Sam O'Brien
5 minutes
Every golfer has experienced it: the dreaded “blowup hole.” It’s the one hole that seems to destroy an otherwise solid round, turning potential victory into frustration. But how much does a blowup hole—defined here as a net triple bogey or worse—actually affect your round?
To explore this question, we turned to TheGrint's vast data, looking at how golfers of different skill levels handle blowup holes. For our analysis, we standardized the concept of a blowup hole using the net triple bogey metric to make the data comparable across all handicap levels.
We randomly selected 1,000 golfers from each of five handicap groups, ensuring that each player had more than 50 full 18-hole rounds recorded on TheGrint. The golfers were grouped by their handicap indexes, ranging from less than 0 to 19.9. This allowed us to dive into how these “blowup holes” impacted golfers of varying skill levels.
This first insight may seem obvious—better golfers, represented by lower handicaps, experience fewer blowup holes. However, considering the role of the handicap system, this trend raises some interesting questions. In theory, strokes are allocated based on course difficulty and a player's skill level. Shouldn't this system even the playing field for higher handicappers? But the data shows that golfers with higher handicaps are still recording more blowup holes.
This begs the question: are higher handicappers receiving enough strokes to fairly account for their abilities, or does something about blowup holes remain outside the reach of the handicap system?
When does a blowup hole happen during the round? You might think blowup holes would be more frequent in the early or late stages of a round due to nerves or fatigue. However, the data shows that these holes can occur just about anywhere in a round. On average, across all handicap groups, the first blowup hole appears around hole 9.5—right in the middle of the round.
This suggests that a blowup hole isn’t necessarily tied to the mental or physical state of the golfer. Instead, it could strike at any time, regardless of whether you’re warming up or winding down. So, don’t get too comfortable even if you’ve made it through the front nine unscathed.
Note that this is a simple average, and we did not explore the distribution to identify if this is a bell curve, an inverted bell curve, or an evenly dispersed / flattened curve.
The most surprising takeaway? A blowup hole doesn’t significantly derail your overall performance. Once a golfer encounters a blowup hole, how do they perform on subsequent holes? We found that golfers tend to play right at their handicap after a blowup hole, showing remarkable resilience. In fact, when comparing net score to par before and after the blowup hole, the data revealed negligible differences in performance.
For example:
This reveals an interesting truth about golfers: despite the frustration and mental impact of a blowup hole, most players are able to shake it off and continue playing at their expected level.
While no one likes experiencing a blowup hole, the data tells us that it’s not as devastating as it may feel in the moment. Whether you’re a scratch golfer or a mid-handicapper, the blowup hole is something we all deal with, and it tends to happen at random points throughout the round. However, rather than letting it define the day, golfers tend to rebound and continue playing at their expected handicap level.
So, the next time you encounter a blowup hole, remember: it’s just a bump in the road, and the rest of your round is still very much within your control.
