What is SG: Approach?
Strokes gained on shots into the green, including par-3 tee shots but not short-game shots. The stat most predictive of sustained elite play.
Strokes Gained needs ShotLink-measured rounds; opposite-field and some international events are excluded, and a season shows no SG until a player logs enough measured rounds.
How it's calculated
Strokes gained is computed by the PGA Tour from ShotLink-measured rounds. Every shot is compared with what the field average would have taken from the same place — the same distance, the same lie, the same surface — and the difference is credited to the player. Summed over a round, that is how many shots better or worse than the field they played. OTIS restates the tour's published per-round figures; it does not recompute them.
How to read it
Positive is better than the field. Of the four categories this is usually the largest and the most persistent from season to season, which makes it the best single indicator of durable quality.
What it doesn't say
Strokes gained is a comparison, not an absolute: a positive figure means better than the field that week, so the same play can produce different numbers in different fields. It also needs a real sample. Putting in particular swings enormously over a handful of rounds, and a hot fortnight on the greens tells you far less about a player than the same gain in approach play would. A blank is not a zero — it means the rounds were never ShotLink-measured.
OTIS tracks this stat across 15 PGA Tour seasons — see it for every player, or read how the numbers are sourced in the methodology.