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What Does Up And Down Mean In Golf? Find Out!

The term “up and down” is used to describe how far a golf ball moves after it is struck. Golfers commonly use the term to describe how far the ball travels after it is hit by the club, but it is also used to describe how much the ball moves on the green, as opposed to “side to side.”

The goal of any golf shot is to get the ball to travel as far as possible.

Up and downs can be defined as the following: The percent of time a player misses the green, and takes 1 shot to hit the ball onto the green, and 1 shot to make the subsequent putt.

This is different from scrambling, which has a clear definition: The percent of time a player misses the green in regulation, but still makes par or better. An up an down doesn’t have the requirement that the player has to make par or better, making it a stat that captures more successful occurrences.

However, up and downs are generally a bit difficult to agree on, as many players tend to have different opinions on what an up and down is. The PGA Tour, for example, only measures scrambling and not up and downs.

Players often disagree on where a ‘long short game shot’ ends and an ‘up and down shot’ begins which makes it difficult to compare different players’ up & down percentages.

If you are new to the game, it takes a while to get comfortable with everything everybody is saying and doing. Up and down is when your ball lands off the green, you chip your ball on and then make one putt.

As we just discussed, an up and down in golf is when a golfer takes one shot to get the ball up onto the green and then the next putt to make it down into the hole. 
An up and down in golf is a two shot sequence that results in a made putt.


In golf, the term “up and down” refers to a score that is neither better nor worse than par. A hole is a hole in golf, and anything under par is a good score. In other words, there are no “good” or “bad” holes in golf.

However, if the player’s score is worse than par, it is called an “over” score; if it is better than par, it is called an “under” score. When a score is not better or worse than par, it is called an “up and down” round.

What does a good up and down mean in golf?

The term up and down is used to describe a hole on a golf course that can be completed in a single stroke. There are two types of up and down holes, the true up and down holes and the false up and down holes.

The true up and down holes are those that can be completed without a player having to take a penalty stroke. A false up and down is one that requires the player to take a one shot penalty stroke.

A good up and down in golf is a situation where you hit the ball into a bad spot and then recover by hitting the next shot close to the hole.

The term comes from the British military, where it means a soldier who has taken shelter from enemy fire and then recovered enough to not only return fire, but to do it effectively.

In golf, a good up and down is a sign of a good player, as he must recover quickly from a bad situation and still make a good shot.

Golfers will often express how important it is for them to get up and down to save strokes and to keep momentum going in a round. 

What does a good up and down mean in golf? A good up and down in golf is when a player is able to strike the ball well enough that both her drive and her second shot end up close to each other, even if it is not in the same location.

This is usually not as easy as it sounds, and requires that the level of accuracy of both shots be high.

But as you get closer to the hole the opportunity to recover from a poor shot continues to reduce so the shorter the shot you have the more important it gets.

The best way to get better at making up and downs are to have a variety of different shots that you can hit. If all you know how to do is hit your sand wedge to the center of the green, you will have some trouble when you are in the rough or sand, etc.

To shoot good scores, you have two options – you can either hit every green or learn how to get up and down effectively.

There is nothing wrong with striving to hit a lot of greens in regulation, of course, but you are going to miss at least a few along the way. The scores you record on those missed-green holes are going to go a long way toward determining your total when your round is finished.

A good up and down in golf refers to a situation where the player is able to take a bad situation or a bad position on the golf course and turn it into a more positive result.

This could be because of a bad lie in the rough or perhaps a tree has blocked the shot. In either case, a good up and down is about working with what you have in front of you.  The same could be said about life in general: no matter what happens, you can always turn it around if you just work with your situation.

Gary Hodges

Gary Hodges

Gary Thompson founded GolfBoxy in 2020 to provide accessible golf advice for average players. An avid golfer of 15+ years, Gary draws on his own experience as a lifelong bogey golfer to offer practical tips and unbiased reviews focused on the needs of recreational players.

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