Distance Experiment

I’ve never been an advocate for long driving. If you offered me 10 yards extra distance or the comfort that I’d hit the majority of fairways, I know exactly what I’d take. But having seen the outrageous distances they now seem to hit it on tour, I could only wonder what a 9 handicapper like myself would do if I had that type of power at my disposal. To find out, I decided to conduct my own little experiment. I currently average drives of around 230 yards, not short by any means but certainly nothing to give Bubba Watson and co anything to lose sleep over.

The average length of a drive on the PGA Tour is 291.4 yards. Not only does that represent 5/6 clubs difference, these players will also have the power to hit wedge from places I would normally take a 6 iron. As much as I fully appreciate the importance of good putting, this must have a huge impact on scoring.

To find out what my ability could achieve if I had the length of a tour professional, I decided to take all my second shots, barring par 3s, from the same position a tour professional would find himself in if he hit the drive. I like to think that I am a relatively good ball-striker, and my scrambling ability has improved dramatically in recent years, so I have always been curious as to how much my distance has been holding me back, and how much of an advantage those big guys on tour have over me. Obviously they don’t hit every fairway, so I decided still to hit the tee-shots, but then preceded to place the ball 50-60 yards further forward reasonably well along that line. Inevitably this raised a few eyebrows from onlookers, but my determination to unearth my potential with a bit more power in my bag made me push on.

I typically average 80/81 around my home course. But recently, I have eliminated several weak points in my game and have been left scratching my head as to what makes the difference between a fairly solid golfer like myself, and the +1 handicappers at my club who smash the ball 280 yards off the tee. Armed with a skycaddie sg2.5 to measure the extra the extra yardage off each tee-shot, I set-off on my quest to delve into my potential if I had the personal trainers, custom fitted technology and athletic body of a Dustin Johnson.

To cut a even longer story short, it started very promisingly, I birdied the first and second holes, both par 4s, and was -3 after 8 holes, numbers that would normally be enough to make me dizzy. Despite a disappointing bogey 6 at the normally birdieable 9 ^th , I was still getting the ball round and with birdies at 11 and a rare birdie at 14, I stood on the 17 ^th tee back at -3. The last two holes are short regardless, so with the extra ammunition I was literally flicking lob wedge at both greens. I was therefore a bit disheartened to finish with two pars, but the fact that I bettered my personal best around my home course by three simply with a bit more power with the driver, it was a great answer to the questions in my head.

Please bare in mind that I was really on my game that day, and that this wouldn’t necessarily be a typical score even if I did blast it 300 yards off the tee, but I would definitely urge you to give this a go even if it is only for a few holes just to see whether or not it might be worth hitting the gym. :P

I had a distance experiment the last two times I played this year.

Each time out when I mishit a drive and had a duck hook at 225-230 yards off the tee, I would retee the same type of ball and with everything the same hopefully put a really good swing on the shot and concentrate on really good quality of contact.  Then I would walk up to the first ball and measure the distance with a lazer range finder from the 1st bummer of a tee shot to the great one and note the distance.  Guess what the difference was????

57 and 61 yards the two times I did this in those two rounds.

What this told me was that my efforts should be pointed toward making great contact all the time and reduce the pursuit of excellence through different equipment.

Just hit the darn thing better was the key.

Like my high school golf coach used to say to me - "It ain't the arrow, it's the Indian."

With all things considered.......a shorter approach from the fairway will result in lower scores.  It sounds simple enough, right?  I give you credit for the experiment, but you should try a different approach.

Do this:

Play forward tees and try to overpower the course....attack those narrow gaps well beyond designed landing areas. Gain those same extra yards by playing UP...... Providing your home course isn't an open field, you'll probably find new trouble you never found before and you'd wish you laid back from the tee...LOL

I've tried this before..........it wasn't pretty.

Course strategy is key.......you are a single digit player....you know the deal!!

I have thought about this too. When I catch one, I can get it out there around 260m, but I may only hit 1 or 2 of these a round, the rest are between 240-250, but I'd like to increase the average to the 250-260m mark, that would get me inside 100m on almost all of our par 4's. Once I get there, I rarely make a mistake from that range.

So a few weeks back we played an ambrose and I played with a guy I know well from the club, but had never played a round with him. He plays off scratch. So he's crankin it out there past 280m, by no stretch of the imagination. I'll get one out near 260m and he carries me by 15m, why did the rest of us even bother. For eg, our par 4 7th is about 370m, slightly uphill approach. I hit a weak drive to about 135-140. From there, its an elevated green, so I'd probably hit a softish 7i rather than muscle the 8i. He hits it to within 90m. I hit a knockdown GW to 10ft. The 7i could have missed the green, but I have a par at worse from inside 90m. Needless to say, we took 3 oput of every 4 drives of his unless he missed the fairway which was rare. So from his drives, my short game inside 100m was a little tighter than his, but he can putt. I missed 2 greens all day from the fairway. I made 2 solo birdies and 2 more with my pitch and putt. So if I can just gain more consistency distance wise, I have 3-4 shots to gain on a regular basis (I could also tighten the mid to mid-short iron game as well). Thing is, those 260+ drives are from swings that I back off on, so my timing and lag is much better and I gain distance. Then I start thinking, if I can hit it that far by taking a  little off, I can hit it further by hitting it a little harder. Just does not work for me, but I cant seem to get it through my thick skull on a Saturday. Im only a little guy (5'7") so I have a physical limit to my distance. I hit it far enough for me, I just need to do it more often, but would not knock back 280m every time either LOL...

This^^

Also remember, you're not a professional and your course management will not be even close to the same. A pro will place the ball in areas that you wouldn't normally think to place it, considering their ability to shape the ball at will. Simply dropping the ball dead center fairway 300 yards out will not do the trick for your experiment. At least, in my own opinion.

Pro's play a lot more course strategy than you think......they play to those wide areas most of the time.  they play the % the majority of the time which is why you see them hitting less than drivers on 450yd par 4's etc, etc....

BigEasy- Question: If your drive was on the fairway a foot from the rough, would you walk it out another 50-60 yards and keep it in the fairway or would it be in the rough because you based it on the line/angle the ball was travelling.  Put another way if you are off 3.33% on a 230 yard shot, it should be 23 feet off line, but 300 yard shot would be 30 feet off line

Good question, MEfree!

An Ambrose....We call that a scramble in the US.  Correct?

Similar but not the same. Usually there are 4 players.

Everyone drives.

Everyone hits from where the best drive ends up. Everyone hits from where the best second shot ends up and so on until you putt out.

Sometimes you have a mimimum number of drives per person - at least 3 of each person's drives must count. It varies.

You can have  a 2 person Ambrose too.

I have played scrambles where select best drive....at times each player has a minimum....once played where everyone had to hit 3 each....got tight toward end....then everyone hits from best drive and then from best next shot. then group putts from one spot and posts one score.

In a shamble...pick best drive....everybody plays their own ball out from that spot. so everybody posts a score but only best of your group counts for your team.

Is the term Ambrose used in the US? If so where? Thanks

Its been a while, but I have played several Scrambles in the US and that sounds exactly the same.

My question is, during this experiment were you playing tees that played over 7000 yds like most of the tour courses? If so, that would have still left you long second shots so unless you hit your irons the same as the pros its really not much on an experiment. I agree with the other post about moving up a tee box to see what it's like to overpower a course, adding yardage to your tee shots just seems like a waste of time. Play the senoir tee and see what you shoot.

I have always been a fan of the Wendy's Three Tour Tournament.  They set the course up to attempt to have all the player hitting the same irons into the greens on their approach, e.g. they attempt to eliminate the PGA player's advantage on length.  I couldn't find the records but it's my impression that each tour has had pretty much the same number of wins over the years.  I found this surprising as I always thought, still do, that the PGA players have the best short game of the three US tours.  Anyway my point here is even if you walk your drive out to the same distance the Pros would have you're likely still hitting a club or two longer iron than the Pro would.  So to really run the experiment it seems to me that you need to walk the drive even further to achieve the same approach shot the Pro would have.  When I see one of these Pros pull out an 8I for a 175 yard shot I just say, "Wow would I like to be able to do that".  But good experiment & datum.

Yeah, the more I think about it the more it makes sense to just play from the senior tee box. We don't have a senior tee box at my home course so I play 9 holes from the ladies' now and then. I average 4 shots less (37 to 33).

Good point. The course measures 6429 yards so its not up to the standards of the ones you see on tour. I shot 68 in this experiment, but I'm not saying in any way that if I was a bit bigger I'd be off +3 and out on tour with Tiger and co. the point was just to see how much of an impact distance has in today's game (in this case, around 10 shots). I was hitting the ball well and holed a couple of putts, so it wasn't foolproof by any means, but thanks for the comments.