What Percentage of Golfers Break 100, 90, 80 and 70?

Of 803 Flighting members, 99% have broken 100, 95% have broken 90, about two in three have broken 80 and 14 to 17% have broken 70. See it by handicap.

By Flighting Editorial Team 2026-11-10

Among Flighting members who track their rounds, almost everyone has broken 100 and 90, about two in three have broken 80, and between 14% and 17% have broken 70. Our members score better than many golfers, so read the handicap tables below to see what is normal at your level.

What percentage of golfers break 100, 90, 80 and 70?

Breaking a number means finishing 18 holes in fewer strokes than that number. Breaking 80 means a 79 or better. An 80 does not count.

We looked at two things. The first column below is the share of members who have broken each mark at least once, using the 803 members with five or more tracked 18-hole rounds in 2026 (13,837 rounds). The second is the share of every round that came in under the mark, using all 14,086 rounds from 900 members.

The gap between the two columns is the story. Most members have broken 85 at some point, but only a little over half of all rounds come in under it. A best round tells you what you can do. Your typical round tells you where your handicap sits.

One honesty note. 60 of the 13,837 rounds, from 44 members, sit 15 or more strokes under that golfer's own median score. Some of those are probably entry errors, such as a nine-hole score or someone else's card. Leave them out and the share who have broken 80 drops from 68.0% to 65.6%, and the share who have broken 70 drops from 16.9% to 13.8%. So the fair summary is about two in three for 80, and roughly one in six or seven for 70.

What percentage of golfers break 80 by handicap?

Here are the same members split by their current Handicap Index. Each cell is the share of members in that band who have broken the score at least once.

Above a 15 index, a round under 80 is rare, and a good share of the few on record look like the entry errors described above. We'd rather leave those cells blank than print a number we don't trust.

The 10.0 to 14.9 row is the interesting one. More than a third of these golfers have broken 80 at least once, yet the share of their rounds under 80 is small. Here is the round-level view for every band.

A golfer from 10.0 to 14.9 breaks 80 in about one round in 24. A golfer from 5.0 to 9.9 does it in about one round in four. If breaking 80 is the goal, the realistic path runs through a single-digit index, and our guide to course management for breaking 80 shows where those strokes come from.

What percentage of golfers break 90 regularly?

We counted a member as breaking a score regularly if they did it in at least half of their rounds. Same 803 members, same five-round minimum.

Breaking 90 most of the time is what a low-teens index looks like. Three in four members from 10.0 to 14.9 do it in at least half their rounds. Move up to 15.0 to 19.9 and it falls to one in four, even though 94.7% of that group has broken 90 at least once.

So if you have broken 90 once, you are not yet a sub-90 golfer. You become one when it happens more often than not. The plan in how to break 90 in golf is built around that second step: cutting the doubles that turn an 88 into a 92.

What percentage of golfers break 70 or break par?

Breaking 70 belongs almost entirely to single-digit players. Of the 481 members with an index under 10 and five or more rounds, 119 have broken 70 at least once. That is 43.1% of the under-5 band and 6.6% of the 5.0 to 9.9 band. Above a 10 index, the sub-70 rounds on record mostly sit 15 to 30 strokes under that golfer's own average, so we treat them as likely entry errors and don't give a rate.

Breaking par is a different test, since par varies by course. To check it we used only rounds with a full hole-by-hole card, where we know the par of every hole: 7,565 rounds from 672 members.

Across all 7,565 card rounds, 4.0% were under par, and 293 of those 303 rounds came from members under a 5 index. Not one card from a member at 10 or above finished under par. The hole-by-hole check also backs up the entry-error read: the suspicious sub-70 rounds from higher-index members don't have a complete card that adds up.

What percentage of golfers never break 100?

Among our 803 members with five or more rounds, 0.7% have never broken 100. In the 25.0 and up band it is 19.2% of 26 members, and only 15.4% of that band break 100 in half their rounds or more.

Our sample has few golfers at that level, so we can't tell you the share of all golfers who never break 100. What the data does show is how close the line is for higher handicaps: in the 20.0 to 24.9 band, 97.7% have broken 100 but only 68.1% of rounds are under it. If you are in that spot, the plan for breaking 100 is built on one idea: a double bogey is fine, a triple is the problem.

Why are these percentages higher than you might expect?

A few things push these numbers up, and you should know them before you compare yourself.

• Members keep a handicap. Everyone here posts scores, and the group skews toward lower handicaps: 481 of the 803 members carry an index under 10, and 76.3% of all rounds are under 90.
• Posted scores are adjusted. Every hole is capped at net double bogey before the total is posted. A card with a 10 on one hole can post several strokes lower than it was played, which turns some 101s into 98s.
• More rounds, more chances. "At least once" grows with every round you play. A member with 20 rounds has more chances at a career day than a member with five.
• The window is 2026 only. "Ever" here means in the rounds tracked with us this year, not across a lifetime.

For a wider look at how members score, including averages by handicap and how long it takes to break 90 for the first time, see golf by the numbers.

Which score should you try to break next?

Use your typical round, not your best one. Take the median of your last 10 scores and pick the next mark below it.

• Median above 100: aim to break 100 in half your rounds. The fastest gain is keeping every hole to double bogey or better. Take the penalty drop early, and get back to the fairway in one shot from trouble.
• Median from 92 to 99: aim to break 90 once, then twice in 10 rounds. In our hole-by-hole data, rounds from 85 to 89 average 3.3 doubles (1,253 cards) and rounds from 90 to 94 average 4.5 (836 cards). The difference between those scores is about one double a round.
• Median from 85 to 91: you are close to sub-90 most of the time. Track your doubles per round for 10 rounds, then spend two practice sessions a week on the shot that caused most of them.
• Median from 80 to 84: breaking 80 is realistic, but expect it in about one round in four even after your index drops below 10. Work on making more pars: sub-80 cards average 10.2 pars (2,585 cards), against 7.8 for cards from 80 to 84 (1,661 cards).

Whatever your mark, track every round so you can watch your break rate change as well as your best score. If you post your rounds in Flighting, your scoring history builds up over the season and you can see when sub-90 or sub-80 turns from a one-off into a habit.

How we measured this

The sample is 18-hole rounds posted by Flighting members from January to early November 2026. Test, staff and admin accounts are removed. Rounds under 60, and rounds on cards whose total par is under 68, are removed as implausible. Handicap bands use each member's current index, not the index at the time of each round. Scores are adjusted scores as posted, capped at net double bogey per hole. The member tables use the 803 members with five or more rounds. The round tables use all 900 members and 14,086 rounds. The break-par table uses only complete hole-by-hole cards where the hole scores add up to the posted total.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage of golfers break 80?

Among 803 Flighting members with five or more rounds, 68.0% have broken 80 at least once in 2026, or 65.6% if likely entry errors are removed. Only 33.4% of all member rounds are under 80.

What percentage of golfers break 90 regularly?

77.3% of members break 90 in at least half of their rounds. In the 15.0 to 19.9 index band it is 25.3%, and in the 10.0 to 14.9 band it is 74.3%.

What handicap do you need to break 80?

Members from 10.0 to 14.9 break 80 in only 4.2% of their rounds, while members from 5.0 to 9.9 do it in 25.7%. Breaking 80 regularly is mostly an under-5 result, with 76.4% of those rounds under 80.

What percentage of golfers break par?

Of 7,565 member rounds with full hole-by-hole cards, 4.0% finished under the course's par. 293 of those 303 rounds came from members with an index under 5.

Is breaking 90 good for an amateur?

Yes. Breaking 90 in most rounds is what a low-teens index looks like among our members, and 74.3% of members from 10.0 to 14.9 do it at least half the time.

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