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

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.