Dear Jeff,
The statistic cited is a little loose, and is only an average, but generally there is a tremendous drop-off in sinking putts between the distance of 3 feet to 4.5 feet. The percentage of makes by pros drops off over this range from something like 90% to 75% at 3 feet to around 60% at 4.5 feet. From 4.5 feet to 6 feet there is a more modest fall off, from about 60% to about 45% to 50%. Usually, about 6 foot is where the chances of making the putt for a pro is about 50-50.
The reason the stat seems a bit low is: this is a figure from competition, whereas in practice the pros are a lot better; and the average is obtained by taking into account the putting of all players in the field, and modern fields have up to 156 contestants, with putting skills all over the map. To elaborate on practice versus competitive play: Annika Sorenstam is probably close to 99% on 6 footers in practice; Greg Norman claims to have sunk 150 6-footers in a row in practice; pros often try to sink series of 25 putts in a row from 3 feet, 4 feet, 5 feet etc; and a college kid in San Diego this year sank 274 8 footers in a row at a golf exhibit. To elaborate on the variability of skills in the field on any given day: my study of PGA Tour events indicates that the field over 4 days ranges in total putts by about 20 strokes from best to worst, or 5 strokes per round, when the scoring average of these players is usually only 2 strokes apart from best to worst; this tells me that annual averages correspond in any given event to fluctuations of up to 2.5 times the average range, and so "averages" of single-event putting would be a pretty "coarse" measure of reality. Probably a better measure would be to compare only the top 10 putters or the top 10 finishers in any one event, and get a sense of what pros make when they are doing pretty well. In that case, I would suppose that the make percentage from 5 feet is closer to 75% or 80%. It's just that a lot of dooffuses are having a bad day out of sight of the cameras, but these guys' putting lowers the overall average.
I am sending a draft of a book I'm writing that goes into the specifics. Let me know what you think. And thanks for asking!
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Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
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