Does drive for show, putt for dough still hold? Gender differences in the importance of driving and putting across the PGA and LPGA Tours

Using strokes gained data from the PGA TOUR (2004–2024) and the LPGA Tour (2021–2024), this study examines how much each skill component, driving, approach shots, shots from around the green, and putting, contributes to total performance variation and whether these contributions differ between the two tours. To answer these questions, the variance decomposition of strokes gained total was conducted separately for each tour with cluster bootstrap confidence intervals. On the PGA TOUR, driving contributed significantly more to overall performance variance than putting (27.7% vs. 19.7%). On the LPGA Tour, driving and putting contributed similarly (19.6% vs. 18.4%), with the difference not statistically significant. Cross-tour comparisons confirmed that driving's contribution was significantly larger on the PGA TOUR than on the LPGA Tour. Also, a validity check comparing laser-tracked and caddy-collected tournament data found no significant evidence of measurement error inflating LPGA Tour putting variance. These findings support Broadie's challenge to the “drive for show, putt for dough” narrative on the PGA TOUR, but also highlight that skill contributions can vary by tour context, underscoring the importance of tour-specific analytics for coaching, performance modeling, and sport science research.