Putting
Theoretically, putting is half of the game. On a standard 18 hole course where the golfer is playing from a tee or hitting long shots toward a green with four par threes, four par fives, and ten par fours, a player shooting par would be expected to have 36 putts and 36 "full strokes". Touring pros will tell you that putting is more than half the game; to them it is everything if you want to win. While the merit or utility of both concepts is evident, the first is a complete myth-studies vary, but putting strokes average 40-43% of total score regardless of skill level for golfers able to break 100; and the second is truer than you have probably imagined. We will begin by looking at total putts per round.
We don't have to look any further to find our one stroke per round reduction. This chart is the bottom line and says it all. However, for verification we are going to look at some data on full strokes played, and we will examine some additional putting data that tends to confirm the fact that there is no significant evidence that golf club design and modern golf club technology have lowered the score of a single player. In the interest of objectivity, we are going to examine some evidence that seemingly contradicts my conclusion. I think that you are going to find "apparently improved results", but in addition I think you will agree that the preponderance of the evidence leads to the inevitable conclusion that there has been no scoring reduction in spite of the apparent "improvement".
We have already seen that part of the scoring reduction is related to the improvement in sand play. Part of lowered total putts is related to improved sand play. Has there been improvement in putting unrelated to improved sand play or chipping close and one putting? We already know that at least for the last decade chipping close is unchanged. But the PGA also tracks putts on greens in regulation defined as "measuring putting performance on those holes where the green is hit in regulation (GIR). For these holes, the total putts are divided by the total holes played. By using greens hit in regulation we are able to eliminate the effects of chipping close and one putting in the computation."
Note that the data only goes back to 1986. There has been a slow steady decline even though the magnitude seems to be tiny. I decided to combine this data with the total number of greens hit in regulation and indirectly determine the total putts on greens in regulation.
This dovetails nicely with the reduction in putts per round and with the lower number of putts related to sandies. But could the putting improvement actually be because players are hitting the ball closer to the hole on the greens resulting in birdie putts of shorter length and thus easier putts?