Does the distance you hit a golf ball correlate to a handicap??

[tahoebum]

There is no question that a short hitter can be a single digit index. I also think that the longer you hit it, the higher the ceiling on how good you can become.

Even on tour, the very dominating players have almost always been long, relative to their competition. Jack was. Tiger was. Dustin Johnson is today. Brooks Koepka is. The list goes on. Yes, there are exceptions. Lee Trevino was not considered to be long. Nor was Gary Player. However, generally speaking, as others have said, distance translates into greater potential.

One of my regular golf buddies averages only about 195 yards off the tee and he's using a hybrid or FW from 145 yards or more. He's a 9 index because he putts and chips it well and his misses are very small. He really struggles to play to his index if he plays any tees over about 6450 yards but will often break 80 if you put him at 6200 yards. If he could play my average drive of 265 he'd be a 5 index or better. On the flip side, my son and one of his buddies finally took an interest in golf now that they are almost out of college and won't have the time to practice much, lol. They both are much, much longer than me but they both score in the 90's or 100's most of the time. Hitting a golf ball far and crooked more often than not is not a unique skill nor very helpful for breaking 80.

 

[GolfTravelDude]

Clearly, length alone will not make somebody a world class player. The best players in the world are elite at all facets of the game. Long drive competitors only have to be good at one thing. However, I think it is hard to argue that there is not a strong correlation between distance and dominating play. Pick the most dominating players of any era and a very high percentage of them will be long relative to their competition.

The most dominating also possessed the best short games. Drive for Show...Putt for Dough.

 

[GoldenBuff]

Interesting topic and discussion. My guess is that longer distance does correlate with lower handicap. However, a correlation does not make something an absolute in any way. There are clearly lots of shorter distance players who score well and longer distance players who keep the ball companies in business. But as a thought experiment example, take two golfers of similar consistency, dispersion, and short game. If one of those two is significantly longer than the other, the longer golfer will score better. Distance off the tee allows additional lines and having a shorter club into greens is plain and simple a good thing.

 

[Chef23]

Theoretically the change in slope and course rating should adjust for playing different sets of tees. So if you moved up a set of tees your handicap shouldn't necessarily go down either.

This is true to a large extent at my course. An 80 from the tips is about the same as a 75 or 76 from the next tees forward. That said I am more likely to really go low from the middle tees. I shot 69 this year on a day when everything was working but I am not sure it would have been 72 or 73 from the back tees.

 

[PKorf]

The simple answer here is no. Absolutely not

 

[Chef23]

I agree with that. I'm a low handicapper and a relatively short knocker myself. No fun wearing out the grooves of fairway woods and hybrids.

I actually enjoy the challenge. There are days when it is tough but I like the challenge of trying to put a good score up on a challenging course.

 

[The Milk Man]

Why aren't the long drive champs tearing up the PGA? Has there ever been a long drive champ who actually even ever made it onto the PGA? If distance is first priority then they should be the best players.

The longest players on tour have always been the best players. Nickalus, Tiger, Palmer, Norman, DJ, Rory the list goes on. At no point in the game has a short hitter been dominant. Yes some have risen to number 1 (Luke Donald) or won majors (Cory Pavin) but your truly dominate players have been bombers. That is no more evident than now. If you have a junior player and you want him to play on tour. That junior better be learning to bomb it. Even in the putt for dough drive for show days the drive for show guys dominated no one wanted to admit it. It took someone like Mark Brodie and his book to open peoples eyes.

 

[nicklongdrive]

The longest players on tour has always been the best players. Nickalus, Tiger, Palmer, Norman, DJ, Rory the list goes on. At no point in the game has a short hitter been dominant. Yes some have risen to number 1 (Luke Donald) or won majors (Cory Pavin) but your truly dominate players have been bombers. That is no more evident than now. If you have a junior player and you want him to play on tour. That junior better be learning to bomb it. Even in the putt for dough drive for show days the drive for show guys dominated no one wanted to admit it. It took someone like Mark Brodie and his book to open peoples eyes.

Yep, exactly, if you're someone that wants to play on Tour then you can't just neglect the long game like some people think for whatever reason. If you look at the stats and winners with lots of wins and wins that matter more (majors and big purse events) they are not short off the tee. You really should be driving around 170 mph ball speed and with a solid short game you can present more birdie opportunities than other players. If you can reduce most of the holes to drive -> pitch -> putt then you actually also have a more fundamentally simple game. Do people quickly forget how LONG Tiger was when he was definitively tearing through the competition? What about Brooks in 2017-19 when he won a handful of majors? Look at the top 25 players right now, how many of them are carrying 300+?

The game changes and a lot of people are resisting it, no one is saying distance should completely replace short game...quite the opposite. Distance is the ultimate compliment to short game and if you're telling younger folks to not worry about speed at all that have the room to gain a ton of speed and maintain technique is just stagnating their growth as a player. On top of that, I have older guys telling me "you're so bulky that probably makes your swing uncomfortable since you're less flexible", then explain how I can maintain spinal tilt and a very long takeaway without dropping the shaft below parallel at the top? Seems misguided if I can rotate and manipulate my arms more easily while being 240 lbs at 6'2". With that, I conclude my mini essay.

 

[Pinger71]

Handicap starts at the hole backwards not from the tee forward

Amen brother!!! In my opinion the game should be taught that way also!!!

 

[Bullfrog]

I'm liking this discussion. It's interesting to see everyone's thoughts on if it's easier to lower your handicap if you hit it further. I know accuracy with the driver means a lot. And shorter hitters wont get into as much trouble as longer hitters. OB right and left doesn't come in to play as much for the shorter hitters. I'm not a bomber by any means. And I strive to hit it further so that I can have a shorter approach. My short game is definitely better than my long game. My driver is decent. Long irons are ok. But from 125 and in is where I gain IMO. My chipping is pretty good too. My putting is better than average. I feel like I save more strokes on and around the green than most do. But if I could get the shorter irons in my hands more often, I could definitely go lower.

 

[Drumdog]

I think yardage comes into play but I am a prime example of not wanting to base hdcp on yardages.

I used to be a very long driver. At one time (20 yrs ago) I was averaging 290 off the tee. But, it wasn't always in the fairway and the rest of my game needed help and I held a 12 hdcp. Over the years, I have worked hard on my short game and putting.
Now at 63 yrs old, I am averaging 260-265 off the tee with more fairways hit and my short game and putting has my hdcp at 5.5

 

[scott.french3]

When I was younger, my drives were in the 240 - 260 yd range. Playing from the tips wasn't as big a deal except in the winter. Many of the par 4's required driver, fairway wood to get there. Scoring definitely suffered in the winter. Now, I'm in the 210 to 240 yd range off the tee at age 64. I'm having fun playing the white tees and like having more birdie opportunities like I had when I was younger.

 

[Chef23]

I'm liking this discussion. It's interesting to see everyone's thoughts on if it's easier to lower your handicap if you hit it further. I know accuracy with the driver means a lot. And shorter hitters wont get into as much trouble as longer hitters. OB right and left doesn't come in to play as much for the shorter hitters. I'm not a bomber by any means. And I strive to hit it further so that I can have a shorter approach. My short game is definitely better than my long game. My driver is decent. Long irons are ok. But from 125 and in is where I gain IMO. My chipping is pretty good too. My putting is better than average. I feel like I save more strokes on and around the green than most do. But if I could get the shorter irons in my hands more often, I could definitely go lower.

If you are long and straight and can control distance with your irons longer is better and it is easier to shoot lower scores than if you are shorter. If you are long and can't control it then it doesn't help. You can obviously be single digit not being a bomber but it puts additional pressure on your short game. If said this earlier but if I could pick up 10% on distance and maintain my accuracy I would love it. I lost distance due to an illness that resulted in 6 months of bedrest and a year of doing almost nothing. I am working to recover some of that but in my mid 50s it is tough. 20 years ago with older technology I could carry driver reliably 250 and hit a very comfortable 8 iron 155 back then I bounced between 0-2 index and was competitive at the state level. These days I would only count on carry driver 215 hit 8 iron 145 and bounce between 3-5. I do think the length is worth a stroke or two potentially off my index.

 

[zbeekner4]

I think its better described as your distance is directly related to your potential rather than your handicap.

The further you hit it, the easier it will be to go low. Doesnt mean you will.

 

[Tevenor]

I think its better described as your distance is directly related to your potential rather than your handicap.

The further you hit it, the easier it will be to go low. Doesnt mean you will.

 

[Bunker Snot]

The distance you hit it off line correlates more to handicap than distance you hit. Tight dispersion off the tee and a good short game should result in a lower handicap

 

[captaincaution]

The simple answer here is no. Absolutely not

I disagree.

Ability to hit the ball far certainly correlates with handicap. Say what you will about the USGA Distance Insights report, but they show charts that for men and women, lower driving distance is associated with higher handicap. Certainly not a perfect correlation, but at a population level, the answer is certainly yes.

 

[BuckNasty]

The simple answer here is no. Absolutely not

Why do you say absolutely not? All of the studies I've seen have shown strong correlation between distance and handicap. Obviously there will be outliers, but on average the data lines up pretty well with distance/handicap.

 

[BuckNasty]

I think its better described as your distance is directly related to your potential rather than your handicap.

The further you hit it, the easier it will be to go low. Doesnt mean you will.

Isn't the handicap used as a tool to measure your potential?

 

[donny475]

I would have to say the short answer is, if it did, all of the LD folks would be +handicaps

 

[OldandStiff]

Everyone keeps saying potential and ceiling, but I think the biggest effect distance has for most golfers is raising the floor. I've noticed a direct correlation to my distance and my anti-cap (averaged of lowest scores on the card) more than anything. The longest guys on tour can usually hang even when the rest of their game isn't stellar on that day, where the shorter guys have to play pretty perfect. Distance makes the rest easier.

 

[Raiderboost]

I think its better described as your distance is directly related to your potential rather than your handicap.

The further you hit it, the easier it will be to go low. Doesnt mean you will.

I agree with this. I have seen a few guys at my club come in who were either fairly new to the game or didn't play all that often before joining. They have been in the 17-23 handicap range. After a few months of playing a few times a week most have lowered their handicaps quite a few strokes. The ones that a shorter have usually gotten down to the 12-16 range but I've seen a couple of the guys that had more distance get down into the single digits and even low single digits.

 

[TexasJim]

And the easy way to tell for an individual is play from the forward tees. If your score doesn't drop it isn't distance.
The biggest advantage of length is being able to pick the distance for your approach shot. When I was a single digit at my home course, i could hit to the 100 yard marker on all the par 5s and all par 4s except 2. 12 holes where I could generally make par as my 100 yard swing was very repeatable.
Of course if I played at other courses, I rapidly found I didn't have all the shots needed.

I couldn't agree more! After one round playing you will defiantly know if it's distance or not. I only hit the tee ball 205 including rollout and I am a 6HC now that I moved up a set a tees. Was a 9 from my old tees. So for me it was distance that was killing me as I found myself us 4,5, 11W into par 4's. I am good with these and if I miss, it's just off the green. Moving up a set now has me using 8, 9, P, GW into greens. Much more fun for me

 

[wristcock]

No

 

[zbeekner4]

Isn't the handicap used to measure of your potential?

I understand the question here but I think potential is used in 2 different contexts.

Handicap potential is measuring your current potential score and is likely based on scores you’ve already gotten to or close to whereas your club distance is more measuring your potential to get better over time which could be a significantly larger gap between current scores/handicap and potential score. Idk if that made any sense....lol