250 yards is a respectable carry distance

[Shanks A Million]

I mean... there was a response yesterday ( which you quoted) where someone said one of his friends would play off scratch if he could hit it straight, which is like saying an amputee could win a golf medal at the Olympics if he had legs.

I love those statements. There's always the "IF". I could do this IF only I could... etc. Sure, anyone can say that. I could easily play on the PGA tour IF I could just drop 10 shots off my handicap! I could easily be scratch IF I could just avoid those bogeys. Sure, it's all just a matter of "if". If a picture paints a thousand words, than why can't I paint you? Right?

Heck, if is the most implicit word in the English language. A simple if can take you from A to B at shocking speeds. Sure, I'm just a bum living in a trash can, but I could be president IF I could get the majority of the electoral college vote. Anyone can quantify their wildest dreams with a simple if.

[extremeld]

They use the IF in when broadcasting golf - it drives me NUTS!

IF HE HAD GONE 2 UNDER ON THE FRONT NINE HE WOULD BE IN THE LEAD

YES BUT HE F ING WELL DIDN'T DID HE!

ETC

capitals as thinking about it makes me mad

If your AUNTY HAD BALLS SHE WOULD BE YOUR UNCLE!

[Rugger]

Here's an example using distance and high handicap. We will use my score on #1 from a round yesterday that I described earlier:

1) 381yrd Par 4, tees align with marker. Box is about 5-10yrds above fairway.
2) Good swing, typical contact, straight ball. Ends up between 330-335 after roll, 1 ft off the fairway to the right.
3) Distance was measured using the 50yrd marker in fairway and counting steps in..about 5 single yard steps

At this point I'm thinking, OK, get it within 15 feet, chance at birdie, 2 putt for solid par on opening hole. Does that happen? NO.

4) Using a 60*, I misjudge distance and ball lands on back of green, rolling down hill behind the green onto 1st cut.
5) Using the same 60*I plop it down on the green, distance again fouled up, leaving a 20 foot par putt.
6) Misread green, good speed, but ball left 4 feet left.
7) Bogey putt made.

That's really a typical hole for me. Decent shots until 150 in, when my accuracy suffers even though I make good contact a majority of the time. I suffer from an uncontrollable draw with 7-8-9, that sometimes disappears leaving me way right. I am an inconsistent chipper with distance problems, and a mediocre-poor putter.

Even if I play consistent bogey golf, there is almost always a blow up hole or two, usually stemming from a tee shot that was lost. My mishits with driver still go a long ways, I am just left with more difficult shots, making GIR nearly impossible and par highly improbably. This is how I can drive pretty long, and still be a poor player scoring mid 90s or worse.

The typical trains of thought do not fit everyone. Someone earlier said that they know several baseball and hocker players who can generate incredible speed but have no touch. While they may not be the average golfer, there are a hell of a lot of ex baseball, hocker and other sport athletes out there. Many of them still possess the athletic ability, explosive power and coordination that can produce speed and distance. Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers might not play golf regularly, and might be a high handicap, but you can bet he would get some great distance if he possessed a basic swing, even if flawed.

[Shanks A Million]

Here's an example using distance and high handicap. We will use my score on #1 from a round yesterday that I described earlier:

You used the yardage markers? Seriously?

[Rugger]

You used the yardage markers? Seriously?

Yeah, the ones in the ground, not the poles. Is that not a good thing? I honestly don't know.

[alomar123]

Decent shots until 150 in,

Sounds like decent shots until to chipping. Dont use a lob wedge for it. If it was that far from the hole you want it to run.

[Shanks A Million]

Yeah, the ones in the ground, not the poles. Is that not a good thing? I honestly don't know.

Well, if we all used the yardage markers, it's safe to assume we'd all be consistent 300 yard drivers, of course.

The course yardage markers are notoriously inaccurate. The hole is measured on a dogleg, not a straight line, and even when the hole is straight, it's often measured from end to end. Yardage markers are about as accurate as wild guesses. Everyone who gets a GPS is always amazed just how short they actually hit it.

Sounds like decent shots until to chipping. Dont use a lob wedge for it. If it was that far from the hole you want it to run.

No, it's delusion. You're telling me that they can hit a driver 300 yards, but barely hit their pitching wedge? Come on, do I look like an idiot? I've yet to ever see anyone who played great tee to green, then threw away strokes greenside. Oh, I've heard of it, but in 20 years, I've never actually seen it. I've seen guys take a lot of shots to

get greenside, or miss nearly every green, then throw some more away, and blame the short game, sure, but that's rationalization. The fact of the matter is, most good golf pros can spot the handicap by the swing. A simple look at how many moving parts, and where the club bottoms out, and it's not too hard. Short game is important, but it's the difference between 5 and scratch, or scratch and tour pro, not 20 and 10.

[alomar123]

I didnt say I believe him, just giving a chipping tip

[pittpanther]

The fact of the matter is, most good golf pros can spot the handicap by the swing. A simple look at how many moving parts, and where the club bottoms out, and it's not too hard. Short game is important, but it's the difference between 5 and scratch, or scratch and tour pro, not 20 and 10.

You can say this 1,000 times, but most people on this board automatically assume that every golfer is best off spending thier time on the sort game - even if it's a guy shooting over 110 and can't get 100 yards off the tee. Or he duffs approach after approach.

[zeg]

The course yardage markers are notoriously inaccurate. The hole is measured on a dogleg, not a straight line, and even when the hole is straight, it's often measured from end to end. Yardage markers are about as accurate as wild guesses. Everyone who gets a GPS is always amazed just how short they actually hit it.

In my (somewhat limited) experience the markers are very accurate, but they only tell you how far they are from the center of the green in a straight line. Since the hole yardage is measured on the dog leg, and since even what look like straight holes use a surprisingly dog-legged path for this purpose, the error comes when you subtract the marker yardage to get your drive distance. If you hit from a yardage marker and land on the center of the green, you probably hit pretty nearly the marked distance, at least on the courses around here.

[bplewis24]

You can say this 1,000 times, but most people on this board automatically assume that every golfer is best off spending thier time on the sort game - even if it's a guy shooting over 110 and can't get 100 yards off the tee. Or he duffs approach after approach.

I would disagree with "most people" and be inclined to agree with Shanks on this one. Maybe it only applies to me, but personal experience tells me that the difference in me being a 11-14 handicap (I'm currently going the wrong direction, at the moment) and a single-digit is my inconsistent and currently non-repeatable swing.

My short game is the difference between maybe 3-5 strokes a round. Sometimes I fail to get up and down. Sometimes I miss that 8 foot par putt. But my swing from tee-to-green is the difference of many more lost strokes. The wayward tee shot resulting in a punch-out from the trees. The pull-hook iron from 170 yards out putting me 35 yards away from the green in the long grass. The 90* slice with the driving going OB. The approach shot on a par-5 which would put me on the green in 2 with a 6-iron, only to take a 12-inch divot that goes further than the ball does. These things hold me back because of an inconsistent swing much more so than chipping and putting. Unfortunately I can't find my up-and-down % in my score tracking database, but I doubt it's much worse than others withing +/-5 of my handicap range. What is a good up-and-down % for a high-single-digit handicapper? Brandon

[RC]

I just saw some YTD information on the PGA tour. Overall driving average is a tad over 282 yards. Assuming an average of 25 yards roll (some say 30, others 20 yards, and of course the conditions and such have a wide variance) that would mean the average PGA pro carries the driver about 257 yards. I'd say a true 250 yard carry average is a very good driver of the ball. If you can do that, you are going a hit a lot of drives well over 300 yards when there is wind help, a favorable landing area, and quick fairways. I see a lot of PGA events where the ball rolls a good 50 yards on TV. I used to play a course with French drains under the fairways because the water table was so high, it rained so often, and drainage was slow... fairways were like wet sponges. Most drives would maybe bounce once and dribble out a yard or two. So a course like that with only 7,000 yards and several 440 to 460 yard par fours required long approaches. A true average 250 carry was a luxury.

[bplewis24]

In my (somewhat limited) experience the markers are very accurate, but they only tell you how far they are from the center of the green in a straight line. Since the hole yardage is measured on the dog leg, and since even what look like straight holes use a surprisingly dog-legged path for this purpose, the error comes when you subtract the marker yardage to get your drive distance. If you hit from a yardage marker and land on the center of the green, you probably hit pretty nearly the marked distance, at least on the courses around here.

In my experience (and I've played upwards of 70 rounds so far this year on probably 20+ courses), the yardage markers to the center of the green are accurate, but not a great indication of driving distance. Dog legs (or angle from the tee box) have to be taken into consideration, as well as tee boxes being moved up and back.

Case in point, yesterday I was concentrating on my driver. Two days ago I completely lost the ability to hit my driver after deciding to "try something new" on the fourth hole of my round. After topping the ball while trying the new thing, I went back to my regularly scheduled program only to find that every drive I hit was popped up in the air and would travel about 150-200 yards (very windy). My driving distance has gone down to 230 yards from 250 because of that round alone. Anyway, yesterday I was focusing on keeping more weight on my lead leg, which I figured would help get me back on the right swing plane. At about the 14th hole, I really caught one of 2 drives flush (I was hitting multiple shots because there was nobody else on the course...fourth of July and all). I go to track down the one I hit flush and start looking at about the 150 yard marker for the ball. Because it was a 402 yard hole, I figure 250 yards out is a good place to look. Nothing there, so I look up ahead and it's sitting 5 yards inside the 100 yard marker. Well, that would be a 300+ yard drive! Just my luck that I stopped tracking distances on my tee shots on the back 9. So, out of curiousity I decide to go back to the tee box to measure the drive (again, nobody else on the course). Turns out the drive was about 285. That's about a 20 yard difference, right there. Now, 285 is still crushing it in the real world. But the tee boxes on this course don't differ as wildly as they do on some other courses I've played on. And even then, the distances from the tee box to the markers in the fairway are often inaccurate based on angles. Brandon

[sean_miller]

In my experience (and I've played upwards of 70 rounds so far this year on probably 20+ courses), the yardage markers to the center of the green are accurate, but not a great indication of driving distance. Dog legs (or angle from the tee box) have to be taken into consideration, as well as tee boxes being moved up and back.

Most courses I've played have a survey marker/plate on the teebox somewhere - you can pace forward or back to see the relative distance. Sometimes the back tee markers are ahead with the blues (or whatever colour they are at your course) or the blues are back at the tips - unless you know where they measured to, the yardage on the card is for general interest only. If you do know where the official yardage marker is, then on most straight holes the yardage markers are pretty close. If you drive the ball down the middle, the difference in distance is even less.

You can use a laser rangefinder of course, but even then there can be errors. There has to be something on the teebox (or very near it) to reflect the laser, or you might be measuring the trees in the background. I was testing this yesterday - if a person wasn't careful to shoot the right object, it could add another 30 yards to the drive.

[bplewis24]

Most courses I've played have a survey marker/plate on the teebox somewhere - you can pace forward or back to see the relative distance.

In my area, I think only about half of the courses I play have tee box markers. Generally speaking, the better and more expensive a course is, the more likely they are to have one.

Brandon

[Williamevanl]

I just search through 60 pages of long drive posts for this, *terrible!*
I believe he said at one point that he had scaled back his average driving distance to 280 or something but he posted this video to verify that he was was/could hit 300 yard drives on demand.
http://thesandtrap.com/forum/threads...iver-Distances

[Williamevanl]

Oh I was also thinking I should videotape my league partner one of these nights. He is a 13 handicap or so and he KILLS the ball.

I tried to shrug off how far he hit the ball until we got together and played a full 18 over the weekend. His swing looks ridiculous, he hunches way over and sets his hands up to snap the face of the driver shut at impact and basically swings with from what I can tell mostly his upper body but 300 yards for him is a joke. He nearly drove a 400 yard par 4 which nearly made my head explode and was 110 yards back on a perfectly straight/level and wet 460 yard par 4. His ball flight doesn't even look normal, He hit an 8 iron on a 186 yard par three that was so high in the air I actually had time to think about how high it was, what I was going to do after golf and then back to how the ball could still be in the #@@ air!

Some days he will miss most of the fairways but he absolutely kills the ball.

[bplewis24]

I just search through 60 pages of long drive posts for this, *terrible!*

I can't hear what's going on in the video, but I think I got the gist of it. That's a great video, in terms of how he set it up. That's how it should be done. However, now that range-finders are more prevalent, it would be better to add in a range-finder to track the distance from the tee box, instead of relying solely on fairway markers.

I wish I could see the ball flight/launch of his drives. On that crappy video I can't tell much other than looking at his swing. I did assume one ball went OB however, and I saw that one did. I see that he lists his handicap as 0.7. So assuming all things are true (handicap and 300 yard average), it's not the same as a high handicapper claiming 300 yard averages. Anyway, good stuff. Brandon