Longest Drive of my life?

[Borf]

I was playing the other weekend at a new course and I came to the 17th hole, it read 342 yards on the card. It was a dogleg left curving pretty severly, there was a powerpole to the left of the tee, at this point or the round I didn't really care I went for the green.

The green was not visable from the tee, but after I hit my teeball I heard the group ahead yelling! I was thinking, it must be close to them.

It ended up on the green about 12 feet away from the hole. I narrowly missed the eagle, taped in for birdie.

This drive is definatly in my top 10 best shots ever

[v3rs3]

If it's a dogleg then it's not actually 342 to the green. It's 342 from the tee box to the center of the fairway at the dogleg to the center of the green. I assume you know this, but just so you don't think you hit the ball 342 yards. lol

Great shot nonetheless. It'd be hard to tell actually how far it is from the teebox to the green without actually seeing the hole.

[Chief Broom]

Great shot nonetheless. It'd be hard to tell actually how far it is from the teebox to the green without actually seeing the hole.

Google Earth has a nifty little ruler feature that lets you measure distances with a mouse click in whatever units you desire. I use it to map out distances at the courses I play.

[T.J.K.]

what course in what city?

[dave s]

Google Earth has a nifty little ruler feature that lets you measure distances with a mouse click in whatever units you desire. I use it to map out distances at the courses I play.

What a great idea! Can you provide a link? I have this problem with UNDERestimating how far clubs will go and run out of fairway and into trouble on occasion. I'd really like to map a couple of points on my home course and have GOOD info for a change! Thanks in advance if you can provide the link. dave

[Zeph]

And how reliable is Google Earth? For one, it does not take undulation into account.

[Borf]

It was a course in Canada, I doubt it will be on Google earth with good enough resolution to tell tho, I will try and post what I find!

[extremeld]

i am glad i dont know how to use google earth i would only end up measuring all the football pitches in edinburgh to find the smallest one to play on!

Someone with the skills could do me a favour and measure http://www.kings-acregolf.com/course/score_card.html 15th hole in a straight line.

[Chief Broom]

And how reliable is Google Earth? For one, it does not take undulation into account.

That is true, nor does it provide accurate information regarding elevation changes, but just like a GPS device it will give you accurate distance information between two (or more) points.

Google Earth It's a free download. Kind of big, so depending on how much bandwidth you've got through your ISP it can take some time, but if you've got a high speed connection it shouldn't be a problem. Also depending on how fast your computer is the program could tax your system's resources, but that will only make the program run slower. If you've got a fairly new (1-2 years old) computer it won't be a problem. As to accuracy these are satilite images generated by the government, so the accuracy is pretty good. Some parts of the US/globe are high resilution images. That means you can zoom in close enough to see people standing around. Very cool. Also you'll notice most of the images are a few years old. Go to your own home (you can search through Google Earth based on street address) to see how long ago those images were taken.

[Chief Broom]

Someone with the skills could do me a favour and measure

I easily pulled up the golf course (it's a half mile West of Melville Castle?) but without knowing the layout of the course it's kind of hard to know which hole is which.

[extremeld]

That would be the correct one, its the 15th hole big dogleg over pine trees its on the scorecard diagram its about a 95degree angle - par 5

[zRam]

I've used Google earth to zoom in close enough to measure the distance between the 100 and 150 yard marker several times to check it. It was right everytime. I printed off my local course, hole by hole, and used Google earth to take measurements. I made a yardage book basically. nifty program.

[shooter33]

This is genius! Thanks a ton it will help with my tournament this weekend.

[shooter33]

If the teebox is where I think it is then you drove the ball 331 yards. Very Nice!

[ScottRempel]

It was a course in Canada, I doubt it will be on Google earth with good enough resolution to tell tho, I will try and post what I find!

I live in a relatively small town in Canada and I can get close enough on Google map to get a good estimate of distance. I need to dl Google Earth again so I can try the ruler tool out.

What course were you playing at?

[jamesgoodchild]

I just tried a few of the local courses in Saskatchewan and the ruler works great. I just wish I had thought of this earlier in the season...

[zRam]

here is a little trick I figured out. draw a line that is a known distance outside the fairway, 100 or 50 yards and print it out. this can make measuring on the printed out paper easy if you want to add some dimensions later. Just use it to set your calipers (or a piece of paper) to this known distance and measure away.

[extremeld]

If the teebox is where I think it is then you drove the ball 331 yards. Very Nice!

Thats pretty close, it was actually further than that as the tee is further back and the ball plugged back right of the green so adding 20 yards, its massively downhill - its not actually that hard for me to drive the green on this hole i just wondered if the carry could be measured. bit of maths suggests its approx 350 - measuring gadget and course measurements all seem to be accurate - pity i hardly ever play golf. Oh just noticed that this thread is longest drive ever, this isnt mine i just wanted to see this measured as its a par 5 i can drive! Cool feature