Trends: Handicap / Driving Distance / Time as a golfer anonymous poll

[natureboy]

On 12/7/2015 at 5:48 PM, DrvFrShow said:

What if you never play at sea level? I play at 500 feet elevation. 

Assuming your reference temperature when you estimated your distances was around 75*. I'd say you would lose about 2.5% due to temperature and elevation change most of which is from the temperature difference.

[vangator]

I've been playing for 40 years with 35 in Florida where I play at least once per week.  So I'd say 75 rounds per year * 35 years = 2625.  That's a lot of cash!

[inthehole]

550 rounds; 5 years; 51 yrs old; 240 yds avg; 11.0 ghin

[PJCdude]

23 hours ago, WUTiger said:

One possible problem with estimating rounds played, vs. how long playing golf.

Many of us have had a few years here or there where we just couldn't play golf. Or, some people dropped out when the second child arrived, and picked back up again when the youngest went off to college. So, I wonder if "how many rounds played" tells us much, especially if you played 500 rounds - skipped 20 years - and have 100 rounds since coming back. Also, as others have suggested, how may buckets of range balls translate into a round played? It's all golfing activity.

Am I really THAT screwed? Second child coming in April....

BTW 23 HDCP, Drive about 230-240 and right around the 100 round mark I would guess. I've played 70 rounds in the past 2 1/2 years where I took the game seriously but probably played about 30 rounds as a kid where my Dad tried to get me into it and I showed little promise and was shooting in the 130's (and probably STILL cheating too)

Edited December 9, 2015 by PJCdude

[RickK]

Handicap to driving distance...my thoughts on that is that you have to take age into consideration.  

When I was in my 30s, I had basically the same handicap I do today but I hit the ball about 250-260 off the tee.  

When I was in my 40s, I was 3 to 4 stroks better but still hit the ball about 250-260.

Now, I am almost 70 years old.  My handicap is what it was when I was 30 years old.  For me to hit the ball 250-260...it would have to hit 2 sprinkler heads and the cart path.  A good drive for me today is 210-220.  Sucks getting old.  

As far as rounds played, in the last 3 years I have played over 450 rounds.  I would guess since I started playing golf 48 years ago I have played well over 5000 rounds.  

 

Edited December 9, 2015 by RickK

[ghalfaire]

I always find these data interesting, but not sure what, if any, conclusions one can derive from them about the golfing public.

[MrFlipper]

12 hours ago, RickK said:

Handicap to driving distance...my thoughts on that is that you have to take age into consideration.  

When I was in my 30s, I had basically the same handicap I do today but I hit the ball about 250-260 off the tee.  

When I was in my 40s, I was 3 to 4 stroks better but still hit the ball about 250-260.

Now, I am almost 70 years old.  My handicap is what it was when I was 30 years old.  For me to hit the ball 250-260...it would have to hit 2 sprinkler heads and the cart path.  A good drive for me today is 210-220.  Sucks getting old.  

As far as rounds played, in the last 3 years I have played over 450 rounds.  I would guess since I started playing golf 48 years ago I have played well over 5000 rounds.  

 

I'm 10+ years younger than you, similar experience except I started when I was 15, was low single digits by college, then the handicap started its expected rise around age 40 and will continue to go up. Haven't lost any distance but I know it's coming, maybe I can hold it off a few more years.

Thanks to technology I still hit it as far as I did as a teenager. I don't expect to see any great technology leap forward coming down the line so the younger folks today are going to see their distance gradually decrease as they age, which makes sense. Just hasn't been that way for 50 years though. No way the young folks of today will hit it just as far when they are 60 that they do now when they are in their 20's. Folks of my golfing generation rode the technology wave for all it was worth.

[Lihu]

On 12/7/2015 at 9:52 AM, Lihu said:

Back to the OP: I see that the polls are pretty much averaging out to the 12HC, 237 yard drives, 251 to 500 rounds played. This seems pretty correct to me, especially for posters on this site. . .

The poll numbers seem to be veering towards perception rather than reality now. . .16HC, 237 yard drives, 251 to 500 rounds played. Either terrible putting is the culprit or more people answering do not really know how far they drive***?

***I've been getting off that bandwagon, I drive as far as I drive and don't really care how far any more. All that matters is that I'm closer to the hole with an easier swing than I was a year ago and that's why my handicaps been dropping. . .

[Dave2512]

Probably. One thing I've learned from using the Game Golf benchmark is reality and perception usually aren't close. Looking at the GG numbers golfers in the bogey golf range average around 200 from the tee. It doesn't get much better as the handicap ranges go down. GG sorts by average score and for an average score of 75-80 average driving distance was 235. There are thousands if not millions of rounds in there so it's legit.

I know when I started using GG what I thought my averages were and what they really are were about -1.5 clubs with irons and about 30-35 less than I thought with driver. Prior to GG I had been using GPS and rough notes for driver average, it was flawed.

Of course there is a bunch of bad shots in my GG numbers but that is what I really do. I wasn't overly generous with my previous method either so I think people tend to be conservative. If they hit an occasional 300 yard drive they don't say they average 300. They back it down to something in the middle of horrible and best and think it's a safe guess.

[Lihu]

22 minutes ago, Dave2512 said:

Probably. One thing I've learned from using the Game Golf benchmark is reality and perception usually aren't close. Looking at the GG numbers golfers in the bogey golf range average around 200 from the tee. It doesn't get much better as the handicap ranges go down. GG sorts by average score and for an average score of 75-80 average driving distance was 235. There are thousands if not millions of rounds in there so it's legit.

I know when I started using GG what I thought my averages were and what they really are were about -1.5 clubs with irons and about 30-35 less than I thought with driver. Prior to GG I had been using GPS and rough notes for driver average, it was flawed.

Of course there is a bunch of bad shots in my GG numbers but that is what I really do. I wasn't overly generous with my previous method either so I think people tend to be conservative. If they hit an occasional 300 yard drive they don't say they average 300. They back it down to something in the middle of horrible and best and think it's a safe guess.

This is pretty much what I would "guess" based upon my experience playing with lots of other golfers.

For my enjoyment of golf, technology has little value. I like the idea of getting away from all electronics devices such as GPS, laser rangefinders and such. Nowadays I just use GolfLogix for simple score tracking. There are usually distance markers where I hit most of my tee shots anyway, so I'm close.

On new courses, I'm usually "that guy" who mooches distances off other golfers readings and guess based on their distances.

[Dave2512]

I could live without Game Golf, it didn't really change how I practice. Seeing the numbers didn't change the answer but seeing reality changed the way I plan. IMO it's a valuable tool for those willing to accept the truth. The guy that thinks he missed a green from 150 because he hit a bad shot may be missing the green because he hit his average shot he's just not realistic with club choices.

Anyway the OP should just sign up for a GG account. You can look at everything without having a device or rounds posted. I watched what people were doing for a month or so before I bought it. What he wants to know is all on the site.

[Lihu]

43 minutes ago, Dave2512 said:

I could live without Game Golf, it didn't really change how I practice. Seeing the numbers didn't change the answer but seeing reality changed the way I plan. IMO it's a valuable tool for those willing to accept the truth. The guy that thinks he missed a green from 150 because he hit a bad shot may be missing the green because he hit his average shot he's just not realistic with club choices.

Anyway the OP should just sign up for a GG account. You can look at everything without having a device or rounds posted. I watched what people were doing for a month or so before I bought it. What he wants to know is all on the site.

I think GG makes a lot of sense for most people who want to really improve.

I'm an 80% feel player, and generally go by how I fared on previous shots and situations. For example, let's say I carry an 8i 142 yards on average at a driving range which includes fat shots or whatever. This doesn't mean I'm going to use an 8i from every shot less than 150 yards. Sometimes a 9i is called for and sometimes a 7i or even a 5i if there is a strong wind in my face. It's all feel for me anyway. Usually, that "feel" tells me to go a club longer than what I roughly hit on the driving range. It's worked to the tune of 33% (5 to 7 greens) kind of meets my current golfing goals.

A few people have already suggested that I get GG, and I think it could be a great tool in improving scores especially coupled with a rangefinder.

It's just not that fun for me, and I tend to get impatient with technology on the course. So, on that note, I've tried using it unsuccessfully 3 times on my home courses. In one case, it told me that I was on the first green while I was standing 100 feet or yards (don't remember exactly) from the green. The second time I used it on that course, it couldn't sync the distance and it told me that I was driving 50 yards from my tee box. So, I shut it off each of these two times because people were waiting for me to go to my second shot. I think it was working on my longer home course for a while, but got confused somewhere after the 5th hole because my score ended up a 75 while my actual score was 82. We definitely heard the beeps when selecting and tagging the clubs. Luckily, we used my friends profile on that round, and it didn't change his HC. He doesn't use it anyway due to the similar issues, but got it as a present or something.

I have browsed the GG site and have an account to do so. I really like the statistics you can get from it.

[WUTiger]

20 hours ago, PJCdude said:

Am I really THAT screwed? Second child coming in April....

Au contraire, Dad! That means you will have two potential caddies to  help you in a few years when you make your eventual bid to win the U.S. Senior Amateur.

Be sure to post pix here in TST!

[Lihu]

On 12/8/2015 at 9:59 PM, bones75 said:

Would love to have seen how handicap correlates to # of rounds you've played, and to have actual graphical data on how driving distance correlates to handicap.  Thre have been numerous threads on TST on this stuff, but I've never seen actual data graphed (i.e. you have to look post by post).

 

The tally shows roughly: 18HC, 237 yards average (not realistic)

Not likely to get anything better than this: http://thesandtrap.com/forums/topic/64681-handicap-versus-clubhead-speeddriving-distance/#comment-687892

[mchepp]

10 hours ago, ghalfaire said:

I always find these data interesting, but not sure what, if any, conclusions one can derive from them about the golfing public.

I kinda look at it as way to find out about the handicaps and average driving distance of the people who frequent the forum. That is a little interesting from my perspective.

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, mchepp said:

I kinda look at it as way to find out about the handicaps and average driving distance of the people who frequent the forum. That is a little interesting from my perspective.

Only if the data is accurate.

[mchepp]

1 hour ago, Lihu said:

Only if the data is accurate.

True. So true. 

I guess from my perspective the people here are slightly more realistic on this forum because @iacas has told us not to con ourselves, but data is only as accurate as the input it gets. 

[natureboy]

18 hours ago, Lihu said:

The poll numbers seem to be veering towards perception rather than reality now. . .16HC, 237 yard drives, 251 to 500 rounds played. Either terrible putting is the culprit or more people answering do not really know how far they drive***?

***I've been getting off that bandwagon, I drive as far as I drive and don't really care how far any more. All that matters is that I'm closer to the hole with an easier swing than I was a year ago and that's why my handicaps been dropping. . .

The poll question is poorly worded. It asks how far do you drive, not what is your average driving distance. Even the pros keep two different metrics on this, though I agree that average drive is more important to scoring as it shows your ability to hit driver even on tight holes.