Stats
How The Yips
measures your game.
Every number in the app is here — what it means, how it's calculated, and where the baseline data comes from.
Strokes Gained
Strokes Gained is a methodology developed by Mark Broadie (Columbia Business School) and adopted by the PGA Tour. It measures the impact of every shot by comparing what happened to what was expected from that position.
A positive number means you played that shot better than expected. Negative means you gave a stroke back. The sum across all shots on a hole equals the difference between your score and the baseline expectation from the tee.
The four categories
Tee shots on par 4s and par 5s. Measures how well your drives set up the rest of the hole.
Par-3 tee shots and any full-swing shot more than 30 yards from the green.
Chips, pitches, and bump-and-runs from 30 yards or closer. Excludes putts.
Computed from your first-putt distance. Compared against your selected putting baseline profile.
Shot Quality — Good / Bad
Shot quality is self-assessed by you in the moment — the app doesn't compute it from GPS or distance. It's a two-choice judgment you make right after logging a shot, and it's about execution, not outcome.
You executed the shot you intended. The strike felt right; you committed and carried out the swing or stroke you planned.
You did not execute the shot you intended — a mishit, chunk, blade, or a swing you knew was wrong the moment you made it.
A well-struck drive that takes a bad bounce into a bunker is Good. A thin blade that somehow rolls onto the green is Bad. Results involve things outside your control — wind, course conditions, bad bounces. Execution does not. That separation is what makes this stat useful.
The app requires at least 5 quality-tagged shots per club before showing percentages. Below 60% good, a club is flagged as needing practice. Distance averages shown in your bag use good shots only — so you see what the club does when you hit it well, not your mishits dragging the number down.
The classics — explained
Green in Regulation
You hit the green in regulation when your ball is on the putting surface with at least two putts remaining. On a par 4 that means reaching the green in 2 shots; on a par 5, in 3 shots; on a par 3, off the tee.
Fairway Hit
Tracked on par 4s and par 5s. You record whether your tee shot ended up Far Left, Left, Hit (fairway), Right, Far Right, or a Miss-Hit. Only "Hit" counts as a fairway in regulation. Par-3 tee shots are excluded.
Up and Down
You missed the green in regulation — but still made par. With one chip or pitch and one putt. That's an up and down. A measure of short-game rescue ability.
Putts per Hole
Average number of putts taken per hole. Tour average is around 1.73. Most amateurs are between 1.9 and 2.1. The putting SG stat tells you more, but putts per hole is the fast check.
Club Distances
Every shot you log with a club and distance builds your personal distance profile. The app shows two numbers per club:
- Average — mean across all recorded shots for that club.
- Trimmed average — mean of good shots only (requires 5+). This is the number to trust when picking a club on the course.
Distances are recorded by GPS when available — the app captures the start and end coordinates of each shot. Manually entered distances are used when GPS isn't available.
Scoring breakdown
Each hole is classified relative to par:
Notes
Your scorecard tells you what happened. Notes tell you why.
Add freeform text to any hole or round in the app — context on a decision that backfired, a double bogey that had a reason, or occasionally something worth remembering about a good hole. There's no structure required; write what you'd tell your playing partner walking off the green.
Over time, notes become a pattern log. A double bogey on hole 7 three rounds in a row, always from the same spot — that shows up when you read them back. Feed your notes into an AI and it can quantify what the scorecard alone can't: not just that you're averaging +2 on par 5s, but why.
Tried to cut the corner on the dogleg, pulled driver into the trees. Punched out sideways, chunked the third. Down the left side next time.
Notes are accessible in the app and via the CLI — yips notes --jsonexports all of them with hole context (score, yardage, hole index) in a format ready to pipe anywhere.