You spend hours chipping and putting because that's where you "lose the most shots." Every lesson, every practice session, every YouTube video — it's all about getting up and down. Makes perfect sense, right? Miss the green, save par, lower your scores.
Except the best players in the world are telling a completely different story with their scorecards.
The obsession with short game stems from golf's most persistent myth: that scrambling ability separates good players from great ones. We see tour pros hole impossible chips and assume that's the skill gap. We three-putt and think putting practice is the answer. The logic feels bulletproof — fix the areas where you're bleeding strokes.
DataGolf, whose predictive model is widely regarded as one of the most accurate in golf analytics, reveals something that should reshape how you think about improvement. Among the tour's top players, the largest skill gaps aren't where you think they are.
The Numbers Tell a Different Story
Scottie Scheffler sits at the top of DataGolf's skill rankings, gaining 3.06 strokes per round against an average tour field. Here's how those gains break down: 0.92 strokes off the tee, 1.25 strokes on approach, 0.33 around the greens, and 0.57 putting.
Notice what jumps out? His biggest advantage comes from approach shots — not scrambling, not putting. The gap between Scheffler's approach play and an average tour pro is more than double his putting edge.
This pattern holds across the elite tier. Russell Henley gains 0.77 strokes on approach versus 0.23 putting. Ben Griffin: 0.60 approach, 0.43 putting. Si Woo Kim gains nearly a full stroke on approach shots while actually losing strokes with his putter.
The message is clear: tour-level scoring comes from hitting it closer to the pin, not from miraculous recovery shots.
Why We Get This Backwards
The short game myth persists because of what we notice. A 40-foot chip-in gets replayed endlessly. A laser-precise 7-iron to eight feet? That's just Thursday afternoon golf footage. We remember the spectacular saves, not the approach shots that never needed saving in the first place.
There's also the practice range bias. Chipping and putting feel achievable — you can see immediate improvement, hole a few in a row, walk away feeling like Phil Mickelson. Approach shots require more technical work, better ball-striking, understanding of distances and trajectories. The feedback is less immediate, the improvement more gradual.
But here's what your weekend foursome isn't seeing: tour pros rarely need those miracle chips because they're not missing greens in the first place. When they do miss, it's usually in the right spots — short-sided situations are the exception, not the rule.
"The best way to improve your short game is to need it less often."
The Russell Henley Blueprint
Russell Henley offers the perfect case study for what this looks like in practice. DataGolf — whose live rankings you can track on The Lab — rates him as the 4th-best player in the world, but his profile breaks the amateur mindset completely.
Henley gains just 0.24 strokes off the tee — barely above average for a tour pro. His putting is solid but unspectacular at 0.23 strokes gained. Around the greens, he's good but not great at 0.29. Yet he's consistently one of the world's best players.
The secret? He gains 0.77 strokes per round on approach shots — more than triple his putting advantage. Henley isn't bombing drives or holing everything he looks at. He's simply putting his ball in the right places, at the right distances, with the right trajectory to set up manageable putts.
This is the skill that translates most directly to amateur golf. You might never putt like Jordan Spieth or chip like Phil, but learning to control your approach distances and miss in the right places? That's achievable with focused practice.
What This Means for Your Game
The implication isn't that short game doesn't matter — it absolutely does. But the priority order that most golfers follow is backwards. Instead of spending 70% of your practice time on shots within 100 yards, flip that ratio.
Start thinking about approach shots the way tour pros do. It's not just about hitting the green — it's about hitting the right part of the green, from the right distance, with the right spin. A 15-footer from below the hole beats a 6-footer from above it.
This means understanding your distances with every club, not just your driver. It means practicing half-shots and three-quarter swings, not just full rips. It means choosing clubs that leave you in the fat part of the green, even if it means hitting less club and accepting a longer putt.
The tour data suggests that most golfers would see faster improvement by spending more time dialing in their 7-iron than perfecting their 60-degree wedge. The 7-iron determines how often you need the wedge in the first place.
Next time you're at the range, try this: spend the first half of your session hitting approach shots to specific targets at specific distances. Pick a pin, choose your landing spot, and work on hitting it there consistently. Then spend the second half on short game. You might find that the improved approaches make the short game practice feel a lot less urgent.
The best players in the world are showing us the path forward. Maybe it's time to listen. If you want a structured practice plan built around this data — or just need to know where your strokes are actually going — Divot Lab's practice diagnosis takes two minutes.
Data via DataGolf's predictive skill model · Current skill estimates for top-ranked players