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Average Driver Distance Relative to Index

Last year was an absolute crap show of ball striking. Average was probably only 225. Current HC is 9.6 but played more in the 15-20 range in limited rounds due to illness and subsequent medication problems.

Going back pre illness I was a 5.2. I probably averaged 285+/- I’d hit a few absolute whoppers most rounds and have a few get knocked down by a tree 225 out. CHS was in the 120 range.

I’m now 41 and coming off a bad car accident last fall where I broke 4 ribs (one detached), both collarbones, my sternum, right shoulder blade, and left fibula. Throw in 14 hours of emergency surgery which resulted in 27 staples to my stomach.

I finally hit the sim for the first time since the accident last week. Best CHS I managed was 104 but I was also working on a more conventional swing as I’ve always had a long drive type swing where the club is pointed straight down at the top of my swing. I don’t think I’m going to be capable of that anymore so if I can get back to making consistent contact at around 105-110 CHS I’ll be very happy with that.
 
LLIB said:
My average drive goes somewhere between 100-310 yards. And that is one of many reasons my hc is 23
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I hear ya. I’ll amend that for me as I hit a 7 yarder at a THP event. So In the past two year 7-435 (obviously both outliers).
 
Smiter said:
I’m now 41 and coming off a bad car accident last fall where I broke 4 ribs (one detached), both collarbones, my sternum, right shoulder blade, and left fibula. Throw in 14 hours of emergency surgery which resulted in 27 staples to my stomach.

I finally hit the sim for the first time since the accident last week. Best CHS I managed was 104 but I was also working on a more conventional swing as I’ve always had a long drive type swing where the club is pointed straight down at the top of my swing. I don’t think I’m going to be capable of that anymore so if I can get back to making consistent contact at around 105-110 CHS I’ll be very happy with that.
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Off topic, but in 2018 I had a fall where I broke most of my ribs, ruptured, punctured, or lacerated most things they house, etc, etc, spent a total of 7 weeks in the hospital, so I just want to tell you as a fellow ~41 with a busted body guy, that 105 is plenty fast enough to play damn good golf. It's where I live, because it's about all I can physically handle without making things worse, and despite that I played the best golf of my life last year. The one stretch where I tried to do more I set myself back.

Glad you got back in there and have a reasonable goal for yourself. Stick to it, man. Any golf is better than no golf. I'll be rooting for you. (y)
 
McLovin said:
curious how many numbers in here are based on data from launch monitors, or arccos, and how many are based on "the scorecard says the hole is 'x' yards long and I have 'y' yards to the pin so I must have hit the drive 'z' total yards." cuz I've done that, and it's rarely accurate. arccos humbled me a good bit when I started using it.
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We actually had a very short course here get sued in 2018 as someone damn near killed a person on a par 4 green that if the yardage was right on the scorecard, he couldn’t reach. The first time I played it hole 1 was listed as 280 yards. It’s slightly downhill so I teed off with a 3w thinking I’d try to roll it on. To my dismay I saw my drive disappear in the trees behind the green. WTH? It is now listed as 235 and what was once a “6000” yard course is correctly listed as 5400 yards. From the tips if you want to call them that, lol.
 
Smiter said:
It appears you may not get along with your 6i sir...
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He said he hits a variety of flighted down shots that throw off the totals.

That's one thing I hadn't thought of with Arccos until recently, partly from @wubears71 post. Can you guys cancel the tracking/shot logging on certain shots? I've thought about going the arccos route, but we all have go-to-ish clubs for trouble, punch, rescue shots, etc. and my averages would take a weird hit for a few clubs if I couldn't turn it off on those. I like that I can and do with the gps apps I use.
 
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According to GameGolf stats, my "typical" drive is 219 (average would be less, probably under 210), while the Grint has my index at 22, it would have been more like 25 had I posted rounds in 2019.
 
Smiter said:
It appears you may not get along with your 6i sir...
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Not at all. I hit it very well. I just use those three clubs a lot to keep the ball low and under the wind - so lots of partial shots. There is actually a good 10-12 yard actual gap between the clubs.
 
OldandStiff said:
He said he hits a variety of flighted down shots that throw off the totals.

That's one thing I hadn't thought of with Arccos until recently, partly from @wubears71 post. Can you guys cancel the tracking/shot logging on certain shots? I've thought about going the arccos route, but we all have go-to-ish clubs for trouble, punch, rescue shots, etc. and my averages would take a weird hit for a few clubs if I couldn't turn it off on those. I like that I can and do with the gps apps I use.
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I think it would be difficult to turn it off and then back on. You can delete shots, but that would affect some of the database, such as GIR, historical scores, handicap tracking, etc. Supposedly, with enough shots, the algorithms, will recognize when you are not taking full swings, because of the diversity of distance and then not add it into the averages. Clearly, that is not happening with @wubears71, though. It is an issue to some degree.
 
Tenputt said:
I think it would be difficult to turn it off and then back on. You can delete shots, but that would affect some of the database, such as GIR, historical scores, handicap tracking, etc. Supposedly, with enough shots, the algorithms, will recognize when you are not taking full swings, because of the diversity of distance and then not add it into the averages. Clearly, that is not happening with @wubears71, though. It is an issue to some degree.
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It normally does take the outliers but the last 10 rounds, which the stats are based on, has had a lot of the partial, low flighted shots.

During normal play like during the summer, the distances are pretty dead accurate.

The biggest issue I see people get all pet peeved with Arccos is looking at small data samples. Golfers are all like “Arccos sucks. My distances are all off” and then you find out they’ve used it for 5 rounds. It really takes a couple of dozen rounds.

My best advice is just let Arccos collect the data and let it work. It will figure things out.
 
Duffer Waldorf said:
GOLF.com | How Far Amateurs Drove the Ball in 2019
driving-insights-1024x570.jpg
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The above numbers are very much in line with what I've observed while playing lots of rounds at many different courses.
On internet discussion forums, for 20 years now I've read distance numbers very different from what I see on the golf courses. The only explanation I have is that it is much easier to type in a number on a computer than it is to swing a club and strike a ball .
 
57 years old, average drive (per my Garmin stats) is 219. Handicap 17.5.
 
These days my biggest carry distance is the 235 yard range and rolling out to 250 yards. For me driver distance is the biggest contributing factor to getting to a single digit handicap. With the exception of very long par 4’s, it helps when I can get an iron to the green.
The old adage drive for show and put for dough is true if you’re a very good accomplished player. Personally, I need to get to the 150-180 distance to the pin to score well.
 
Tenputt. Great idea. I'll be interested in what you learn about the correlation. Please analyze and report back on your findings.

Here are the basics for me. At home in Western Washington state my handicap is 16.9. My average carry distance is between 225 and 230, but total distance varies with the season and course conditions. I am 74, but in good shape and still reasonably strong and coordinated. My lousy handicap reflects the fact that my short game has gone to Hell over the past five years or so. I was a 10 HI when I was 65, and typically drove the ball about 260 then (carry). Now the ball flight looks just as good, but it doesn't go as far. Interestingly, I was seeing erosion in my iron distances too until I acquired a set of Hot Metals this fall and picked up a set of Hogan Ft. Worth Blacks that I brought down here. They are distinctly different in terms of head shape, loft, and shafts (KBS steel v. UST graphite), but both have given me my distances back (4 iron total 190 to 195).

Remember, when dealing with this sort of data a relationship does not constitute causation. There are a lot of variables. To start with, I'm not sure total driving distance is the number we should be looking at. I hit my drives higher than most, so I get a bit more carry but not as much roll. When I left home in the PacNW in mid-January, my roll on drives was generally negative, unless the ball just plugged in the mud rather than bouncing backwards out of the landing spot. We are now in New Zealand in the middle of a lengthy drought. Our club's courses here are seriously baked out. I hit some drives today that may still be rolling somewhere. Perhaps carry distance is the better measure, but that is harder to determine.

Anyway, if I strike a drive well with my Callaway X2Hot (which I have here), I expect to see 225 to 230 carry. At home, in the cold winter weather this fall/winter, I couldn't get it out that far, even with my new Cobra Speedfast F9, which is about 15 to 20 yards longer (carry) than the Callaway. But here, in the 75 degree (F) temps I am seeing that 230 yard carry distance on many drives, and total distance here is often between 260 and 270, especially if the fairway is downhill at all. FWIW, on most par 4 holes I hit my Nickent #2 Ironwood hybrid off the tee now. Today, I was seeing 215 yards pretty consistently and 220 on a couple. It carries about 190 to 200, and I can usually hit it exactly where I want - which isn't the case with the driver. So I leave the driver in the bag unless a par 4 is 380 yards or longer. On the par 5s, I always hit the hybrid off the tee and usually on the second shot as well.

As I indicated above, my handicap index at home is 16.9. Here in New Zealand it is 21.3. I know, weird huh? Don't get me started on course rating/slope differences. The courses I play in New Zealand would consistently be rated 1.5 to 2.0 strokes more difficult at home, and the slopes would be 8 to 10 higher in North America. International handicapping sounds good, but until we get consistency in course rating/slope across the board, it isn't one bit accurate. All the North Americans I play with here have observed the same thing. A course here that is rated 70 or higher or has a slope of 120 or greater is a beast for me.
 
neophyteguy said:
Thanks @OldandStiff ! I have some dated ping hybrids that really set up open to my eye, so will be getting fitted for Driver/FW/Hybrids? very soon. The Pings suited my OTT swing, but now that I'm working more on an in-out path it's a definite too much right to left option for me. Thanks again!
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Hi neophyteguy. Stick with the hybrids. Once you get grooved with hybrids, you'll learn to love them. I put my Nickent Ironwoods (#2, #3, #4) away about 10 years ago, and they just sat in the garage. This year I dusted them off and brought them to New Zealand along with a new set of Hogan Ft. Worth Blacks to replace a 12-year old set of Cleveland irons I have kept here. I am totally stoked about the Nickents now - even having random thoughts of hauling them back to America rather than leaving them here along with the Hogans. But I have a new Titleist TS3 hybrid at home, so I'll be fine. I remember not being thrilled at all with the Nickent hybrids when I tried to play them 10 years or more ago. Now they are my go-to clubs from 190 to 220 yards. I haven't even hit the Hogan 4 iron for the past two or three rounds - the #4 Nickent hybrid is much more reliable.
 
I am 72, my index is currently 5.0 and my typical drive is 225 or so with a longest of probably 250 under ideal conditions. I don't know that the average and longest can necessarily be tied conclusively to handicap index if one is playing from their appropriate tees.
 
OldandStiff said:
He said he hits a variety of flighted down shots that throw off the totals.

That's one thing I hadn't thought of with Arccos until recently, partly from @wubears71 post. Can you guys cancel the tracking/shot logging on certain shots? I've thought about going the arccos route, but we all have go-to-ish clubs for trouble, punch, rescue shots, etc. and my averages would take a weird hit for a few clubs if I couldn't turn it off on those. I like that I can and do with the gps apps I use.
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it will learn your trends and ignore obvious mishits, punchouts, bump and runs, etc when calculating your smart distances. the system is really fun.
 
I am not worthy of even posting here in this thread I average about 240 off the tee and finished up last year as a 9.1 cap


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I’m around 255 carry and play to a 6.
 
LLIB said:
My average drive goes somewhere between 100-310 yards. And that is one of many reasons my hc is 23
Click to expand...

I'm starting to find when my yardage doesn't fluctuate as much, my HCP improves, I get better scores more often and fewer sh***y scores.

Go figure.
 
I am a 7 handicap, have been as low as a 0.3. My average driving distance is 210-220. I hit hybrids off most tee boxes. I can reach most par 4's hitting hybrid-hybrid or less. My observation is that most players I play with average 220.
 
typical drive according to GG is 267 total. That should be my carry. I've working on raising the launch angle on my gc2. When I do its around 270 carry, just have a hard time keeping it up round to round. Hcp 8.8
 
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