Longer or More Accurate?

[iacas]

"Angular accuracy" just means this: the measurement, in degrees, between the intended target and where your ball came to rest.

If you hit your tee shot 250 yards to a 40-yard wide fairway, just missing the fairway after aiming at the center is an error of about 4.6°. On a 150-yard approach shot to a 25-yard wide green, putting the ball in the fringe is a 4.8° error if you were aiming at the center of the flag.

[tristanhilton85]

I'll take the distance. Even if that means I end up in the rough a bit more off the tee (longer distance on the same line is likely to put me in the rough some of the time), having shorter clubs into the green (at least 2 less on average) would definitely lead to more GIRs and nGIRs and lower score.

[phillyk]

I'm already swinging at 120mph with my driver, I have distance.  I would like to hit the approach shots 10% closer to the pin, giving better and more birdie opportunities.

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, tristanhilton85 said:

I'll take the distance. Even if that means I end up in the rough a bit more off the tee (longer distance on the same line is likely to put me in the rough some of the time), having shorter clubs into the green (at least 2 less on average) would definitely lead to more GIRs and nGIRs and lower score.

Likely three less clubs. For some players, more. Like you, in fact…

http://www.gamegolf.com/player/tristanhilton85

Your driver goes 232. So that's 23.2 yards added. Let's say you would have had 165 in. That's a 4-iron from your stats. Now you have 141.8. That's the equivalent of what club you'd hit from 128.9 now (128.9 * 1.1 = 141.79 yards).  You hit your 9-iron 133, so that's plenty.

1 minute ago, phillyk said:

I'm already swinging at 120mph with my driver, I have distance.  I would like to hit the approach shots 10% closer to the pin, giving better and more birdie opportunities.

To be clear, the question doesn't say "closer" it simply says 10% more accurate as measured by the angle. Distance control is still entirely on you, and if you're aiming toward the center of the green, an increase in accuracy can actually lead to longer putts (maybe you don't pull one stiff now and then). But generally speaking it's close.

[pganapathy]

Hands down accuracy because though I have no doubt that distance does matter, striking it longer but with greater dispersion is going to lead to more possibilities of having to get it out sideways.  Simple logic, 10 degrees of 100 yards is 10 yards, but for 300 yards it is 30 yards.  Which means hit it long and wide and miss the fairway but on the short irons just miss the green.  I figure you should be able to putt two more often than up and down from off the green

[Jeremie Boop]

10% more accurate isn't going to give me much benefit, because my bad shot is still going to be OB or way off line at that change. 10% more distance means I can hit shorter clubs which I'm more accurate with anyway which gives me a double benefit. Easy call, more distance.

[Patch]

When I was younger it was always distance over accuracy. Back then the term "bomb & gouge" was starting to become popular. 

These days it's accuracy, since I no longer can swing for distance due to previous injuries. Losing distance has cost me 3 or 4 strokes on my hdcp.Then again I am still playing longer courses most of the time. If I only played 6K +/- courses I could reclaim some of that lost hdcp. 

I once read an article about a club maker who built two clubs. One club was much more accurate, while the other was 15 yards longer, but not near as accurate. After letting several players hit both clubs, he then offered to build each player their club of choice. 99% of the players chose the longer but less accurate club. 

[14ledo81]

Distance is an easy call.

If someone still doesn't think so after seeing @iacas example a few posts up, I don't know what to tell them.  

[iacas]

33 minutes ago, pganapathy said:

Hands down accuracy because though I have no doubt that distance does matter, striking it longer but with greater dispersion is going to lead to more possibilities of having to get it out sideways.  Simple logic, 10 degrees of 100 yards is 10 yards, but for 300 yards it is 30 yards.  Which means hit it long and wide and miss the fairway but on the short irons just miss the green.  I figure you should be able to putt two more often than up and down from off the green

You should do some more reading here, and consider buying LSW.

4 minutes ago, Patch said:

When I was younger it was always distance over accuracy. Back then the term "bomb & gouge" was starting to become popular. 

These days it's accuracy, since I no longer can swing for distance due to previous injuries.

The question involves a genie. It doesn't ask whether you're capable of hitting it 10% farther. It says you CAN hit it 10% farther.

[billchao]

This is a different question than the poll in the other thread. 10% distance on all my clubs is a no-brainer. I would only be shrinking my driver shot zone by 7 yards at 10%; that's not enough to do anything for my game, not the way hitting all my irons 10% longer will.

[chspeed]

Usually more distance, but there are courses at which the rough is so penal, or out of bounds so close, that it's possible that 10% greater accuracy would allow me to take a driver instead of 3-wood or 5-wood, so that itself would increase distance.

Edited November 11, 2015 by chspeed

[rkim291968]

More distance b/c I am not a long hitter to begin with, and my misses tend to be "drastic" ones which the added accuracy won't save from their ending up in OB.

[Jeremie Boop]

8 minutes ago, chspeed said:

Usually more distance, but there are courses at which the rough is so penal, or out of bounds so close, that it's possible that 10% greater accuracy would allow me to take a driver instead of 3-wood or 5-wood, so that itself would increase distance.

You may be misunderstanding, with 10% more distance that 3 wood or 5 wood will go the distance your driver does now and typically people are already more accurate with those clubs than they are with the driver. The extra distance has a dual benefit of allowing you to hit a club further that you are more accurate with. Not only will you be able to hit that 3 or 5 wood out to where your driver would normally be, but now your approach shot is also being hit with a shorter club as well which is likely to be more accurate than what you normally use.

[boogielicious]

I voted before reading the first post (my bad). I would have voted more distance. But in my current situation, my accuracy doesn't put my just off the fairway. My miss (a hook) gets me into trouble.

[Club Rat]

Last month, Keegan Bradley and his dad were at our club and presented a junior clinic. His dad who is  teaching pro, declared and emphasized distance was more important.

He said learn to hit the ball as far as you can, then learn to hit it more accurately.

 

[chspeed]

20 minutes ago, Jeremie Boop said:

You may be misunderstanding, with 10% more distance that 3 wood or 5 wood will go the distance your driver does now and typically people are already more accurate with those clubs than they are with the driver. The extra distance has a dual benefit of allowing you to hit a club further that you are more accurate with. Not only will you be able to hit that 3 or 5 wood out to where your driver would normally be, but now your approach shot is also being hit with a shorter club as well which is likely to be more accurate than what you normally use.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding. If I hit my 3 wood with 10% more distance with the same accuracy I have now, it is more likely to go out of bounds or get to the rough. There are some courses in which that is a good trade-off (less penal rough, less narrow landing area), and some in which it's not a good trade-off (very thick rough or close out-of-bounds). I think you're right about my flawed logic with the driver, because if I am 10% less accurate with the driver, than that negates the 10% increase in accuracy.

Thinking about it more, this question is very difficult to answer without knowing general statistics  - which i'm sure @iacas has :) or knowing your own personal statistics.

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

I voted before reading the first post (my bad). I would have voted more distance. But in my current situation, my accuracy doesn't put my just off the fairway. My miss (a hook) gets me into trouble.

So edit your vote.

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, pganapathy said:

Hands down accuracy because though I have no doubt that distance does matter, striking it longer but with greater dispersion is going to lead to more possibilities of having to get it out sideways.  Simple logic, 10 degrees of 100 yards is 10 yards, but for 300 yards it is 30 yards.  Which means hit it long and wide and miss the fairway but on the short irons just miss the green.  I figure you should be able to putt two more often than up and down from off the green

Perhaps we're reading the question differently.  If your typical angular accuracy now is plus or minus 10 degrees, a 10% improvement changes it by 1 degree.  Put another way, of your 7-iron to the green is within 30 feet left to 30 feet right, 10% improvement moves your limits in by just 3 feet.  That's pretty small.  I'd choose 10% more distance, two or three clubs difference would mean a lot more to me.