theslflash689
Member
100-110 with the driver depending on how much i get after it. mid 80's with the irons.
Your swing speed
Barberakb
USAF / Go Cowboys!
I don't think there is a correlation at all between SS and handicaps. Mine is 105-110 with a driver and my HC sux. Trust me, I really wish it had a correlation.
JRod
Well-known member
You don't see any PGA pros currently on tour with 95 MPH swing speeds.
- Admin
- #130
You cannot compare what happens with professional athletes to amateurs. Because what they can do, they could do with slower swing speeds. Look at the Champions Tour.
When it comes to amateur golf, there is very little correlation in my opinion.
Ole Gray
Mayor of the Woodshed
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JRod
Well-known member
This is true and its a fine line...I have seen alot of good golfers with moderate swing speeds but even in the amateur "classafication" I can't remember seeing a scratch golfer that wasn't long.
Edit: My experience is far less then you though...so you are right I am sure. I am speaking strictly from a personal observation standpoint.
- Admin
- #133
I got down to .9 and I am not long. Our club champion is a +1 and is not long either. Heck our THP Teaching Pro Andy is not super long and he is a +1 as well. I think fitting and shaft technology has made what was once average hitters be able to play from longer lengths now.
I think natural swing speed can make things easier, but the old adage of drive for show putt for dough still matters quite a bit in the amateur game.
JRod
Well-known member
BigLeftyinAZ
Well-known member
I've seen many seniors who can only hit driver 225-250 ,but shoot par in their sleep.Short game wins every time
There is a guy in Britain called Gary Wolstenholme. He I think has now turned pro, but when he was an amateur (and he was the best amateur in Europe for quite some time) he hit his driver around 230 yards. He qualified for the Open in 2003 at Royal St Georges and on the 4th hole (the one with the huge bunker) he had to lay up to the left of it while everyone else was going over. He was so good because he'd hit 3 wood from 210 to 15 feet all the time and holed thirty footers like it was going out of fashion. That and from about 150 he'd hit it stiff.
That said, I think he is very much the exception, not the rule. The way I see it, the short hitter who competes with the long hitter is a better player, because they can overcome the hindrance of being shorter with a better game in general, so when you compare a short scratch with a long scratch, you're comparing one guy who's closer to the peak of potential with another guy who's further from that peak. You can see this because the guys who are the best in the world are at that peak (or pretty close to it) and they're pretty much to a man very long. There's the occasional guy like Pavin or Funk who gets near the top despite being short, but the vast majority are long. The short hitters who are at the peak are not competing on the PGA Tour. They're competing at club championship level like your club champion or Andy or whoever.
To put it into numbers, let's say that your closeness to peak potential is a scale of 1 to 10. 10 is perfection. 1 is rank beginner. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson etc, let's call them 10s for sake of argument. Pavin and Funk are probably 10s too, but Phil and Tiger's 10 is better than Fred and Corey's 10, because they're longer. Then, let's look at the guys in your club championship. Here, you might be comparing a short 8 with a long 7, where the two things cancel out. That will be true all the way down through the ranks at every level except the top one, because you will always find yourself comparing something like a short 5 with a long 4 and so on. Gary Wolstenholme is/was a very short 10, but there's a good reason that he never succeeded on tour.
As to your final comment, I'm pretty sure it's in this month's Golf magazine, there's an article that talks about that. Someone did some analysis of about 70,000 rounds of golf and looked at each and every shot and how many strokes it would take from there for an average scratch to get the ball in the hole. Then he/she looked at how many shots each shot you hit costs you. So, for example, you're standing on the tee of a par five. The average scratch player is deemed to take 5 strokes to complete the hole. You hit a really good drive in the middle of the fairway. From that point, the average scratch player is deemed to take let's say 3.6 strokes to complete the hole, so your shot has gained you 0.4 of a shot (you're expected to take 5 shots, you hit 1, so you should be expected to take 4 shots, but you're actually at 3.6, so you've gained 0.4 shots with the 1 shot that you hit). Alternatively, suppose you hit a poor shot into the woods, from which the scratch player is expected to take 4.5 shots to get in the hole. In this instance, your drive has lost you 0.5 of a shot. Then a whiff would count as -1 shots, because it cost you exactly 1 shot. Hitting it out of bounds counts as -2 shots, because you're now in the same place, but hitting two more. He/she looked at this, for the whole game for all those people and found that for an average 12ish handicapper, most of their shots were lost from the tee (something like 6 of them, while the irons and short game were about 2 and 4 respectively). I'll see if I can find where I found the article
EDIT: Here you go: Golf Magazine article
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- Admin
- #138
I just do not see it that way. Take a look at the PGA Tour for example. THe longer hitters do not always win. Heck some of the shorter hitters have done incredibly well. Its not different for amateurs. Great distance is a fabulous asset to have, but to me, no more of one than being a great putter, great ball striker, etc...
You said that distance is a hindrance to overcome. No more of one than bad putting, poor ball striking, and bad short game.
Most golf courses have not been lengthened to keep up with technology (more specifically shaft technology) and what was once a hindrance can quickly be overcome with a proper fitting to get launch conditions where they should be.
Because of that the emphasis has been put on scoring in the short game area more than distance in my opinion.
As for the article, I have seen many done like that. But in my opinion that has little to do with distance and everything to do with accuracy.
Hanks
On the Fringe
+1 I think I just read in the new issue of Golf that 80% of scoring comes from 100 yds and in. I know there's been many a time where I'll bomb a drive on a short Par 4 leaving me 100-125 and then it takes me 4-5 shots to go those final 100 or so yards. That is what frustrates me the most and what I call 'leaving shots out on the course'
- Staff
- #140
I read that article as well. I think "distance" for the higher handicap player is important, but not in the traditional sense of hitting the ball a long way. I think the importance lies in actually hitting the ball clean with a fair amount of accuracy. I lose far more strokes to poor shots than I do to not hitting the ball a long way. If I can get the ball out there 200 yards, I am happy. Sure, it would be easier to hit a 8i instead of a 4h for my second shot, but at least I'm not 30 yards from the tee.
Let's take a look at the guys on tour whose average drive is less than 270. There are three of them. Brad Faxon, Craig Bowden, Brian Gay.
Brad Faxon - Driving distance - 269.9, Tournaments - 19, cuts - 5, scoring average - 72.97, top 25s - 0
Craig Bowden - Driving distance - 269.2, Tournaments - 19, cuts - 8, scoring average - 72.14, top 25s - 1, top 10s - 0
Brian Gay - Driving distance - 266.1, Tournaments - 26, cuts - 17, scoring average - 70.84, top 25s - 9, top 10s - 2, top 3s - 1, wins - 0
Hardly ripping it up and I don't think anyone who averages over 270 yards off the tee can be realistically described as short. The fact that only three people average under 270 yards is fairly telling no?
Point of the article wasn't to say anything about distance. Just to point out that there are those who believe that "drive for show and putt for dough" is just false.
- Admin
- #142
That is not comparing apples to apples. On tour, 280-285 average CAN still be considered short by the distances being achieved and them being on the bottom of the PGA Tour list. The top 100 are ALL over that mark.
Using that same logic, lets look at the top 10 of the PGA Tour in driving distance.
1 1 Robert Garrigus 55 315.9 30,962 98
2 2 Bubba Watson 73 309.3 45,165 146
3 3 Dustin Johnson 79 308.1 48,057 156
4 4 J.B. Holmes 88 307.7 54,151 176
5 6 Graham DeLaet 72 305.6 40,334 132
6 7 Angel Cabrera 64 304.5 38,362 126
7 8 John Daly 53 304.2 27,381 90
8 9 Charles Warren 46 302.3 24,183 80
9 10 Rory McIlroy 54 300.0 31,201 104
10 11 Martin Flores
There are some great players in there, no question, but half of those players may not even retain their card heading into next year, so what does that in fact say.
Using that same logic, lets look at the top 10 of the PGA Tour in driving distance.
1 1 Robert Garrigus 55 315.9 30,962 98
2 2 Bubba Watson 73 309.3 45,165 146
3 3 Dustin Johnson 79 308.1 48,057 156
4 4 J.B. Holmes 88 307.7 54,151 176
5 6 Graham DeLaet 72 305.6 40,334 132
6 7 Angel Cabrera 64 304.5 38,362 126
7 8 John Daly 53 304.2 27,381 90
8 9 Charles Warren 46 302.3 24,183 80
9 10 Rory McIlroy 54 300.0 31,201 104
10 11 Martin Flores
There are some great players in there, no question, but half of those players may not even retain their card heading into next year, so what does that in fact say.
solidkjames
Loves drowning golf balls
For the average golfer I would say distance is minute compared to accuracy. For a touring pro, the shortest hitter is still well above average for the handicapped golfer and even playing 7500 yard courses they have enough game to shoot great scores. Being long has its advantages for sure but I have seen many short hitters that mop the floor with the long knockers. The best golfers are the ones who know their game and play golf with their strengths.
The point is that the really good players who hit it 230 are not playing on tour. They're playing in the minor leagues against guys who hit it long enough to be on tour, but aren't good enough. I know this is really just about where you parse that skill allocation. Is a short driver with a good short game a "better golfer" than a long driver with a worse short game if they're scoring the same? I don't know.
When it comes down to it, I got the impression from reading posts that length wasn't that important, but it is. All else being equal, I'd take the longer player over the shorter player any time. Even if they're a little wilder. Witness myself. If I hit my 2-iron off the tee, I'm more accurate than if I hit my driver, but I hit more greens after hitting driver. I've been keeping my stats for this year and that's what they show.