20+ handicappers hitting 300 yards (mild rant)

[billchao]

1 hour ago, Casualgolfer said:

300 yards isn't that mythical guys. Alot of people out there with the raw ability to hit a golf ball that far.

As @boogielicious mentioned, there's a difference between being able to hit the ball 300 and averaging 300. Anyone who averages 300 isn't likely to be a 20+ handicap and certainly wouldn't play at that level for very long if they were.

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

But it is rare for the average golfer to hit that far consistently. I’ve never played with anyone who could average 300 let alone 280 on a regular basis except a couple of scratch players. 

I have played with some younger players who were college baseball players. They could occasionally crank one out there, but for the most part struggled to keep it straight, which robbed distance. 

That’s very true, the real metric these folks are looking for might be ball speed or swing speed?

Ball speed would still give some semblance of striking solid, while club head speed is what they really mean?

Lot’s of people I know have very high club head speeds but shoot crappy scores, and mostly hit crappy too...

[Casualgolfer]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

As @boogielicious mentioned, there's a difference between being able to hit the ball 300 and averaging 300. Anyone who averages 300 isn't likely to be a 20+ handicap and certainly wouldn't play at that level for very long if they were.

Yeah I guess I'm only at 12ish Hcp now. If you have the speed though you can average over 300 but it might not be in play lol. 

[billchao]

3 minutes ago, Casualgolfer said:

Yeah I guess I'm only at 12ish Hcp now. If you have the speed though you can average over 300 but it might not be in play lol. 

Quality of strike matters, too. Every time you toe one and it goes 250, you'd have to hit a bunch over 300 to average it out.

That's why I'm always careful about distinguishing between capable of hitting and averaging 300 yards. They're two completely different things. One can be done by a high handicap player with pure speed, the other has to do with both speed and technique. 

[Swooshgolf]

51 minutes ago, billchao said:

Quality of strike matters, too. Every time you toe one and it goes 250, you'd have to hit a bunch over 300 to average it out.

That's why I'm always careful about distinguishing between capable of hitting and averaging 300 yards. They're two completely different things. One can be done by a high handicap player with pure speed, the other has to do with both speed and technique. 

 

Very well put sir but could be more of a consistency issue? 

[billchao]

23 minutes ago, Swooshgolf said:

Very well put sir but could be more of a consistency issue? 

That depends on how you're defining consistency. Consistency of strike, absolutely. That's what I referred to as quality. Consistency of swing, not so much.

Everyone's swing is consistent - even bad players repeatedly do the same motions from one swing to another. There's just a larger strike pattern in bad players that causes more variation in their results.

[Swooshgolf]

11 minutes ago, billchao said:

That depends on how you're defining consistency. Consistency of strike, absolutely. That's what I referred to as quality. Consistency of swing, not so much.

Everyone's swing is consistent - even bad players repeatedly do the same motions from one swing to another. There's just a larger strike pattern in bad players that causes more variation in their results.

I see what you mean.  A very interesting topic. This is something I've thought about before and ultimately got me to post about "True Potential".

[Casualgolfer]

2 hours ago, billchao said:

Quality of strike matters, too. Every time you toe one and it goes 250, you'd have to hit a bunch over 300 to average it out.

That's why I'm always careful about distinguishing between capable of hitting and averaging 300 yards. They're two completely different things. One can be done by a high handicap player with pure speed, the other has to do with both speed and technique. 

I'm with ya. Of course I am an outlier as I can go well over 300 at anytime so my bad strikes still are around 300 or slightly under or unless I play a knockdown driver shot which I try to get it out to 280-290. Although like I said I come from the baseball world where guys have great swing speed and ridiculous eye hand coordination so hitting a golf ball reasonably center of face with speed isn't that hard to do. Still much harder to square up 95+ mph fastball imo than hit a decent drive.... But I'm sure that is a can of worms on a golf forum haha.

[Cantankerish]

I am one of those 20+ handicappers capable of 300+ drives.  I average much less though.  I fight a slice that cuts into my distance considerably, and I lose my mental game often enough that I just don’t get a pure stroke very often.

 

Averaging just my proper drives, I still only average about 280.  But I get a 300 once every other day out or so.

 

I can tell you from bitter experience how frustrating it is to rope the drive only to end up with a bogey or worse because your head is up your hiney, like mine.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Cantankerish

[billchao]

On 2/2/2019 at 2:17 PM, Casualgolfer said:

I'm with ya. Of course I am an outlier as I can go well over 300 at anytime so my bad strikes still are around 300 or slightly under or unless I play a knockdown driver shot which I try to get it out to 280-290.

Yea because you swing really fast. Plus you're not a 20+, so this topic isn't really about you. Your mishits just aren't as bad as theirs and they probably happen less frequently. 

I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb to assume you probably didn't average 300 when you first started even though you were capable of hitting one far once in a while.

[CaseyD]

This is quite the comical discussion.  It feels a bit filled with jealousy over how much farther a person can hit than the other person.  For anyone who would like to see the “unicorn” world of shitty golfers who can hit the ball a mile just jump on your keyboard and type in world long drive challenge, formally know as the remax world long drive challenge. Go and select “locals” and then find the nearest one to your home town. Go watch for  little while.  You will see 80 guys with the worst golf swings you’ve ever seen, and you’ll see about 10 with decent swings.  Hitting a ball 300 yards in this day and age really isn’t that big of a deal.  

[NM Golf]

On 2/2/2019 at 8:06 AM, billchao said:

As @boogielicious mentioned, there's a difference between being able to hit the ball 300 and averaging 300. Anyone who averages 300 isn't likely to be a 20+ handicap and certainly wouldn't play at that level for very long if they were.

This^^^ Hitting the occasional ball off the sprinkler head or cart path is a whole different thing from averaging 300.

I fail to see how anyone who has the natural ability to hit a golf ball over 300 yards on average could fail to improve to a point better than a 20 handicap. I was a 20 handicap once that could hit the ball 300 yards. I was a 20 handicap for about a week. I was a 15 handicap for about a month. I was a single digit handicap within a few years of picking up the game. Why? because I had the natural ability to hit the ball a long way which means I had the natural ability to do a lot of things well with the golf club. I suppose it could happen, maybe unicorns exist. But I truly believe if you have the ability to swing a golf club well enough to hit a ball 300 yards on average you should be able to improve the rest of your game as well. One skill should translate well into another.

[billchao]

8 hours ago, CaseyD said:

This is quite the comical discussion.  It feels a bit filled with jealousy over how much farther a person can hit than the other person.  For anyone who would like to see the “unicorn” world of shitty golfers who can hit the ball a mile just jump on your keyboard and type in world long drive challenge, formally know as the remax world long drive challenge. Go and select “locals” and then find the nearest one to your home town. Go watch for  little while.  You will see 80 guys with the worst golf swings you’ve ever seen, and you’ll see about 10 with decent swings.  Hitting a ball 300 yards in this day and age really isn’t that big of a deal.  

I can't speak for anyone else but for me it's not about jealousy since I can hit the ball pretty far, it's about expectations and objective observation. A lot of people base their distances off their best hits. They will dismiss duffs and tops or other mishits but then hit a perfect drive and see that as what they're expected to hit when in reality (especially as a higher handicap player) the perfect drives are aberrations (and maybe even a less likely outcome statistically than the duffs for a high handicap player).

I could and have hit 300 yard drives when I first started playing, but my true average was probably something like 220 given all the bad shots I hit.

6 hours ago, NM Golf said:

I fail to see how anyone who has the natural ability to hit a golf ball over 300 yards on average could fail to improve to a point better than a 20 handicap. I was a 20 handicap once that could hit the ball 300 yards. I was a 20 handicap for about a week. I was a 15 handicap for about a month. I was a single digit handicap within a few years of picking up the game. Why? because I had the natural ability to hit the ball a long way which means I had the natural ability to do a lot of things well with the golf club. I suppose it could happen, maybe unicorns exist. But I truly believe if you have the ability to swing a golf club well enough to hit a ball 300 yards on average you should be able to improve the rest of your game as well. One skill should translate well into another.

Having the natural ability to swing fast and being able to control the clubface to make the game playable are two different skills. I struggled (and still do) to hit the driver with any real consistent results and being able to hit the ball far didn't really translate to any semblance of a decent golf game for a very long time.

[Vinsk]

8 hours ago, CaseyD said:

This is quite the comical discussion.  It feels a bit filled with jealousy over how much farther a person can hit than the other person.  For anyone who would like to see the “unicorn” world of shitty golfers who can hit the ball a mile just jump on your keyboard and type in world long drive challenge, formally know as the remax world long drive challenge. Go and select “locals” and then find the nearest one to your home town. Go watch for  little while.  You will see 80 guys with the worst golf swings you’ve ever seen, and you’ll see about 10 with decent swings.  Hitting a ball 300 yards in this day and age really isn’t that big of a deal.  

The topic got a little skewed in the middle at some point. The key is average drive, not maximum drive capability. When someone’s game is being analyzed the question is ‘what’s your average drive?’ Your maximum capability isn’t going to be a factor for most anyone especially a 20+ hcp. The irk factor, not jealousy, is no different than a 20+ hcp having the round of his life shooting 84 then saying his average score is 84. There’s no jealousy, it’s just not true and you’re gonna get called out on it.

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, Vinsk said:

The topic got a little skewed in the middle at some point. The key is average drive, not maximum drive capability. When someone’s game is being analyzed the question is ‘what’s your average drive?’ Your maximum capability isn’t going to be a factor for most anyone especially a 20+ hcp. The irk factor, not jealousy, is no different than a 20+ hcp having the round of his life shooting 84 then saying his average score is 84. There’s no jealousy, it’s just not true and you’re gonna get called out on it.

The topic at least while I’m writing this “20+ Handicappers hitting 300 yards (mild rant)” doesn’t say anything about average distance at all. Even one or two wild 300 yard shots probably count.

The original post is just a rant.

So, guessing people are simply responding to the title at face value without analyzing what is the “intent” of the rant 😁

Of course, he could have Bolded and enhanced the rant “AVERAGE” more...🤪🤪😂

[CaseyD]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

I can't speak for anyone else but for me it's not about jealousy since I can hit the ball pretty far, it's about expectations and objective observation. A lot of people base their distances off their best hits. They will dismiss duffs and tops or other mishits but then hit a perfect drive and see that as what they're expected to hit when in reality (especially as a higher handicap player) the perfect drives are aberrations (and maybe even a less likely outcome statistically than the duffs for a high handicap player).

 

With that thought process how do you play golf?  Of course you base your distances on your properly hit balls.  If a person hits 6 out 10 drives 300 yards but has a few misses I would sure hope they don’t pull the driver on the 206 yard par 3 because they “might” mishit it.  What about irons?  Do you select your iron off your mishit distance or the distance you know and expect to hit it?  

Is the issue in this discussion 20 handicappers hitting 300 yards or saying they average 300 yards?  The title says hitting 300 yards. Maybe it should have been titled “people need to learn what averages mean”. 

[Lihu]

5 minutes ago, CaseyD said:

With that thought process how do you play golf?  Of course you base your distances on your properly hit balls.  If a person hits 6 out 10 drives 300 yards but has a few misses I would sure hope they don’t pull the driver on the 206 yard par 3 because they “might” mishit it.  What about irons?  Do you select your iron off your mishit distance or the distance you know and expect to hit it?  

Is the issue in this discussion 20 handicappers hitting 300 yards or saying they average 300 yards?  The title says hitting 300 yards. Maybe it should have been titled “people need to learn what averages mean”. 

Or you can make a rant topic about this topic? 😁

“Too many 20+ Are claiming to average 300 yards, WTF”

😂😂😂

[billchao]

18 minutes ago, CaseyD said:

If a person hits 6 out 10 drives 300 yards

That person would likely not be a 20 handicap player and thus not the topic of this thread. I'm sure there are exceptions, but generally a 20 is not hitting 60% good or great drives.

23 minutes ago, CaseyD said:

Is the issue in this discussion 20 handicappers hitting 300 yards or saying they average 300 yards?  The title says hitting 300 yards. Maybe it should have been titled “people need to learn what averages mean”. 

It's an old topic that started with someone venting. They tend to evolve over time.