the finish)

If that result is positive, you gained strokes.
If it’s negative, you lost strokes.

The main categories (the buckets)

Most Strokes Gained stats are grouped into:

Off the Tee
Approach
Around the Green
Putting
Tee to Green

Why it matters

Because it shows what’s really affecting your score. Instead of guessing, you can say:

“I lose the most shots on approach.”
“My putting is okay, but my wedges leave me tough putts.”
“My driver isn’t killing me, my misses are.”

And that makes practice simple: work on the bucket where you lose the most.

With Arccos, golf’s #1 game tracker, you can track your own Strokes Gained as an amateur and see exactly where you’re gaining and losing shots across your bag. It’s the kind of data that used to feel like it belonged to pros and TV broadcasts, but now it’s right there in your pocket after every round.