Why is it unbelievable I can drive 300+ ?

[Jimbo Slice]

Originally Posted by Mr3Wiggle

Seriously, just get on a trackman.  Show us your ballspeed, spin, and launch.  That's all we need to see.  You're in Vegas, there are a bunch of facilities with Trackman there.

Deal, You just name the facility, and I will head there. You can even call ahead and say you have you a buddy who had been lying about drives " I THINK". Then ask if you call back can you verify amy distances or stats. I would even pay for the inconvenience if the shop needs a fee.

[Phil McGleno]

We've seen your swing and That's the reason I think most people doubt you. In the end who cares what other people think of your swing just hit the ball find it and hit it again. [quote name="Jimbo Slice" url="/t/60345/why-is-it-unbelievable-i-can-drive-300#post_741560"]I've recently posted in a few threads mentioning I hit some 300+ yard drives. Even a 326 yarder measured with my gps. I've only been playing for 10 weeks and have a 27 handicap. I've been called a few names and would like to continue any conversations/debates with doubters or believers in this thread, instead of continuing in the other ones. Any input good or bad is very welcome. Cheers :beer: [/quote]

[Jimbo Slice]

Originally Posted by B-Con

To the OP:

In general...

First, it's hard to measure a drive accurately without a GPS. In short, if you don't have GPS readings, it's very hard to accept eyeballed measurements because they're notoriously unreliable, especially when you consider the fact that people want to think that they hit it farther than they do. Almost everything about estimating the distance will lead in favor of over-estimating. The climbing-and-dropping trajectory of a shot fools the eye into thinking the ball went farther than it did. The feel of swinging extra hard is meaningless, but may make you feel like you hit farther. The sound of the ball on the club may sound like an extra-loud crack, but it doesn't mean much. Tees are more likely to be shorter than printed distances instead of longer. Cutting a dogleg can "add" a lot of extra distance. And 300 yards is a lot of distance, 250 yards looks extremely far to the naked eye. And the driving range is a terrible place to evaluate long drive distances because you have very bad perspective from that distance, markers are often placed at incorrect distances, etc. We don't assume such claims are lies, there are a bunch of honestly delusional people out there who mis-estimated a distance.

So it's a good rule of thumb to guess that reported distances tend toward inflation.

It's easy to mis-measure distances, and we see exaggerations happen. We've played with someone who crushed the ball and thought he hit it 280, but only hit it 245. We've heard the guy who thinks he averages 270 but is closer to 240. We've seen the guy who averages 300 but seemingly can't get the ball beyond the (confirmed) 270 marker on the range. We've read articles by people who make estimates as to how far they drive but then get measured and are shocked at how much shorter they actually do drive. We ourselves have seen many examples where we didn't hit it nearly as far as we thought we would have. Etc. The examples of exaggerated distances are constant and abounding.

Next, hitting 300 yards is harder than it looks. Under fair conditions (eg, no downslope, no elevated tees, no hind-wind, etc), it takes a lot of clubhead speed to hit that far, which in turn usually requires good fundamentals to create and properly channel that energy. Most ammetuer golf swing mistakes tend to drain energy from the swing, so driving 300+ in fair conditions is usually a good sign of decent swing fundamentals. It's just hard to swing that fast without doing a lot of things right. So if someone says that they often drive 300+ but averages a score of about 100, it raises questions because those convey seemingly contradicting pieces of information. Watch the swings of pros who only average 290 yards off the tee. Watch how controlled and powerful their swings are. These guys hit it long for a living (although they do place a premium on accuracy) and they excel at hitting the ball very powerfully. For an unexperienced player to say that they too can do part of that comparably raises an eyebrow.

And there's a difference between hitting vs averaging 300+. Everyone hits the long drive of their life once. (I've hit two drives (that I'm aware of) past 300, and one of them used the cart path to do so.) But a lot of people don't estimate their average driving distance well. They remember the few long drives they hit and forget the others. They think they could average "about 300" when in reality they might be lucky to break 300 once in a round. And it's possible to get lucky and hit one or two good drives 300+, but to average it takes incredible skill and consistency. To claim to average such a long distance is to claim to have consistency with your swing fundamentals that you can harness to generate a lot of power. "Averages 300 yards of driving distance while shooting in the 90s" is a phrase you should only need to use once or twice in your life (for the exception golfer who no doubt exists somewhere). So while some think that most 300+ distance claims are dubious, they're very sure that lot of 300+ averages are wrong.

Finally, hitting 300 yards is often used as a classic marker for "long way". A lot of people will casually say something about hitting 300 yards without one shred of evidence to back it up. Their friend will hit a terrific drive and later the person will say "wow, Bob must've hit it 300" without having done anything to confirm it at all. 300 yards is just a nice round number that we associate with really bad-ass long drives, and it gets tossed around casually by a lot of people.

Put it all together and you have something that's very hard to do, easy to mis-report, very often wrongly reported, and sometime intentionally exaggerated to. That's why there's so much skepticism. 300+ drives probably happen 20% or less of the time they're reported on the Internet. So statistically speaking, we're just trained that there's an 80% (maybe 95%) chance that any such given claim online is wrong. Guy A online claims it then posts a video of his swing and is obviously wrong. Guy B in real life claims it and then actually uses a GPS and turns out to be wrong. Guy C claims it and then admits he was wrong. Guy D claims it and you were there and it was obviously completely exaggerated. Guy E claims it and happens to be right, but why would we have assumed he was right?

It's entirely possible that you have driven 300+ yards. Even multiple times. Someone is out there doing it somewhere. Often these are one-time occurrences with a perfect drive under perfect conditions. (A low running drive on a rock-hard fairway with a little downslope can go a lot farther than it deserves to.) Odds are good that if you did it only a few times and you acknowledge that they were exceptional drives that a lot of people will believe you. But the odds of each individual claim being true are low, so we're skeptical in general. Post GPS confirmed yardages and if you had favorable conditions, mention them, and move on. Some will buy it, some won't.

For me personally, I can believe that any reasonably athletic golfer can hit the ball 300 yards at some point. But if you claim to average it or frequently do it, I'll be very skeptical.

I stated before that my drives are measured with a gps, and my first long long drive 326yards was measured with great scrutiny. You could remove the tees from the box and I can show you exactly where I teed up and and exactly where the ball landed within about a foot. Put down the spots and verified it on google maps with the exact same number. My drive distances stated are greatly accurate.

[Dave2512]

Originally Posted by Jimbo Slice

Deal, You just name the facility, and I will head there. You can even call ahead and say you have you a buddy who had been lying about drives " I THINK". Then ask if you call back can you verify amy distances or stats. I would even pay for the inconvenience if the shop needs a fee.

You should probably pony something up. For example if it turns out your 270y carry is really 220y you can agree to make a vid of yourself at Dick's hitting some balls with a tampon hanging out of your nose. Make it fun.

[johnnyvancity]

I beleive you, I as well can launch the ball 265-300 plus yards and am a 20 plus handicaper. The key is to stay consistent, thats what I am working on.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Sandy Trap

Yeah, OK Mr. 10,000 posts.    I think that pop us message must be burnt into your screen by now.

Originally Posted by Sandy Trap

As you can clearly see, my post has a huge smile face.  That typically indicates sarcasm and a non-serious tone.  WTF is up with you guys, seriously.

Chill out, eh?

Originally Posted by Jimbo Slice

Deal, You just name the facility, and I will head there. You can even call ahead and say you have you a buddy who had been lying about drives " I THINK". Then ask if you call back can you verify amy distances or stats. I would even pay for the inconvenience if the shop needs a fee.

http://www.radargolfacademy.com

Go here. Go see Jeff Smith. Tell him to send me the results. You should consider taking lessons from him too.

[Jimbo Slice]

Originally Posted by iacas

http://www.radargolfacademy.com

Go here. Go see Jeff Smith. Tell him to send me the results. You should consider taking lessons from him too.

Awesome thanks man, I was wondering where you where and when you where going to chime in with some sort of wisdom. This will happen sometime during next the next week, your help is greatly appreciated. I will also consider lesson from him

[mchepp]

This could get very exciting. I am going to grab some popcorn whilst waiting for the trackman results.

[Gresh24]

For the record:

Shorty says 160 carry

Jimbo says 270

We'll soon see....

[Jimbo Slice]

Ah nice, look what just showed up at the door. Not sure what difference's its going to make, but my last shaft was medium flex high launch and this one is stiff flex low launch.

Im self installing it, I have the epoxy and have cleaned out the old tip. Shouldn't be to hard. I seen it on the tube lol. This shaft and grip should look nice on the Machspeed Black.

[newtogolf]

I'm in for the results.  I think it's funny that we're debating if a guy can get lucky and hit a drive 300 yards 5%-10% of the time with only 25% of those that go that distance being playable.  Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

[B-Con]

I stated before that my drives are measured with a gps, and my first long long drive 326yards was measured with great scrutiny. You could remove the tees from the box and I can show you exactly where I teed up and and exactly where the ball landed within about a foot. Put down the spots and verified it on google maps with the exact same number. My drive distances stated are greatly accurate.

I didn't say they weren't. Note that I quoted your original post and pointed out I was replying to the original post. I wasn't interjecting to the current conversation. You wanted to know why people were so skeptical. That's why.

[Dave2512]

Though the thread went beyond that when he claimed multiple balls at the range carry a 260y fence.

[Gresh24]

Originally Posted by newtogolf

I'm in for the results.  I think it's funny that we're debating if a guy can get lucky and hit a drive 300 yards 5%-10% of the time with only 25% of those that go that distance being playable.  Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

That's kinda what I was thinking.  I bet there are a lot of guys that could go out (and swing with all they got) in one session and get one ball out of 20 to go about 300 yards.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by Gresh24

For the record:

Shorty says 160 carry

Jimbo says 270

We'll soon see....

Actually he said 270 total. Maybe there was a whole lot of roll and they're both right?

[Gresh24]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

Actually he said 270 total. Maybe there was a whole lot of roll and they're both right?

No, Jimbo said he was clearing a 260 yd. fence.

One of them is going to be very wrong...

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by Gresh24

Quote:

Originally Posted by newtogolf

I'm in for the results.  I think it's funny that we're debating if a guy can get lucky and hit a drive 300 yards 5%-10% of the time with only 25% of those that go that distance being playable.  Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

That's kinda what I was thinking.  I bet there are a lot of guys that could go out (and swing with all they got) in one session and get one ball out of 20 to go about 300 yards.

I bet there aren't that many. Swinging "all you got" not the key unless you're still making good contact. But that almost sounds like advice or a tip, and this thread is not the place for constructive comments.

[Jimbo Slice]

Originally Posted by Gresh24

No, Jimbo said he was clearing a 260 yd. fence.

One of them is going to be very wrong...

Me and shorty are mainly talking about the swing in my video about a month or so back. He says about 160 carry and I said about 245 carry, its still a big difference.  I do not have a current video atm but I am now hitting some balls out of my bucket over the 260 yard fence, I'm guessing that is a 270 carry. For sure obtainable by me with my current storke and ss.