U.S. Open 2026: What's a 'good' shot at Shinnecock? These 5 show the difference between our editors and the PGA Tour average
Some good golf shots are obvious. Hit it to five feet from 140 yards, and every level of golfer would be happy with it.
But do you know what else counts as a good shot? Hitting the same shot to 20 feet. That's still better than the PGA Tour average. So is a 20-yard bunker shot that settles 10 feet from the hole.
The phrase for this is “expectation management,” an important concept not only when assessing the players you watch on TV, but in navigating your way around your local course. It was the motivation behind our “How Do You Compare?” tool that showcases the differences between tour players and the rest of us in different parts of the game. The better your sense of what really constitutes an acceptable shot, the better your chances of making smarter decisions, and the less time wasted lamenting a shot that probably isn’t that bad.
“When people have misconceptions on what a good shot is, that’s when they get disappointed, and it’s typically tougher to play well when you get angry,” said Lou Stagner, a golf data analyst and the Lead of Golf Data Insights at Arccos. ”So understanding what a good shot is can be incredibly helpful. You don't hit it to 16 feet from 100 yards and get disappointed. You go, ‘Oh, that’s actually a darn good shot.’"
To underscore this point further ahead of the U.S Open, we followed two editors playing Shinnecock Hills in close-to-tournament conditions and put a selection of their shots in statistical context. The two editors, Joel Beall and Will Irwin, are close to scratch golfers, so already well-above average compared to the general golf population. But they were also playing a golf course that played more than four strokes over par in the last U.S. Open there in 2018, and played it in mid-May when the rough was up and the wind was howling.
In other words, the definition of a “good shot” depends on several factors, but the bar still isn’t as high as you think.
Shot #1: Off the tee
The natural starting point for a statistical comparison is a typical tee shot, although this is the first of several times we will underscore how Shinnecock is atypical. On the par-4 9th, Will’s 285-yard tee shot was 18 yards shorter than the PGA Tour average, and some 40 yards shorter than tour leader Aldrich Potgieter’s 328-yard average. But this was still an excellent drive. The hole was playing into the wind, and according to Arccos, which gathers shot data from millions of golfers, average golfers aren’t as long as they think. The average scratch golfer hits it 261 yards off the tee, and a five-handicap averages 249. "I think with a combination of strong winds and knowing what waits for you if you missed, it was often difficult to really let yourself go after one," Will said.
Shot #2: Escaping the rough
Put a short iron or a wedge in a scratch golfer’s hands and the expectation is they’re hitting the green, even when playing out of the rough. This is also misleading. A PGA Tour player hits the green out of the rough from this distance less than 60 percent of the time, and when it's five-inch rough with a sandy base layer at Shinnecock, the percentages are even lower. “I was just trying to muscle it as far as I could,” Joel said. “It felt more like a fried egg than a shot buried in high grass. I used a 9-iron, which was clubbing up, and it still barely got out.”
Shot #3: 'The shortest par 5 in golf'
The par-3 11th can play anywhere from 130 to 160 yards. Joel played it on the shorter end, and his approach to 35 feet technically qualifies as average for a scratch golfer, and nine feet outside the tour average. But it was better than that when accounting for a tilted putting surface that led Lee Trevino to call the 11th “the shortest par 5 in golf”.
Shot #4: Out of the bunker
Much as we think of power off the tee as the biggest separator between elite and average golfers, the gap might be bigger around the greens. This applies especially to bunkers. PGA Tour players’ average proximity to the hole out of bunkers is between 10 and 15 yards is 11 feet, and a scratch’s is more than twice that. In that context, Will should have been happy with his leave to 15 feet. "The sand itself was fairly easy to hit out of, but I’ve never had to think about where I need to land the ball more than I did at Shinnecock," Will said.
Shot #5: Lagging the long ones
The U.S. Open isn’t about making the 15-footers for birdie as much as it is avoiding the testers for par. This is another example of where tour player touch is underrated. A 40-foot putt that misses by three feet is not a disappointment. It’s better than the tour average. And at Shinnecock players will face the added challenge of factoring in the wind. “I think the wind played a bigger part with the putter than it did in the approach game,” Joel said. “Because the wind was constant, there was no waiting for it to die; you had to guess and pray. If you were putting with the wind from behind, if it wasn't an uphill putt you felt lucky if it stopped within 5-6 feet.”
