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Will we ever see 400 yard tour drives as a norm in our lifetime?

How can people say that we won't see 400 yard bombs. And that technology has almost capped out? The OP said this wasn't related to Amateurs but pros. Will it be the tour average, no. But will a select few reach that mark, sure.

DJ is hitting 360-370 bombs now. Rory is hitting bombs. Staurt Applebee already crushed one over 400 yards. Guys in college are crushing 320 plus.

At age 44 I'm still smoking drives. I mean everything points to it. So yes we will see them and average golfers will try to keep up and still play the wrong tees. But that's on them.
 
I don't think it will be the norm. We see them now in certain courses, but I don't think they will be the norm. I also suspect we see the USGA roll back the golf ball in the future.
 
Seeing how Justin Thomas drove 350 at 150lbs I don't think we're far off. Long and accurate though, that's at a premium
 
I actually don't think it will happen. I think since head size is limited, they already have rules on the golf ball, I just think that at some point, there has to be a peak reached and then it will basically stay there. That said, I do think the average will creep up 10-20 yards in my lifetime.

~Rock
 
Tadashi70 said:
How can people say that we won't see 400 yard bombs. And that technology has almost capped out? The OP said this wasn't related to Amateurs but pros. Will it be the tour average, no. But will a select few reach that mark, sure.

DJ is hitting 360-370 bombs now. Rory is hitting bombs. Staurt Applebee already crushed one over 400 yards. Guys in college are crushing 320 plus.

At age 44 I'm still smoking drives. I mean everything points to it. So yes we will see them and average golfers will try to keep up and still play the wrong tees. But that's on them.
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There will be guys on the pro circuits that can get there. I believe that will happen. But it won't be the average. Even for the longest of the tour pros, I believe it will be more of the exception and not the norm.

IT definitely will not be the tour average. The PGA tour doesn't even average 300 yet.
 
blugold said:
There will be guys on the pro circuits that can get there. I believe that will happen. But it won't be the average. Even for the longest of the tour pros, I believe it will be more of the exception and not the norm.

IT definitely will not be the tour average. The PGA tour doesn't even average 300 yet.
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I don't think it will be average either. But seeing them from maybe 3 to 5 guys, week in a week out, sure.
 
As the norm/average? No. Will we see some guys out there who on the right layout can do it? Sure, why not. Rory had a couple this past weekend 350+. You get the right wind and the right turf conditions and I think you'd see it. I think on 18 he hit is something like 365, and that hit the rough first.
 
You hit a normal 350 yard drive with a nice downhill fairway hard as a rock and I bet you will. But anyone averaging a 400 yard drive no. I am sure there will be some here and there but the tour average currently is what 285-290 thats a long ways away from a tour average. I dont even think the longest guys will average it they will just bomb some out there once in awhile. I think 360-375 for Rory and DJ are about where we end up for the longest hitters.
 
According to driver marketing, should be al be driving the ball 500 yards by now???

In response to the OPs question, I feel that no - we will not see a driving average of 400 yards.

Will it come close? I don't think so - as many have said they would either roll back ball tech or "stop it dead in its tracks" (which I thought has already occurred?)
 
rollin said:
I here ya, but its not imo about the club choice for the 200 yrd approach which hurts the integrity of holes imo so much as it is about from the tee which does that.
But as I mentioned, do you just keep making longer holes? Is that really the answer? You'll eventually by default just end up with a field of golfers whos strongest points are distance based. That's why I say just simply give the holes back their integrity by forcing lay-up tee shots possibly via some of the suggestions I made as well as other ways one might think of. Sure a hole can gain back some integrity for being longer but as I mention, it imo only works to favor the longest hitters simply by making things too long for what would or could be a wider field of otherwise great contenders.

That's not to say tour pro golf shouldn't also be about distance because like any other part of the game it should count for something too. But imo they cant keep catering to distance and that is imo exactly what they are doing when they keep lengthening holes.
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Yup! Course design will have an impact for sure. Trump is trying to modernize, if you will, the out dated courses not just from an appearance standpoint but from a playability standpoint. I'll be curious to see tiger's courses as well. Many of the courses they play on haven't been changed in decades. What was once a troublesome fairway bunker is now haut something to aim at when these guys are taking it 30 yards beyond it. Doglegs and shorter par 4s that were unthinkable driving holes are becoming the norm.

I think if you asked most pro tour players would they rather face longer distances or more Halle going layouts, they'd all chose the latter because distance seems to be the one thing these guys don't lack and like you said if you made them 8000 yard courses and changed nothing else, they'd have no problems putting up similar numbers.




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I'm pretty sure we'll see one or two, but not as a norm.
 
It may be with ball scale backs or souped up course conditions, but length aside they will find a way to make par relevant. Only a couple years ago that Justin Rose, one of the more consistent long hitters (only 49th in total driving this year but I think he's been better), won a US open on a course under 7000 yards with a score of +1.
 
Bullitt5339 said:
People keep saying they will roll the ball back, but there is already a restriction on the ball and under those restrictions, the ball is pretty much maxed out for distance. I believe 317 yards is the max by their robot and 250 feet per second initial velocity is the current limit, but don't quote me on that.

So with the limits on the ball and drivers that are currently in place, I don't think we will see anyone really gain huge distances through technique in my lifetime.

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Rolling the ball back is at the VERY TOP of the USGA and the R&A's future hit list. Jack still carries power as well as Arnie and they are both pushing hard for it.

I've said it a millions times, only 0.01% of the worlds golfers are hitting the ball too far, which was the same for the groove rule and the long putter rule. It all boils down to what the world class players are doing. Limits are set and changes come based 100% on what happens on the major men's tour(s), and the rest of us that didn't spin the ball enough, can't putt with a short putter or can't hit a drive 220 yards suffer the fallout. Money talks and BS walks. We make up the other 99.9% and we will get screwed again.

Who do you think paid for the groove rule change (cost of re-tooling) which was in the $millions for the OEM's? We did, and we still are.
 
 
Well I guess that puts an ! On the whole debate.

On to 500 yard drives. I wonder who or when will someone drive the green downwind down slope on a 500+ yard short par 5 or long par 4.

What's next 600 par 3's.
 
BamBooBender said:
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Right now I bet Rory could care less about how far he can hit it but is a little concerned with how straight he can hit it. If more people cared about hitting a ball 400 yards we would see much bigger crowds and prize money at the long drive championships. In my lifetime we will never see the average drive on the PGA Tour reach 300 yards.
 
tahoebum said:
Right now I bet Rory could care less about how far he can hit it but is a little concerned with how straight he can hit it. If more people cared about hitting a ball 400 yards we would see much bigger crowds and prize money at the long drive championships. In my lifetime we will never see the average drive on the PGA Tour reach 300 yards.
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I don't think it will be the norm either, but we probably will see more occasional shots like that.
 
tahoebum said:
Right now I bet Rory could care less about how far he can hit it but is a little concerned with how straight he can hit it. If more people cared about hitting a ball 400 yards we would see much bigger crowds and prize money at the long drive championships. In my lifetime we will never see the average drive on the PGA Tour reach 300 yards.
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This. Current tour average is 287. Albeit, drives on only a few holes each tourney are measured for driving stats purposes. Some of the longer hitters may choose not to hit driver from time to time.
 
cpljohnst said:
This. Current tour average is 287. Albeit, drives on only a few holes each tourney are measured for driving stats purposes. Some of the longer hitters may choose not to hit driver from time to time.
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According to the PGA Tour, Jordan Spieth is only 10 yards shorter than Gary Woodland.
 
blugold said:
According to the PGA Tour, Jordan Spieth is only 10 yards shorter than Gary Woodland.
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Don't know for certain, but I suspect that includes a lot of Woodland 3Ws and less.
 
ATLGolfer said:
Don't know for certain, but I suspect that includes a lot of Woodland 3Ws and less.
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I looked up a few stats on PGA Tour driving, all drives measured.

- Only 3 players break the 320+ more than 20% of the time. Bubba(31%), D.J.(28%), and J.B. Holmes at 21%. Rory with all the attention he is getting for bombing it is at 17.86% this year.

- Only 28 players can hit 1/3 of their drives over 300 yards and only the same 3 guys above and Jason Day do it more than 50% of the time. Rory is in 5th place at 48.4%.

- The average tour player hits only about 1 in 5 drives over 300 yards and only 1 in 20 over 320 yards. That means only 2-3 drives per round over 300 yards and less than one drive per round over 320 yards for your average PGA pro. The internet has lots of golfers than are longer than that!!!:act-up:
 
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It's very hard to wrap my mind around a 400yd avg. I know there was a time when thinking 300yds was an extreme, but 400yds!?
 
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