How Many Fairways in Regulation to Hit Per Round?
With the invention of many different golf apps that have scorecard and stat tracking features, there is a lot of data being collected from every day golfers including number of fairways hit per round. This data can be used to show where the average golfer stands in many areas of his or her golf game compared to fellow golfers of the same handicap.
The PGA Tour tracks the fairways in regulation statistic so you can click here to check the current PGA Tour average fairways hit. The top 10 tour players all average 70% fairways in regulation with the leader over 80%!
Which Golf Apps Track Fairways Hit?
A few golf apps worth checking out to track your fairways hit, greens hit, and putts:
- Golf GPS
- Hole 19 Golf GPS
- Golf Shot
- Golf Logix
- The Grint
What we’ve learned from the data is that the average golfer DOES NOT hit many fairways during his/her golf round.
The driver is the least accurate club in the bag of most golfers, and if you can learn to straighten out your drives, you’ll gain the advantage over your playing partners.
Plus, you’ll see several strokes fall off your score as a domino effect of hitting more greens and making more birdie putts.
Focus on hitting better tee shots that land in the fairway if you want to set yourself up for a good chance at making par. This means giving up power and focusing more on the control your drives.
How Many Fairways Does the Average Golfer Hit?
Let’s get into the cold hard data of fairways hit by handicap so you can compare yourself to other golfers and see how much you can expect to improve. Check out this chart showing the number of fairways hit per round for each golf handicap range.
If you miss a lot of fairways, it’s not the end of the world. Many professional golfers have a rough day off the tee (Tiger Woods) and still scrap together an even par or better round of golf.
But hitting more fairways, increases your chances of making more pars and for bogey golfers, it can have the biggest impact. TheGrint found that when bogey golfers miss the fairway, their chance of making bogey drops from 60% to 30%.
To be elite, you should set a goal of hitting 70% of your fairways in regulation. Why 70%?
This is the number that the top PGA Tour players achieve. For example, Henrik Stenson led the PGA Tour in 2018 by hitting 76% of his fairways! PGA Tour Stats show he hit 425 fairways out of a possible 558.
To achieve 70%, you should aim to hit 5/7 fairways in regulation for every 9 holes of golf, assuming two holes are par 3.
Overall, take this mindset to the golf course from now on that you need to hit 5/7 fairways to be elite and you’ll start feeling more confident with this newfound knowledge on hand.
Next, you need to go practice your tee shots. Try one of our practice plans that test your skills on the driving range. See the full list of options below.