20+ handicappers hitting 300 yards (mild rant)

[downbylaw11]

i'd love to remain cordial, and I felt I did that in all of my posts up until recently. 

All I did was share my experiences in golf and show skepticism to people saying they hit it 300 yards.  there was no insulting as there really is no need for it.  if you hit it 300, awesome, at the end of the day I kinda of don't care and I guess ill just take your word for it because as we know, mankind is at the very least known for their complete transparency regarding their golf game lol

Then some guy came in here either as a straight up troll, or he's just a 50 year old who slings insults reserved for someone 1/3 their age.  The guy mentioned penis size a handful of times, and just simply for that reason alone he should be expelled from the earth for his utter lack of originality.  And just to clarify, if seeing is believing, if a guy who was 5'11 245, who says he used to play cricket quite seriously told me he drove the ball 300 yards, I would lean towards believing that guy, regardless of how high his handicap was because obviously the guy has the physical build to hit a heavy ball, and also has played a sport that takes similar mechanics. 

[Xunzi]

23 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

So two golfers with a 22hcp but one hits driver much further will be at an advantage.

Strange debate. If the golfers have the same hcp by definition none is at an advantage over the other. If one drives very long the other must compensate with a better play in other areas to be at the same hcp.

As a side note, I do think accuracy becomes even more important with yardage. The same angle of error will translate into a lot more yardage off from the center line if you hit 300 yards vs 200 yards. A slice has more time to spin off he planet if it's being bombed.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Xunzi

[downbylaw11]

11 minutes ago, klineka said:

1. Just because youre "kind of a fat guy" does not mean you have instant power and the ability to hit 300 yards.. Actually, being overweight can actually restrict your ability to swing the club as fast as you need to and restrict the body movements necessary to make an efficient golf swing. Not sure why the fact that someone is overweight needs to even be mentioned.
2. Dustin Johnson is 2nd on the PGA tour in average driving distance this year at 314 yds, and he has failed not one, not two, but THREE drug tests! One for marijuana and two for cocaine. Not sure why that guys downtime activities are necessary to mention as a reason to discredit his claims.
3. Justin Thomas is even smaller than that guy who you mentioned at 5'9 160 and Thomas can clearly hit over 300 yards with just his 3 wood alone..

I am curious to hear your reasons why you felt those points were necessary to bring up as reasons to discredit someone's claims. None of us on a forum are going to be able to prove or disprove his claims, and neither are you unless you go to a range or a course and use GPS or laser 

yes, being overweight can restrict your ability to swing the club. he was 'kind of fat'.  as in more stocky powerful, rather than just a sumo wrestler type of fat.  and despite the fact that being fat can ruin your swing, being fat can allow you to deliever a lot of mass behind the ball. it wasnt meant as an insult, or some sort of ignorant generalization about fat people, there definitely a ton of truth to it

 

justin thomas is listed at 5'10.  justin thomas has also been playing golf for what I assume is his entire life, so he's perfected the mechanical sequence necessary to bomb the ball like he does. 

 

doing drugs has nothing to do with the distance claims.  I meant in a credibility sense, the guy was a burnout who was borderline bonkers and he'd get crazy eyes and tell me he hit the ball 300 yards even though he rarely ever golfs or generally did anything other than bong hits and listen to pink floyd.

 

 

[iacas]

48 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Hitting shorter doesn't make one automatically more accurate is what I'm saying.

Yeah it does. Twice over.

• Less lateral error from same angular miss.
• Lower speeds mean less curve.

[Vinsk]

22 minutes ago, Xunzi said:

Strange debate. If the golfers have the same hcp by definition none is at an advantage over the other. If one drives very long the other must compensate with a better play in other areas to be at the same hcp.

Lol. What I mean by this is that the better outcome would be for the shorter hitter to gain more distance (not hitting majority of drives out of bounds of course) than the long hitter LOSE distance but hit it straighter (again, I'm not talking about long hitters who hit everything ob, into hazards, etc). What I think was being missed was that if the long hitter is hitting MOST of his drives to penalizing areas/outcomes, and the short hitter is almost always in the fairway, then it's very unlikely these two are similar hcps.

[Vinsk]

33 minutes ago, iacas said:

Yeah it does. Twice over.

• Less angular error.
• Lower speeds mean less curve.

So why don't we all just swing slower? I'm trying (very poorly I guess) to argue that the short hitter of equal hcp is not beating the bomber because he's hitting the fairway but 50yds shorter in distance. If he's 50yds behind the bomber but still hitting a solid number of GIR, and the bomber is always ob, hazard bound, etc...then they probably aren't similar hcps? Does that make sense?

Edited September 7, 2017 by Vinsk

[Lihu]

28 minutes ago, downbylaw11 said:

doing drugs has nothing to do with the distance claims.  I meant in a credibility sense, the guy was a burnout who was borderline bonkers and he'd get crazy eyes and tell me he hit the ball 300 yards even though he rarely ever golfs or generally did anything other than bong hits and listen to pink floyd.

The longest hitter I've ever seen on my home course (even compared to the pros I've played with there), smoked weed and said he has a weed farm up in Humboldt County. He actually listened to grunge/burnout music with a boom box at really low volume and drove around a Porsche. He just missed a 300+ yard carry over water against a 5mph wind. Without the wind he could have easily carried it. He has no idea how fast he swings, and had clubs from his high school or college days. He was definitely borderline "bonkers", as his conversation made no sense at all.

So, the "drugs" thing probably doesn't really enter the picture in my mind. Plus, it's actually legal to smoke pot for recreation in my state now. I have a feeling that Trump's administration or whomever might actually legalize the stuff. It makes business sense to tax and regulate pot just like alcohol.

 

[iacas]

22 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

I'm trying (very poorly I guess) to argue that the short hitter of equal hcp is not beating the bomber because he's hitting the fairway but 50yds shorter in distance.

 Of course he's not beating him. You start off by saying they're the same handicap. What's the point of any of that discussion?

[Vinsk]

 

9 minutes ago, iacas said:

 Of course he's not beating him. You start off by saying they're the same handicap. What's the point of any of that discussion?

@JonMA1 stated he sees short knockers who are 50yds behind bombers out score them. He stated distance is overrated based on this observation. He then goes to explain that the bombers are the guys who lots of ob, hazards, penalizing drives, while the short knockers are hitting from the fairway and making birdies. I then stated that there must be some other factors why the short knockers are winning and it doesn't prove that distance is overrated. And as one of those factors I don't think they are similar hcps (he said they were) if one is spraying drives ob, etc and the other is hitting the fairway and beating the other. 

[MattD]

Ok guys my apologies for letting the thread denigrate to personal insults and body parts , Downbylaw is quite right and to him I personally and openly apologise. He is after all a fellow left handed and should, like all lefties be respected, we do after all sit to the right hand side of god.

My theory and it's only my theory , on distance is that left handlers are simply right hand tennis players playing a powerful backhand shot, feet planted hips rotating and shoulder unfurling and realeasing the wound up power. To build speed you drag the club towards the ball with your right hand and at the same time rotate your hips, the left hand is doing nothing but gently guilding the clubs direction , club, racquet, bat it's doesn't matter, the power comes from the hips and the right arm and shoulder.

BUT accuracy is not guaranteed, that comes with skill and experience , a 5 deg error is not to bad at 200y but at 300 it's is exponentially bad and probably out of bounds.

 

[Xunzi]

It's really simple. All else equal, driving further is better. All else equal, the long hitter will have lower hcp. All else NOT equal the long hitter's handicap can be anything in relation to somebody else (equal, lower or higher).

[Vinsk]

8 minutes ago, Xunzi said:

It's really simple. All else equal, driving further is better. All else equal, the long hitter will have lower hcp. All else NOT equal the long hitter's handicap can be anything in relation to somebody else (equal, lower or higher).

Wait!, I was doing a fine job of screwing up my simple point that distance is not overrated.

[Blackjack Don]

9 hours ago, Lihu said:

20+ HC is not that far from bogey, 3 putting is not that uncommon either. Combine shanked shots with 3 putts and you could easily be 20 over.

Add two OB and you've got my game. My best was 295 yards. I'm usually out about 240, depending on the curve.

[Jeremie Boop]

4 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

I didn't know this was quantified. To me, needing one club less to hit the same distance means you're longer.

Or there's a difference in club lofts. If one person has a 6 iron with 30* of loft and another person has a 7 iron with the same loft then they are pretty much hitting the same club.

 

The newer models of clubs coming out typically have some pretty jacked lofts, which is why when I look at clubs anymore I try to find options with "truer" lofts on them. I don't need my 7 iron to have 6 iron loft, I need my 7 iron to have 7 iron spin to be able to hold greens. However, most people don't bother to look at things like that, they'll just say "oh wow, I hit that 7 iron 15 yard further than my old 7 iron"...

[iacas]

15 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

At my level (and admittedly from my limited experience), I have to respectfully disagree that distance is an automatic advantage. My opponents who have made less mistakes than me have overwhelmingly scored better - even when I'm out driving them or pulling less club for the same distance.

Distance is an advantage at every level.

But I think you and @Vinsk are getting off track in that you're both making assumptions about how the other read or understood things.

[Vinsk]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Distance is an advantage at every level.

But I think you and @Vinsk are getting off track in that you're both making assumptions about how the other read or understood things.

Yeah I gotta go with that.

[Slice of Life]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Distance is an advantage at every level.

But I think you and @Vinsk are getting off track in that you're both making assumptions about how the other read or understood things.

Right...how could anyone say that distance isn't an advantage? 

If you take two players of equal skill, but one can hit the ball 30 yards further...they have an advantage. Mistakes you make after are irrelevant to that...

[klineka]

1 hour ago, Jeremie Boop said:

Or there's a difference in club lofts. If one person has a 6 iron with 30* of loft and another person has a 7 iron with the same loft then they are pretty much hitting the same club.

 

The newer models of clubs coming out typically have some pretty jacked lofts, which is why when I look at clubs anymore I try to find options with "truer" lofts on them. I don't need my 7 iron to have 6 iron loft, I need my 7 iron to have 7 iron spin to be able to hold greens. However, most people don't bother to look at things like that, they'll just say "oh wow, I hit that 7 iron 15 yard further than my old 7 iron"...

So if your old 7 iron has 34 degrees of loft and you were able to generate enough spin to hold greens with the 34 degree lofted club, but now your 7 iron has 30 degrees of loft and your 8 iron has 35 degrees of loft, just use the 8 iron... It might take you some rounds and range sessions to adjust to the distances but really not that big of a deal.

When these lofts got stronger and stronger its not like a mid iron was eliminated requiring you to choose between a 30 degree 7 iron or a 40 degree 9 iron. The 35 degree club still exists it just has a different number stamped into the bottom of the club.