Driving distances and the reality

[harpo_72]

So GM have released a video

I suspect, your all around the scratch distance ?.
For me I am pleased with my efforts given my age group but I also think it should influence course set up going forward as well.
I will keep working on my technique to improve what I can but there is only so much flogging you can do to a dead donkey.

 

[Biggleswade Blue]

Doesn’t this same story crop up every few months? For example,

August 2019: https://www.golfmonthly.com/features/the-game/how-far-do-average-golfers-actually-hit-it-123891/amp

August 2021: https://www.golfmonthly.com/features/the-game/how-far-do-scratch-golfers-hit-their-drives-235313/amp

 

[harpo_72]

Might do but have the numbers changed ? Can we actually say that driver distance is increasing or buying a new driver will yield more distance? The frequency of the report is a good thing because it is keeping tabs on the game.

 

[Biggleswade Blue]

Might do but have the numbers changed ? Can we actually say that driver distance is increasing or buying a new driver will yield more distance? The frequency of the report is a good thing because it is keeping tabs on the game.

The numbers don’t seem to change much in the amateur game.

If driver distance is increasing for us amateurs as claimed, why aren’t we all hitting the ball to the moon?

 

[Rlburnside]

I’m 67 and those numbers are about right for me.

 

[patricks148]

There has been a slight increase in distance for some of the young lads say 15 to 18 age group who are all plus figures, who say 5 years ago were long say 270 carry for the same age group but now they are all around 295 plus carry, some of the are really skinny wee things, but I suppose the diff is fitness, flexibility, coaching and practice. All of them are on the range every day and are straight on it again when they finish a round

 

[DeanoMK]

I'm 36 and play off 13/14 - my P-Avg on Shotscope according to Shot Scope is 253 so I'm exactly where I should be according to that data.

 

[harpo_72]

The numbers don’t seem to change much in the amateur game.

If driver distance is increasing for us amateurs as claimed, why aren’t we all hitting the ball to the moon?

Gravity?

 

[Slab]

Interesting but seems like the data comes from players who invested in the measuring device

Gotta get data somehow i guess but I feel if you're only sampling those sufficiently motivated to spend that kind of cash, is it representative enough of 'golfers' in those age/handicap brackets?

 

[Beedee]

If Shotscope P-Avg is to be believed, it's got my age about right (early 50-something), but it's knocked about 20 shots off my handicap

Although to be fair, I know I'm a decent driver of the ball. I just can't hit greens and my putting is below average.

 

[rksquire]

The male figures don't really surprise me, I know from the broad mix I play with these would be about right.... I always relate it to our 17th and how far guys have in - if you've 200 or more in, you've landed it in the fairway upslope with a carry of 220 or less. If you've carried the upslope you will get a kick on but it all feeds to the right hand side (a carry of between 230 to 250). This is me, barring any rock hard fairway anomaly, I'll have between 150 and 180 in; big hitters always have less than 150, so carrying 250 +.

I'm surprised by the ladies figures though - given the demography of ladies at our club that would mean at least 3 drives, sometimes 4, to reach the greens.

I wonder if ladies exaggerate their driving distance in the same way men do?

 

[MadAdey]

Golfers will always live in dream land when it comes to driver distance. They think about that time they played on bone hard fairways with a 30mph tail wind and take that as their driving distance. But the one thing I have always noticed is how higher handicappers have a tendancy to chat in the clubhouse about that bomb they hit down such and such fairway. Low handicappers talk about a great approach shot they played or the hole that hit an unreal chip on. Just saying that I find higher handicappers tend to care more about distance than low handicappers most of the time.

 

[Canary Kid]

I am 70 and a 28 Hcp … the figures are about right for me 180-200 yards.

 

[jim8flog]

There's a memory - that looks like West Hill golf club

 

[jim8flog]

Where I play the numbers are pretty meaningless. We only have one truly flat hole on the course the rest are either uphill or downhill. And that one flat hole has a teeing area well above the fairway and a lot of the times I am only using a 3 wood or rescue off the tee

Although judging by the numbers given I would judge that quite a few of the guys I play with and I are above average for gents of our age.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

Interesting article. Not sure that average is the most useful measure though as it will - particularly for handicap golfers - be dragged down by mishits etc. This is best illustrated by example: if I hit 100 drives, 90 of them travel 240 yards and ten travel 40 yards then my average driving distance is (((90*240) + 400)/10) = 220 yards. When I’m on the tee and the fairway bunkers are 220 yards away, should I play my driver?

Clearly the answer to this is a resounding “Yes”! 9 times out of 10 I’ll clear the bunkers.

It’s much more useful to know my median driving distance, in this case 240 yards.

TLDR; it would be more useful for Arcos/Golf Monthly to use their existing data to provide median driving distances by handicap groups.

 

[Deleted member 1147]

All joking aside, the figures for women are nonsense which doesn't reflect well on Arccos as their data is clearly garbage. Could definitely have done with some sanity checking before publishing this. I mean, there's not a scratch golfer on the planet averaging 164 yards off the tee. I don't care how good your short game is, if you're struggling to reach 300 yard par 4s in regulation and hitting driver on mid-length par 3s you're not shooting level par very often! And, if that's the average that means there are supposedly some not even managing that!

The most charitable spin I can put on it is that there probably aren't that many scratch handicap 60 year old women using Arccos so the dataset is possibly too small to be meaningful but I'd say the figures are way too low at every age point shown.

Can't comment on the men's but I expect they'll have a significantly bigger dataset. Any scratch guys on here or who someone plays with a lot of scratch men - how realistic do those numbers look?

I'm not scratch, and have lost some distance in recent years due to illness, but I carry it about 250. The scratch lads are virtually all longer than me. Including some +handicappers who are up around 300 carry.

 

[harpo_72]

I was chatting to my neighbour and his mate, both played for their uni team. The uni team had an elite training system for their first team. This involved a lot of dedicated 1:1 gym training specifically orientated to generating more power in the golf swing. They also got proper on course coaching. They both though said they didn’t bother with sport psychology, but that might have been the best bit of the lot !
In the end both are very low single figure golfers but won’t go into the professional ranks or have the motivation to do so. I dare say they over did it ?… but joking as side having access to this definitely changes the elite amateur game.

 

[Voyager EMH]

This data was not very interesting or enlightening to me.

Far more interesting would be frequency of holing out in two shots from 25, 50 and 75 yards across 1. age, 2. years playing, 3. weekly practice/playing frequency and 4. handicap ranges.

 

[Golfnut1957]

I'm not sure what to take from that video. At my tight tree lined home course far too many drives clip trees and fall way short, or roll off the fairway into the wet 2" long sticky stuff robbing me of distance, and skewing my average. The tee shots that do find the fairway bare no resemblance at all to their averages neither for age nor handicap.

What was interesting was the claim that average driving distances have fallen. What, even with all the new all singing all dancing drivers? I recently replaced a TM M5 and Callaway Rogue with a 2005 Callaway FT-3. I'm hitting ithe ball in the exact same places as the modern clubs and in some cases a bit further, and the dispersion has improved slightly.

It wasn't a blind experiment. I'm a long time fan of this club, I'd just forgotten how much.