Matt Fitzpatrick knows his numbers—he knows them better than anybody else on tour. He’s tracked them religiously since his days as an amateur golfer. He knows that when he’s off, he’s two yards less accurate.
And he’s got some helpful advice for you.
The 2022 U.S. Open champion talked about it in our most recent episode of the Golf IQ podcast, which you can listen to (and subscribe to) below.
It’s called the five percent rule.
Imagine you’re on a golf hole, about 150 yards away from the hole. The pin is in the middle of the green, and there’s a scary bunker short that you don’t want to go in.
Fitzpatrick says that pros give themselves at least a five percent buffer:
“It depends obviously on the club, but probably the rule of thumb is if you within 5% of your distance, you’re doing pretty well. So at 150 yards, you’re looking at about eight yards short and long. That’d be my sort of rule of thumb for a top tour player, if you live in that zone for the rest of your life, you’ll be pretty happy.”
So if Fitzpatrick budgets for a five percent distance loss on mishits, that means if he’s 150 yards away from the green as we outlined in our previous example…
Five percent is the rule of thumb for pros, but for the rest of us, we should probably factor in a bigger margin for error. Closer to eight or 10 percent, which would break down like this.
Either way, you can’t eliminate margin for error in golf, but you can learn to play it. That’s what playing smart is. And that’s what Fitzpatrick does so well.
You can listen to Fitz in his own words in the most recent episode of the Golf IQ pod below (and don’t forget to subscribe for more!)