Driving Distance

[MS256]

Originally Posted by Fourputt

If you hit the ball 5 yards farther than that you are in the hazard, yet I hear guys talking about their 320+ yard drives on that hole.  Geographically impossible without being wet.

Friday when I was caddying for my son up at Holston Hills (and had never been there before) we came to a hole and the sign on the tee box said something like 460 yards but when I looked down at my GPS it said 360 yards. I'm used to that on obvious dogleg holes but on this hole the amount of dogleg wasn't that obvious since there was really no obstruction on the left and everything looked open. I would assume that maybe at some point there used to be trees there to give the fairway it's shape but without any trees it's just a bomb straight at the green.

I'm sure that visitors to that course that aren't using a GPS think they are REALLY hitting a bomb if they go by the course markings and end up 50 yards from the green.

[1484]

300 is really, really ****ing long.  Get a GPS watch or iPhone app or whatever and you will soon appreciate just how amazing a 300 yard drive is.  I have no idea what my true average is because I don't keep stats that closely, but based on GPS, my "just ok" ones (worm burner/too much fade) are around 210, a real bomb might be 240 and I've only exceeded 250 in funky conditions like a downhill hole with a lot of carry because of dry ground and so forth.  All in all, 225 seems like about the average.

SW= 75

GW = 100

PW = 115

9I = 125

8i = 140

7i = 150

6i = 160

5H = 170

4H = 185

3H = 200

[Wally]

Originally Posted by jmr

I'm curious to see how my drive distance stacks up with others on the site.. I feel like I am not hitting the ball longer and straighter than ever with less "effort" I will not drive the ball with a slight Push-Fade between 250-280 yrds. I feel like for an amateur of 2+ yrs. experience w/ high handicap of 35 I can not start focusing on my short game. I loose 1-2 strokes a hole for poor chipping. Yikes!!!

That is definitely very good distance! Recently with my swing change my distance has improved. My average right now is probably around 250 yds, which right now is typical for any round I play, but I vary. My last round I had a bad drive that went 210 yds and the rest were 250 yds and up. My longest for that day was 297 yds.

[mvarley84]

There is no need, on any course, to smash the ball out there 300+ yards off the tee...I am fully capable, but my accuracy goes way down. I would much rather hit a drive 240 in the fairway and have a longer iron shot to the green.  Focus on your short game. You use your driver maybe 10 times at most per round...but you are using an iron to the green and putting on all 18....your scores will drop dramatically if you can save a stroke each hole because you are able to consistently get the ball close on your approach shots.

[Nutter]

[Dave2512]

Got to love the "how far" threads. I track clubs so I know approximately what my on course averages are. It's as accurate as the gps data allows it to be. To get a true number means logging the mishits as well as the good ones. I tend to be longer than most on good strikes but as my index indicates a lot of bad shots. I haven't been hitting the driver all that great the last few weeks so I am down from 253 to 237, I've got 87 drives logged for 2013. A big part of the decrease was I hit one a whopping 37 yds two days ago and another bad hit traveled just 177 and yes I logged it. Just to keep it in the 250 range requires some big drives to offset the average drives. Average being the ones I wish I had back, the mishit that is playable but only gets out there 220 because it landed in rough and snagged. Most guys are way off when talking about average drive, they forget about all the bad drives. Just a week of so-so driving took my average down 16 yds through 36 holes.

[Choupique]

I'm a 68 year old lefty and I play a lot of golf with many different guys that are all Pro V1 250 to 300 yard hitters.  What I don't understand is how they can still be 150 to 160 out on 380 yard par 4's...  Must be the golf course screwed up in their measurement :-)

[Lihu]

Got to love the "how far" threads. I track clubs so I know approximately what my on course averages are. It's as accurate as the gps data allows it to be. To get a true number means logging the mishits as well as the good ones. I tend to be longer than most on good strikes but as my index indicates a lot of bad shots. I haven't been hitting the driver all that great the last few weeks so I am down from 253 to 237, I've got 87 drives logged for 2013. A big part of the decrease was I hit one a whopping 37 yds two days ago and another bad hit traveled just 177 and yes I logged it. Just to keep it in the 250 range requires some big drives to offset the average drives. Average being the ones I wish I had back, the mishit that is playable but only gets out there 220 because it landed in rough and snagged. Most guys are way off when talking about average drive, they forget about all the bad drives. Just a week of so-so driving took my average down 16 yds through 36 holes.

I saw a YouTube video of an LPGA from the past, where she hit a spectator, twice. The spectator yelled "make her stop..." So, my question is if this counts toward her driving average statistics? When I tell people that I carry between 210 and 220 yards on the driving range, it is not including my bad shots. Although, I haven't recently duffed any drives below 150 yards, it would still lower my average. I might duff 1 in 50 drives, so it would lower my driving average to something like 209 to 219. The reason for the range of ten yards is that there is a gully between the 175 yard hill and the 250 yard hill of my driving range. If I can't see it bounce, then I assume it made it into the gully which is about 215 yards away and 10 yards wide. On the course, I don't really know how far I hit much less carry, but I typically have anything from a 60 degree wedge to an 8 iron left on a typical 290 to 370 yard (on the card) par 4 from the standard tees. Sometimes, I need a 7 iron. Btw, I am not the most athletic person around and can only fully control a 3/4 swing. So, it seems to me that a more athletic person should be able to hit 30% to 50% farther than me with the same effort, and even farther with full effort.

[Lihu]

Exactly.  This was my fault as well.  I never measured my drives, or even attempted to ..... unless I really bombed one.  So the only drives I knew the exact distance of were crushed drives.  And even then, when you're counting backwards from the course markers you're not factoring in whether or not the tees were moved up (I always forgot to check that) and you're not even able to factor in if you cut the corner on a dogleg.  Example:  On Saturday I reached a Par 5 in 2 from about 215.  It was a 505 yard Par 5, so obviously my drive went 290!?!  Nope, I checked on Google, and it actually went about 265. So I believe that the first one of those threads I posted on I put that I had a 285 or so driver average.  In reality, my average is probably more like 260.  Whoops.

I've seen you drive, and it's far. What's 25 yards between friends? ;-)

[NuclearMike]

Originally Posted by jmr

apparently spell check changed every now to NOT.

Originally Posted by jmr

I'm curious to see how my drive distance stacks up with others on the site.. I feel like I am not hitting the ball longer and straighter than ever with less "effort" I will not drive the ball with a slight Push-Fade between 250-280 yrds. I feel like for an amateur of 2+ yrs. experience w/ high handicap of 35 I can not start focusing on my short game. I loose 1-2 strokes a hole for poor chipping. Yikes!!

But didn't change "loose" to "lose".

[trackster]

Originally Posted by mvarley84

There is no need, on any course, to smash the ball out there 300+ yards off the tee...I am fully capable, but my accuracy goes way down. I would much rather hit a drive 240 in the fairway and have a longer iron shot to the green.  Focus on your short game. You use your driver maybe 10 times at most per round...but you are using an iron to the green and putting on all 18....your scores will drop dramatically if you can save a stroke each hole because you are able to consistently get the ball close on your approach shots.

I will have to disagree with that.  I played a top 100 course in America at the end of last summer.  The tips at the course measured about 7100 yards.  I average about 240-270 off the tee.  My home course is about 6500 from the tips.  I tried to play from 1 tee box up from the tips at the championship course which was 6600 yards.  I was hitting  a ton of 2nd shot 4, 5, and 6 irons.  I couldn't even imagine playing from the tips.  To have a chance to reach some of the par 4s from the tips you would need to hit around 290-300.

[saevel25]

Originally Posted by trackster

I will have to disagree with that.  I played a top 100 course in America at the end of last summer.  The tips at the course measured about 7100 yards.  I average about 240-270 off the tee.  My home course is about 6500 from the tips.  I tried to play from 1 tee box up from the tips at the championship course which was 6600 yards.  I was hitting  a ton of 2nd shot 4, 5, and 6 irons.  I couldn't even imagine playing from the tips.  To have a chance to reach some of the par 4s from the tips you would need to hit around 290-300.

I have to agree, distance, especially 40-50 yards is a huge disadvantage. That's 4 club lengths right there. That is a difference between a 48 degree iron, and a 33 degree iron, that's huge. For pro's the rough might make that longer iron more accurate, but for amateurs, the odds of hitting it closer with a longer iron compared with a wedge, even a wedge from the rough is not as big of difference. Especially if your aiming for center of greens. Especially on longer courses to.

[Nutter]

Originally Posted by Dave2512

Got to love the "how far" threads. I track clubs so I know approximately what my on course averages are. It's as accurate as the gps data allows it to be. To get a true number means logging the mishits as well as the good ones. I tend to be longer than most on good strikes but as my index indicates a lot of bad shots. I haven't been hitting the driver all that great the last few weeks so I am down from 253 to 237, I've got 87 drives logged for 2013. A big part of the decrease was I hit one a whopping 37 yds two days ago and another bad hit traveled just 177 and yes I logged it. Just to keep it in the 250 range requires some big drives to offset the average drives. Average being the ones I wish I had back, the mishit that is playable but only gets out there 220 because it landed in rough and snagged. Most guys are way off when talking about average drive, they forget about all the bad drives. Just a week of so-so driving took my average down 16 yds through 36 holes.

If you're keeping the average for the sake of keeping it then by all means throw all those duffs in there, but if you're looking for a useful average then I'd only take drives I hit no further than 15 yards off the fairway and only ones I know I hit decent.  That way you have an average you can rely on when you're trying to cut a corner or fly a trap and you're also thinking "I know if I hit one solid I can fly it that far" instead of "I know if I hit a bad shot there's no way I'm making it".

Originally Posted by saevel25

I have to agree, distance, especially 40-50 yards is a huge disadvantage. That's 4 club lengths right there. That is a difference between a 48 degree iron, and a 33 degree iron, that's huge. For pro's the rough might make that longer iron more accurate, but for amateurs, the odds of hitting it closer with a longer iron compared with a wedge, even a wedge from the rough is not as big of difference. Especially if your aiming for center of greens. Especially on longer courses to.

Agree again, if you're hitting it around 300 without much extra effort I don't see how that could be a disadvantage.  I know if I was hitting 3-6 irons into par 4's instead 7 irons down to a sand wedge it would be an all out fight to shoot low.

[butt3r3dt0ast]

For me, I know how much easier the hole gets when I hit the fairway... but damn, it is hard for me to sacrifice some swing speed to control my accuracy. I consistently hit my drives 320+, but when doing so, I hit maybe 20% of my fairways. I have started to get smarter on the course and part of that is realizing that I need to slow my roll off the tee box, because when you hit a safe drive, the rest of the hole is exponentially easier. But if I am not focusing on this very thing while teeing off, I always find myself swinging for the fences!

[Dave2512]

Not sure where to post this but since there's recent activity here why not. Last night we caught the group ahead on the 3rd hole, was a guy playing and his GF was just riding along. We're waiting on a 4some ahead and he mentions he's playing from the back. We're say sure whatever. But this course is long, 7700 yds long from the championship tees. They don't even put markers back there to discourage people from attempting it. On some holes the back boxes are 70+ yards behind the gold tees. This place has 3 sets of men's tees, there's a 696y par 5 from back there. It's nuts long.

He's waiting forever for the people ahead to move along and asks his GF what the number is to the fairway bunker. I look up and the GPS cart says 368 to the bunker, we're on the path right next to the back, unmarked box. It's uphill, maybe 30-40 feet of elevation gain from the tees to the green. The guy takes some practice swings steps up to the ball and pow  I've never heard a ball whiz like this, sounds like a plane taking off. Sure enough he hits it in the freakin' bunker. To say we were amazed is selling it short, it was a big hit. Never seen anyone hit it that far without bouncing it off a path or something. It bounced and rolled into the bunker but I'd guess it carried 350ish. It was uphill, couldn't have rolled too far.

But that was it he had no game after the drive. It was a big hit and nutty iron play to the green. Just horrific from 100 in. Never seen anything like it. He claimed it was his first time out in a few years and that he once was pretty good. It was like Happy Gilmore putting at the beginning of the movie, really whacky stuff.  However going forward he hit some wild shots. Lots of f-bombs following big hits that flew really far OB. But when he hit it good it was a rocket. After bashing a few OB he hit one to the 150 marker on another uphill 496y par 4. It was annoying and fun at the same time. He wasn't really golfing as much as just trying to hit bombs and he didn't stop hitting balls until one hit the fairway. We eventually left him behind to do his thing once it broke loose.

[Lihu]

Believe it or not, this happens somewhat often around here.

[Moppy]

I can't hit them like the guys on this forum, but at 58 and having worked a sedentary job my whole life, I have been doing the littlest bit of weight work. Not pumping iron stuff, but kettle bells, and small dumbbells over my head, and working my abs a little kind of stuff, trying to get back a little strength of my youth.

After two weeks of doing this every couple of days in addition to the treadmill, enough so that I am noticing I can do more reps and a little more weight, I have noticed myself getting longer, without any swing changes I am aware of. I have been avoiding swing changes because I have been more accurate lately and I don't want to screw with it.

Last time I was out, my first four drives were the best drives I ever hit on a course, I carried the trees on a dogleg right, trees I have hit into many a time. I never played before age 56, so I don't have any memories of when I was more limber and far stronger.

Anyway, for you older guys out there, I recommend mild to moderate weight training. Not crazy stuff, stuff you can do in front of the TV in the living room. It is  sort of amazing.

[grayhen714]

Driver mostly about 150~170 only