Yeah, scratch players are very good. By the key to their "goodness" ins't just 1 thing though, they do everything well. They hit the fairways, hit the greens often, they putt well, chip well, get out of bunkers well ... time after time. For a scratch player to like 75 or 76 ins't that great, which would thrill the pants off most handicap golfers!
On the European Tour for example, level par golf every round would be enough to keep your card. Level par on the US tour every round wouldn't have got you anywhere at all, in fact you wouldn't have even got through stage 2 of Tour school - at least 500 golfers would have beaten you at the Tour school alone!
But, according to a US research company, in 2003 if you had a handicap of:
1. 14 you're within the top 4 million golfers in the world
2. 9 you're within the top 2 million
3. 5 you're within the top 1 million
4. sratch you're around 400,000th
5. +3 you're around 100,000th
As many as 1/4 of all the world golfers never break 100. So, if you break 100 on a regular basis you're in the top 25% of the world's golfers!
