Driving Distance

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by iacas

Rich, he did say "tough" and even clarified that to mean he said it was possible, and if the guy just keeps moving up, he might get a "12" handicap in relation to par but it's highly unlikely he'll get to a single digit index. The course rating will likely be low enough to prevent him from doing it.

If his driver goes 210 his other clubs don't go very far either. The best guys - who play the appropriate tees - who hit the ball that far, have good short games, and hit the ball straight tend to top out at a 12.8 index or so.

So I agree that it will be "tough" but not impossible.

I only said what i did because it is pretty similar to me.  I made single digits 20 years ago (9.6 was my lowest ever) while just playing the middle tees on my home course (6500 yards - 69.4/120).  Those are the tees I play in Men's Club tournaments, so most of the time they are what I play in casual rounds.  Most of my friends do the same.  I will play the back tees (7000 yards - 71.5/127) if I happen to get paired up as a single with 3 guys playing the blues, but that's pretty rare, and it puts a real strain on my game.  I've never been particularly long - my 5I has never been more than a 175-180 club.  The longest I ever averaged off the tee was about 250, and I'm more like 225-240 now (haven't actually calculated an average recently).

[Spyder]

I had a buddy who was so upset when he found out he really was not hitting the ball 300 like he claimed. My average, while carrying in air, is around 250 at ground impact. Depending on conditions it will usually roll 20. I've also had it plug or come to a complete 1-hop stop with my swing though (loft-o-matic here!).

Back to my bud. I took him to a local course who's markers are spot-on. He crushed one down the center and starting laughing and saying "oh, not 300?". He was pretty embarrassed when he found out it was a 323-yard par 4 and he was sitting on the red 75 yard to the pin marker. People always over-exaggerate their drives. Sort of like when a local "resident pro" told me his longest career drive was 442 yards. I asked him what he used to hit it, a Buick on the moon?

[meenman]

I think a lot of peoples misconceptions on driving distance are fairly innocent. They see a hole listed as 400 yards and land near the 150 marker, they assume it went 250. 400 yards is not to the hole in a straight line, it is usually figuring in the curves and doglegs. There are plenty of par 4s out there that play 350+ but are 280 from the tee box.

[irfan]

dont forget the courses with well off yardages... or ones that read to the BACK of the green from Tees.  Played a course today, no real doglegs etc.. everything was off 20-35 yards when checked with GPS..  Had one drive that went a legitimate 306 via GPS tracking... if i went by course yardage id be bragging about a 340 bomb.

[Satch]

Don't lie about it. Mine is 265 yards w/ roll

[MyrtleBeachGolf]

I'm gonna guess my average is around 230. I'm not really all that sure.

[3putter]

Between 230 and 245 on average

[14ledo81]

With my old ping eye 2 1 iron I could hit it close to 350. Alas, I broke it. With my driver now, between 220 and 250.

[MyrtleBeachGolf]

With my old ping eye 2 1 iron I could hit it close to 350. Alas, I broke it. With my driver now, between 220 and 250.

You used to hit a 1-iron 350 yards??!!!

[TimG3394]

We have had a couple long threads on this

http://thesandtrap.com/t/25474/how-far-do-you-hit-your-clubs

http://thesandtrap.com/t/18426/average-distances-how-far-do-you-hit-each-club-and-dont-lie

[14ledo81]

You used to hit a 1-iron 350 yards??!!!

Well....not just any 1 iron. The ping eye 2. The greatest irons ever made.

[MyrtleBeachGolf]

Well....not just any 1 iron. The ping eye 2. The greatest irons ever made.

Looks like you can pick one up off eBay for less than $50! If it was going to give me 120 yards over my Driver distance, I'd buy 2 of them tomorrow.

[Shortylook]

I started off hitting my driver anywhere from 150-170, then I had a couple of lessons, got shown a few things I was doing wrong and it jumped to 190. Now I've changed a few more things and have got a different driver and I can hit it 230-240 with a fair amount of consistency. I know these are very accurate as I have a GPS that I use to track my lengths. But in saying that I think my iron's are doing more for me than my driver, sure the extra distance helps but when it came to approach shots and chips, well they would stop 20 feet from where I hit them or I'd chunk one right over the green.

[Brakkus]

Originally Posted by iacas

Rich, he did say "tough" and even clarified that to mean he said it was possible, and if the guy just keeps moving up, he might get a "12" handicap in relation to par but it's highly unlikely he'll get to a single digit index. The course rating will likely be low enough to prevent him from doing it.

If his driver goes 210 his other clubs don't go very far either. The best guys - who play the appropriate tees - who hit the ball that far, have good short games, and hit the ball straight tend to top out at a 12.8 index or so.

So I agree that it will be "tough" but not impossible.

This is something I have thought a lot about. Their are lots of threads on driving distance. Very few on distance related to handicap. I'm getting on a bit,well middle aged and now golf fitness is clearly where I need to improve. I took a GPS app out on the course for my last round and it was almost deflating. I wasn't trying to crush the ball, in fact I was very conservative. my longest tee shot with a hybrid 20" was 175 yds.

I could have swung slightly faster I can get it out to 180-200. I just added a 15" fairway wood to my bag which should give me slightly more distance. We play from the yellow tees here in  the UK, that will typically put you between 6000-6500 yds. UK courses tend not to be to wide. Lots of trees in my county unless you play links golf,then you have wind. So it's a stern test even though courses in America play a little longer seemingly so.

This is my point I can continue to work on my swing technically to eke out some more swing speed but more than likely the greatest gains will come from improving my body to gain extra yards. Would you say Erik that amateur golfers need to be more realistic in their expectations of what handicap they might achieve? I don't know how much length I can add to my game but with my yardages I'm not going to be in range too often on par 4's to go for the green.

Based on my current length and with some improvement with my long putting I estimated around a 15 handicap would be my ceiling. Also how far do you think a single digit handicapper needs to hit the ball to hold that handicap down?

[ScouseJohnny]

No idea, really, how far I normally drive a golf ball. All I do know is that it's a fair bit shorter than the other three guys in our regular four-ball. Probably because they are hitting 460cc drivers and I'm teeing off with a Wilson Staff "Fybrid" 3 wood. Sometimes I even go down to a Tour Edge Bazooka 5 wood I have in my bag.

It took a long time for me to work out that the obsession with distance was seriously damaging my card (or rather, it took a long time to overcome the reticence of always being the shortest guy off the tee). Still, I now realise that I'd rather be short and on the fairway. For whatever reason I can't seem to combine length and accuracy (I slice those huge drivers like you couldn't believe). True, when I do hit a driver the ball seems to go a long way (and a long way to the right, too, usually into shrubbery, trees, water, an adjoining fairway, the parking lot, someone's front garden, or something else nasty....)

I decided that my time was much better spent working on my long/mid irons and short game on the course, rather than spending hours at the range trying to tame a driver. I can actually see the benefits of this on my card. Also, I've found that watching a 4 or 5 iron from the middle of the fairway fly long and straight and run up on to the green is far more rewarding than hitting a huge one off the tee, (especially if the next shot from the tee involves a sand wedge and rooting around in very thick rough).

[Fozcycle]

Recently, I put a Project x 5.0 graphite shaft into my Powerbilt WMD driver.......now I am posting some serious drives, for my age(62) & SS(87-95).

This week I posted 232 & 242, when my avg drive was usually 210.....now it is 225.

The new shaft with the Powerbilt gave me much straighter drives, so better distance in the fairway.

[ace3g]

Never really knew my distances for each club, but during Christmas shopping as I was looking for grips for my brother, I visited a few golf stores with simulators and gave them a try, especially with the driver.

Was avg around 220-230.  It is probably a little bit more now because I have found a grip and set up I really like.  Just good to know a number now when I play courses.  I'll be ok if I never hit 300+, all about hitting fairways.

[BuckeyeNut]

I know for a fact that I can hit driver longer than 200yds.........