Putting Skill as Nearly Indistinguishable from Noise: An Empirical Bayes Analysis of PGA Tour Performance

Abstract

We revisit a foundational question in golf analytics: how important are the core components of performance--driving, approach play, and putting--in explaining success on the PGA Tour? Building on Mark Broadie's strokes gained analyses, we use an empirical Bayes approach to estimate latent golfer skill and assess statistical significance using a multiple testing procedure that controls the false discovery rate. While tee-to-green skill shows clear and substantial differences across players, putting skill is both less variable and far less reliably estimable. Indeed, putting performance appears nearly indistinguishable from noise.