chip barm
Club Champion
we don't speak anymore. too awkward...
How far do I need to be able to hit it?
- Thread starter Canary_Yellow
- Start date
jim8flog
Journeyman Pro
I would agree with the point about being straight can be more important than how far.
I regularly go round our par 34 9 hole course (3par 3s, 4 par 4s and 2 par 5s).
I normally take just a 5 or 6 iron and a wedge, no putter and have scored many rounds of 1 or 2 over par gross.
I regularly go round our par 34 9 hole course (3par 3s, 4 par 4s and 2 par 5s).
I normally take just a 5 or 6 iron and a wedge, no putter and have scored many rounds of 1 or 2 over par gross.
High wide and handsome
Hacker
Depends on the course. If you can't reach GIR on more than a couple of holes then you'd struggle to play to 12 i would think.
woody69
Journeyman Pro
No disrespect, but that's rubbish. Chip/pitch close enough and you could not get a single GIR and go round in level. You won't get many birdies, but you could easily play to 12 if you were decent with the short game
Region3
Ryder Cup Winner
I think there's a difference between not hitting a green and not being able to reach them.
With a good short game it's feasible to miss every green and still break 80. If you're always 50yds short then you're more than likely looking at 85 even with good pitching and putting.
Bit of a generalisation but not unreasonable. However, I was looking at some of my old scores on HowdidIdo a couple of nights ago. Medal round, Oct 2013, 20 putts and a 2 under gross with 4 birdies and 2 bogeys. That's 16 putts below regulation play - a hell of a lot of missed greens.
a guy i play with sometimes is getting on a bit now, and struggles to reach anything over 350 in two and then its with a wood or hybrid and doesn't have an iron under a 7 . the course his handicap is 6800 yards off the medal tee's
he's off 3,.
badgermat
Club Champion
As others have said, it does rather depend on the course you play.
Based on the 14 courses nearest to me, the median hole length is 311 metres/338 yards (mean is a bit shorter). So if you can drive 190 to 200 metres, you'd be in pretty good shape to achieve a single-figure handicap if your short game is okay.
It's all a distant dream to me though.
bm
Based on the 14 courses nearest to me, the median hole length is 311 metres/338 yards (mean is a bit shorter). So if you can drive 190 to 200 metres, you'd be in pretty good shape to achieve a single-figure handicap if your short game is okay.
It's all a distant dream to me though.
bm
SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
You don't have to hit it that far - just straight 
GreggerKBR
Head Pro
The shorter you hit it - the better your approach and short game needs to be.
If you can make gains in distance then you should do it.
You can't gain distance without improving quality of your movement or the quality of the strike
That will have an impact throughout the bag. A little gain with driver, and a little gain with an iron will mean going from Driver + 5 iron to Driver + 7 iron, and that's a BIG difference in terms of how accurate your approach shot will be.
It's much easier to get up and down from 15 yards off the green than 25-50 yards short.
If you can make gains in distance then you should do it.
You can't gain distance without improving quality of your movement or the quality of the strike
That will have an impact throughout the bag. A little gain with driver, and a little gain with an iron will mean going from Driver + 5 iron to Driver + 7 iron, and that's a BIG difference in terms of how accurate your approach shot will be.
It's much easier to get up and down from 15 yards off the green than 25-50 yards short.
Canary_Yellow
Journeyman Pro
Distance isn't my issue per se, it's that using my driver gets me into trouble too often. I don't need to increase club head speed, just accuracy (he says "just" like that's easy!).
Part of my problem is that I don't necessarily hit my 3 wood or hybrid more accurately off the tee, so there is little benefit to using them over the driver. So to see a real benefit in accuracy, I would be looking at dropping back to my 5 iron, which would then limit me to c. 170 / 180 off the tee, less if I don't hit it well or the ground is soft and there is no roll.
As noted, that puts pressure on my mid irons and short game, but better than being 3 off the tee.
It's course management really, isn't it?
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SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
Absolutely - but the advantage from playing an approach from 15yds rather than 50yds is rather negated when you have taken 2 shots more to get to 15yds.
hines57
Challenge Tour Pro
I won a medal a couple of years ago with nothing longer than a 21 degree hybrid in the bag. The big stick was not behaving at the time and so plotted my way round the course, working on a comfortable approach shot into each green. It worked a treat whilst I was sorting out the cause of the driving issues. Fairways and greens hit are much more valuable stats than distance carried off the tee!
big_matt
Assistant Pro
Anyone read the book Every Shot Counts?
Pretty interesting stuff - the statistics for all levels of golfer show that all of the old adages are not correct. Drive for show putt for dough should actually be the other way round, and apparently you are better hitting longer drives that end up off the fairway than shorter drives which are straight.
I think short game is the key here - with the distances mentioned at the start of the thread you will be around the green somewhere in 2 shots. Getting up and down is therefore par golf.
GreggerKBR is right - if you can work on distance then do it. I drive the ball quite a bit further than my playing partners so they are often on a 5 iron second shot when I've got an 8 iron etc. Makes the short game much easier from there.
Pretty interesting stuff - the statistics for all levels of golfer show that all of the old adages are not correct. Drive for show putt for dough should actually be the other way round, and apparently you are better hitting longer drives that end up off the fairway than shorter drives which are straight.
I think short game is the key here - with the distances mentioned at the start of the thread you will be around the green somewhere in 2 shots. Getting up and down is therefore par golf.
GreggerKBR is right - if you can work on distance then do it. I drive the ball quite a bit further than my playing partners so they are often on a 5 iron second shot when I've got an 8 iron etc. Makes the short game much easier from there.
Canary_Yellow
Journeyman Pro
That makes complete sense to me, assuming your wayward drive is playable rather than lost, or in such a position that requires a sideways hack out
Orikoru
Tour Winner
As long as the rough isn't too penal then yeah - but you certainly don't get anywhere hitting wayward drives at my course, since basically every hole is tree-lined. So chances are if you miss the fairway by more than 6 yards you'll have a tree in your way.
And I don't agree with 'drive for show putt for dough should be the other way round' - putting is always going to be crucial - no matter how many strokes it took you to get to the green, three-putting will always add another one! Fundamental.
Canary_Yellow
Journeyman Pro
I look at it like this:
Driving determines the range of my score, i.e. 75 - 85, 80 - 90, 85 - 95. Putting determines where I fall within that range.
SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
You make it sound so easy - as have I when saying - just get the ball somewhere in the vicinity of the green in 'regulation' - up and down in two 50% of the time and you are a single figure handicap golfer - eazy peezy
SwingsitlikeHogan
Major Champion
Which consideration on any par 4 of less than 400 yds could lead you to hitting 5i, 7i to get you 325yds or so from the tee.
big_matt
Assistant Pro
The statistics taken over many years show that the saying just isn't the case though. There is plenty evidence that putting just doesn't contribute as much to a good score as we have always thought it did. Putting your drives out of bounds has a bigger negative effect than missing a few 2 foot putts.
Hard to summarise everything in the book but its really interesting and is apparently now the bible for pro's analysing their games. They look at some of Tigers big wins and whilst the media/fans thought his short game got the wins, it was actually often his mid irons that gave him the biggest stroke advantages over the field.
