2016 REPORT: Overall Golfer Performance By State

Where do the Best Golfers Live and Play?

To answer that question an analysis was performed using from data from TheGrint’s database of golfers. To gather our data we took representative samples from the USA and the world. The sample is comprised of  ~20,000 golfers and ~400,000 18 hole round scores.

For the Rounds Per Year graph we only used golfers who were active on TheGrint golf stat tracking application during 2015.

We selected the top 20 states by representation and one additional World group, which is defined as everyone outside of the USA.

Our purpose is to identify the states, based on the data, in which golfers show better performance. However, we must also point out that golfers who take advantage of TheGrint's robust stat and handicap tracking capabilities, may not fit the profile of the so-called average golfer.

Average Handicap by State

The objective of this graph is to compare average performance by State. We expected to have the warmer climate States on top of the chart, however, for a second year in a row, that was not the case.

• Ohio retains the number 1 spot for a second year in a row with an average handicap of  14.9. Ohio is followed closely by Minnesota and South Carolina; both in the low 15’s.
• Despite their favorable weather conditions Florida and California are above the average handicap performance of 16.5.

What is uncertain is whether this is a result of the difficulty of the courses of a state, or whether this is a direct result of the ability of the players in a state. We would be interested in hearing the opinions of the readers in the comments section.

Single Digit Handicappers

One powerful argument against the first graph is that an Average may not be a good enough metric to measure which states have the best golfers. As an alternative we decided to identify the percent of Single Digit Handicap Players by State.  As expected, we had very similar results as the previous chart.

• Ohio is on top of the the chart with 28.2% of golfers being Single Digit Handicap Players.
• It is also interesting to see that almost 1 in every 4 golfers are Single Digit Handicap Golfers.

This seems high, and frankly, while this could be the actual number, it could also be because our data comes from TheGrint. We could assume that golfers who are most likely to focus on tracking their games, may also be better players.

Regardless, the intention of the graph is to compare States and for that purpose this data would still apply.

Avg Rounds per Year by State

Finally, we wanted to understand why golfers in warmer states do not generally perform better than the average.

Our first thought was, are they playing more golf? How much more? So we run the data to figure out how many rounds are played on average on each state. For this exercise we used only golfers who were active on TheGrint Golf GPS and Handicap Tracker for the full year. This helped to ensure a normalized data set.

• The average active golfer from this data set plays 16.4. Notice that we say “Active Golfer” and this might not represent the average golfer.
• FL is on top of the chart as expected with 25.1 rounds per year. Golfers in Colorado play the least in our top 20, with the average golfer playing just 14.4 rounds per year.

As noted, golfers in Florida and Arizona play more golf than everyone else. In fact, Florida golfers play 50% more than the average, so why is it that FL golfers do not perform better than the average when they get to be on the course more?

Food for thought, we think.