An Analysis of Brian Harman's Putts Holed at the 2023 Open Championship

Phenomenal display of golf by Brian Harman winning the Open Championship. He outplayed everyone and really is a fantastic winner.

His putting display has been getting many comments and figures such as the number of putts he holed - 58 - under 10 feet all week and the fact that he missed only one putt under 10 feet are being highlighted.

But let's delve into the numbers a little deeper to see how impressive his putting was. The chart in the photo is the length of the putts he holed on every hole of the Championship.

 

 

At the bottom of the chart is a breakdown of the putts:

0-4 feet - in essence tap ins for professional golfers on greens as good as they were in Liverpool,
4-6 feet - high probability of holing,
6-10 feet - approximately 8 feet is the 50% probability of holing on tour, so this is the could miss, could hole range,
10-20 feet - a chance of holing but not that often and little chance of 3 putting
Outside 20 feet - rarely hole, mainly looking to get the pace right

42 putts holed from inside 4 feet, the vast majority 42/58 or 72% of the putts he holed under 10 feet were in essence tap ins.

Only 5 putts holed from 4-6 feet, not that many from this range in 72 holes but still impressive none were missed.

12 putts from 13 holed from 6-10 feet, about 50% of putts are holed from 8 feet on the PGA Tour, so this is the most impressive putting stat of the week. He holed the first 10 of these putts he had, the one he missed was the 11th which was the 13th hole in the last round where he missed from 6 foot 11 inches and holed two more after including the beautiful par save from 7 foot 7 inches on the 72nd hole.

6 putts holed from 10-20 feet in the 72 holes, not much but typical enough for a good putter. They don't hole every putt they look at.

6 putts holed from outside 20 feet in 72 holes, doesn't seem like much, many golfers think for a good score you must hole a whole pile of long putts but the golfers on tour do well to hole one putt outside of 20 feet per round so Brian's 6 holed putts is actually a very good return.

The impressive putting stat for Brian Harman was the conversion of 12 out 13 putts from 6 to 10 feet, if that conversion rate was closer to 50%, his final score might be 8 or 9 under but that's still the winning score, so the overall strength of his game had him winning still, the putting just made it even more impressive. Also the three longish putts in a row of 19 feet 9 inches, 25 feet 5 inches and 17 feet 2 inches on holes 2,3 and 4 in the second round pushed him to the top of the leaderboard and a lead he didn't relinquish after. This little run was very impressive.

How does this help your game and practice? Practice short, under 10 feet, and long putts, outside 20 feet, only, long putts for pace and short putts to hole out. There's little need to practice from 10-20 feet, you're not holing and you're not 3 putting, so learning little from this type of practice.