Longer or More Accurate?

[mvmac]

More distance please.....gimme, gimme.

My "angular" accuracy is pretty good and hitting it 26 yards further would be huge. Also as @iacas has pointed out many times, distance is a form of accuracy. 

[billchao]

1 hour 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.

Just to add to what @Jeremie Boop said, 10% accuracy is probably not going to help as much as you think it does.

Let's say your dispersion with your driver is 70 yards wide (like mine because I'm a terrible driver), so the farthest you will miss from center is 35 yards on either side. Are you really gaining a lot of strokes by hitting it 3.5 yards tighter on each side, 7 yards total? The gains drop significantly if you're already a decent driver, say you have a 40 yard wide shot zone instead of 70.

For scoring shots, it's an even smaller boost. If you hit all your wedge shots within a 30' circle, you're only shrinking that circle by 3'. A 27' putt isn't that much easier than a 30' putt.

Even if you were to hit the ball 10% closer to the pin on every approach shot, is that significant enough to be noticeable on the scorecard? You were probably going to make that 3' tap-in without getting 3" closer, but a 15' birdie putt is still no gimme at 13.5'.

Distance however, is a much bigger advantage. You're basically getting a club longer through the whole bag, probably even more with the woods.

[Abu3baid]

16 minutes ago, billchao said:

Just to add to what @Jeremie Boop said, 10% accuracy is probably not going to help as much as you think it does.

Let's say your dispersion with your driver is 70 yards wide (like mine because I'm a terrible driver), so the farthest you will miss from center is 35 yards on either side. Are you really gaining a lot of strokes by hitting it 3.5 yards tighter on each side, 7 yards total? The gains drop significantly if you're already a decent driver, say you have a 40 yard wide shot zone instead of 70.

For scoring shots, it's an even smaller boost. If you hit all your wedge shots within a 30' circle, you're only shrinking that circle by 3'. A 27' putt isn't that much easier than a 30' putt.

Even if you were to hit the ball 10% closer to the pin on every approach shot, is that significant enough to be noticeable on the scorecard? You were probably going to make that 3' tap-in without getting 3" closer, but a 15' birdie putt is still no gimme at 13.5'.

Distance however, is a much bigger advantage. You're basically getting a club longer through the whole bag, probably even more with the woods.

There will always be a bigger impact when you talk about static percentages like 10% of distance vs 10% of dispersion because let us face it the vertical distance will always be 7-10 times more than the horizontal dispersion... Just like your example 10% of 35 yards as compared to 10% of 250 yards.. 

Doesnt this mean that the question its self is pretty silly because no one who has a half a brain would say I want to be 3.5 yards closer to the middle rather than 25 yards closer to the hole?

We should make the question a little more interesting.  We can ask would you rather have a 10% increase in distance with the same accuracy or never miss a fairway with your driver with the same distance?

with my new scenario question I would rather be more accurate as I now eliminate OB off the tee :) and besides I get plenty of distance of the tee.

[natureboy]

Statistically, I know that distance gains and accuracy gains are not equal. They both matter, but distance is a bit more important.

However, I have sufficient distance for my game goals and a tighter dispersion / more consistency is what I currently need with driver (keeping the same distance) to improve my long game scores. The irons are good, but more fairway lies and tighter to the pin would help my scoring.

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

So edit your vote.

done. 

[colin007]

So I can hit it 40 yards father with my driver? Yes, please.

[billchao]

1 hour ago, Abu3baid said:

Doesnt this mean that the question its self is pretty silly because no one who has a half a brain would say I want to be 3.5 yards closer to the middle rather than 25 yards closer to the hole?

You'll have to take that up with the people who answered accuracy. And @iacas, who started this thread.

1 hour ago, Abu3baid said:

We should make the question a little more interesting.  We can ask would you rather have a 10% increase in distance with the same accuracy or never miss a fairway with your driver with the same distance?

That's not what's being asked. I agree that 10% more accuracy != 10% extra distance, but neither does 10% extra distance to never missing a fairway.

[Abu3baid]

1 minute ago, billchao said:

You'll have to take that up with the people who answered accuracy. And @iacas, who started this thread.

That's not what's being asked. I agree that 10% more accuracy != 10% extra distance, but neither does 10% extra distance to never missing a fairway.

 

Yeah, I'm just giving an example.  Point is, it's s pretty lob sided equation that's all..  And might as well be the other way around as it would generate the same lob sided answers as the former.

[14ledo81]

1 hour ago, colin007 said:

So I can hit it 40 yards father with my driver? Yes, please.

I see what you did there........

I would gain 40 yards on my 6 iron though.....  

[natureboy]

2 hours ago, billchao said:

Let's say your dispersion with your driver is 70 yards wide (like mine because I'm a terrible driver), so the farthest you will miss from center is 35 yards on either side. Are you really gaining a lot of strokes by hitting it 3.5 yards tighter on each side, 7 yards total? The gains drop significantly if you're already a decent driver, say you have a 40 yard wide shot zone instead of 70.

I believe he said it was 10% on the deviation angle, not on the dispersion distance. So distance still wins, but not quite as much as your example. Per Broadie, a PGA pro gets ~ 1.12 strokes on 10% distance improvement and ~ .264 strokes on 10% improvement in degrees offline.

Just to offer a possible caveat perspective. I would expect that the long drive guys would trade in their 48" drivers to be accurate enough to play on the PGA and make that kind of money. Broadie's book showed a dual correlation to scoring improvement from both distance and accuracy with distance the stronger contributor. He also said longer hitters tend to be straighter hitters. But that doesn't mean long and wild won't kill your scores unless you club down to accomodate.

Edited November 11, 2015 by natureboy

[TimS65]

I suspect there could be 2 valid replies. High handicappers may benefit from more accuracy to reduce out of bounds and heavy rough/trees. Whereas lower handicappers who will tend to already be reasonably accurate will want more distance. I definitely want better direction - its trees and OOB's that cost me most shots, not distance. 

[JBailey]

My drives go 220-240.  10% more distance would put me 22-24 yds. deeper into the woods with the same accuracy I have now.

No brainer here -- I'll take the accuracy.

Later,

John

[bm85]

Voted accuracy, but 10% won't help all that much for typical misses. Distance is the smart choice I suppose.

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, TimS65 said:

I suspect there could be 2 valid replies. High handicappers may benefit from more accuracy to reduce out of bounds and heavy rough/trees. Whereas lower handicappers who will tend to already be reasonably accurate will want more distance. I definitely want better direction - its trees and OOB's that cost me most shots, not distance. 

Good observation. I kind of noticed that as well. There seem to be replies with an almost desperate need for more accuracy, and those with I need another 22-24 yards on the fairway.

However, the gist of the thread is along the lines of gain distance and you end up gaining accuracy.

[Patch]

6 hours ago, Club Rat said:

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.

 

Pinick said the same thing in his little red book.

7 hours ago, iacas said:

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

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.

I would still go with accuracy since I can hit the ball farther from the fairway than I can from the stuff growing along side the fairways.  On another note, more accuracy might promote faster play since the golfer would not lose time searching for their ball. 

[JonMA1]

I'd take even a small improvement in accuracy over an increase in distance right now.

1. I play from tees that fit my distances. I don't have problems reaching the distances needed off the tee to leave approach shots that require mid to short irons.

2. Currently, my club to shot zone ratio is not linear (if that's the right word) as the clubs get longer. Meaning, playing a shorter iron doesn't necessarily equate to better accuracy.

And yes, I'm aware that this would probably qualify as a glaring weakness.

[natureboy]

2 hours ago, TimS65 said:

I suspect there could be 2 valid replies. High handicappers may benefit from more accuracy to reduce out of bounds and heavy rough/trees. Whereas lower handicappers who will tend to already be reasonably accurate will want more distance. I definitely want better direction - its trees and OOB's that cost me most shots, not distance. 

This probably only true if you are already very long compared to 'typical' 25 HCP. Say a guy with tons of power starting out. PGA long, but super wild and erratic - worse than a 'typical' 25 HCP. He may benefit more from improved accuracy than distance.

The 'typical' 25 HCP does not have much distance, though so they benefit even more than the pros from extra distance.

Edited November 12, 2015 by natureboy

[iacas]

7 hours ago, Abu3baid said:

Yeah, I'm just giving an example.  Point is, it's s pretty lob sided equation that's all..  And might as well be the other way around as it would generate the same lob sided answers as the former.

You only think it's a lopsided question because you've read a lot of good information here (and elsewhere) about the importance of various things.

4 hours ago, TimS65 said:

I suspect there could be 2 valid replies. High handicappers may benefit from more accuracy to reduce out of bounds and heavy rough/trees. Whereas lower handicappers who will tend to already be reasonably accurate will want more distance. I definitely want better direction - its trees and OOB's that cost me most shots, not distance. 

High handicappers benefit even more than lower handicappers from hitting it farther, actually.

4 hours ago, JBailey said:

My drives go 220-240.  10% more distance would put me 22-24 yds. deeper into the woods with the same accuracy I have now.

No brainer here -- I'll take the accuracy.

Apply more brain. You should take the distance.

4 hours ago, bm85 said:

Voted accuracy, but 10% won't help all that much for typical misses. Distance is the smart choice I suppose.

It is for almost everyone, yeah… You can change your vote, you know. Just click "voting options" and choose the one you want.

6 hours ago, natureboy said:

I believe he said it was 10% on the deviation angle, not on the dispersion distance. So distance still wins, but not quite as much as your example.

The math is the same.

tan(7.97°) = 35/250
tan(7.17°) = 31.5/250