How Many Putts Should You Take Per Round? Meet Your Putting Par

Walk onto any golf course on earth and it hands you a number before you hit a shot. Par 72. It’s printed on the card, painted on the tee markers, hanging over every hole you play.

Now tell me what even par is for putting.

You can’t, because nobody has ever given you one. We track putts obsessively — every app on your phone counts them — and then we hand you the number back with nothing to measure it against. You shot 92 and took 37 putts. Is 37 good? Bad? You genuinely don’t know, and neither does anyone in your group.

So I built one. Not an average of what golfers do — a par, in the real sense of the word: the number you have to hit to shoot the score you’re chasing.

How many putts per round should you take?

Your putting par is set by the score you’re going after, not by your handicap and not by some universal figure. Here are the four numbers:

• 42 putts — your putting par if you’re trying to break 100.
• 38 putts — your putting par if you’re trying to break 90.
• 34 putts — your putting par if you’re trying to break 80.
• 30 putts — your putting par if you’re trying to break 70.

Four putts between each level, all the way down the ladder. That’s the whole system, and you can memorise it walking to the first tee. Find the number for the score you actually want, and from now on that is the number your putter is playing against.

The arithmetic: why those four numbers

These aren’t vibes. Every round you play splits into exactly two piles — strokes made with your putter, and strokes made with everything else. Your putting par is what the first pile is allowed to weigh if the total is going to come in where you want it.

Read across any row and it balances. Read down and you can see what improving actually costs: every level down the ladder is four fewer putts and six fewer everything-else. Not all putting, not all ball-striking. Both, in a fixed ratio, every single time.

That ratio is the most useful thing on this page. Golfers who plateau almost always pour their practice into one pile and wonder why the total won’t move. The card doesn’t care how good your swing got if you gave six shots back on the greens.

Why 36 putts is a fantasy number

If you’ve heard any putting benchmark, you’ve heard 36. Two putts a hole, eighteen holes, done. It’s the number the whole game repeats to itself.

It’s also built on a fiction. Two putts on all eighteen holes assumes you’re on all eighteen greens in regulation. Nobody does that. Tour players hit around twelve. A 15-handicap hits a handful. If you’re chasing 100, some weeks you hit one.

So 36 describes a round almost no one has ever played. It’s not wrong as arithmetic — it’s just answering a question nobody asked. Your putting par has to be indexed to the score you’re actually trying to shoot, which is why breaking 100 gets 42 and breaking 70 gets 30.

Beat your putting par. That’s the game.

Here’s where this stops being a stat and starts being fun. You now have a second score every time you play — one that’s entirely yours, that no one else in the group is keeping, and that you can win on a day the big number goes badly.

Write your putting par at the top of the card before you tee off. Count putts honestly all day. At the ninth, add them up and see where you stand. This is the part nobody warns you about: you will start caring about that number so much that the four-footer on 14 you’d normally wave away suddenly matters. That’s the entire point.

Some days you’ll shoot 94 and beat your putting par by three, and you’ll walk off knowing exactly what happened out there. That’s a good day disguised as a bad one, and until now you had no way to see it.

Beat it enough and you don’t raise the difficulty — you drop to the next rung. A golfer who keeps beating 38 isn’t a break-90 putter any more. Go play against 34.

What the tracked data actually says

I want to be straight with you about how these numbers sit against the published ones, because they don’t match and the reason matters.

Shot Scope’s tracked-round database has scratch golfers averaging 31.3 putts per round, 5 handicaps 32.5, 10 handicaps 33.9, 15 handicaps 34.8, 20 handicaps 36.1 and 25 handicaps 37.0. Look at the top of that list and my number is tougher than reality — I’m asking a break-70 player for 30 where the data says 31.3. Look at the bottom and mine is more generous.

That gap isn’t sloppiness, and it isn’t a knock on Shot Scope’s data — it’s the single most famous trap in golf statistics. Missing greens lowers your putt count. Hit every green and two-putt from forty feet and you post 36. Miss every green, chip to two feet, tap in, and you post 18 — after a far worse round of golf. The high-handicap averages look tidy precisely because those golfers aren’t reaching greens.

It’s why analysts like Lou Stagner tell people to stop quoting putts per round as a measure of putting, and why Arccos lists it among the game’s most misleading stats. They’re right — as a report card on your putter, it lies. As a budget against a score you’re chasing, it works perfectly, because then it’s not judging your stroke. It’s telling you what you can afford.

Beat your putting par and still miss your score? Read this.

This is the diagnosis the number buys you, and it’s worth more than the game.

Say you want to break 90. You take 35 putts — three under your putting par of 38 — and you sign for a 94. Your putter did its job and then some. The other pile came in at 59 against a budget of 51, and that is where all eight of your missing shots are. Stop buying putters. Go look at your wedge score and how many greens you’re missing from inside 120 yards.

Flip it. You shoot the same 94 with 41 putts. Now your ball-striking was fine and the greens ate you alive — and it’s almost certainly three-putts doing it, because that’s what a blown putting par is made of. The putting practice that actually ends three-putts is the fastest fix in this game, and it’s a speed problem far more often than a line problem.

One number, two opposite instructions. That’s a diagnostic, not a stat — and it’s the reason I’d rather you keep this one than almost anything else on your card. It sits inside the wider set of golf scoring benchmarks that tell you what you should be shooting at every level.

How to count putts honestly

The game only works if the number is clean, and most golfers quietly inflate their putting without meaning to.

1. Only strokes on the green count. Putt from the fringe and that’s a short-game shot, not a putt. Be strict — it’s the most common way people accidentally flatter themselves.
2. Putt everything out. A conceded two-footer is a putt you didn’t take and a number you can’t trust. Gimmes and this game don’t mix.
3. Write it on the hole, not at the turn. Reconstructing nine holes of putts from memory produces fiction every time.
4. Track three-putts separately. One extra column. It’s where nearly every blown putting par actually comes from.

Do that for ten rounds and you’ll own something most golfers never have: an honest baseline. That’s the raw material for Pillar 8 — Data — of the nine pillars, and it’s where genuine improvement starts.

How many putts per round should you take?

It depends on the score you’re chasing, not on some universal number. Your putting par is 42 putts if you’re trying to break 100, 38 to break 90, 34 to break 80, and 30 to break 70. Those are budgets: 42 putts plus 57 other strokes is a 99. Go over your number and the score you want stops being available, no matter how well you strike it.

Is 36 putts a good round?

36 is the number everyone quotes because it’s two putts on all 18 holes, but it assumes you hit every green in regulation — which nobody does, not even on tour. As a budget it’s good if you’re chasing 90 and generous if you’re chasing 100. It’s not a target that means anything on its own until you attach it to a score.

What is a good putting average for an amateur golfer?

Shot Scope’s tracked-round data has scratch golfers averaging 31.3 putts per round, 10 handicaps 33.9, 15 handicaps 34.8, 20 handicaps 36.1 and 25 handicaps 37.0. Those are averages of what golfers do, not targets for what they should do — and they’re flattered by missed greens, since chipping close and tapping in counts as one putt.

How do I count putts correctly?

Count every stroke taken with the ball on the putting surface. If you putt from the fringe or off the green, that isn’t a putt by the standard definition — it’s a short-game shot. Keep it consistent round to round, because the only comparison that matters is against your own previous numbers.

The course gives you a par because a number to play against is what makes golf a game instead of a walk. Your putter deserves the same. Write 42, 38, 34 or 30 at the top of your card on Saturday and go try to beat it — I promise you’ll remember what you shot against it long after you’ve forgotten the round.