So How Far Do Average Golfers Really Hit the Ball?

[DavePelz4]

I sincerely appreciate the kindness shown to me through the emails and phone calls as related to yet another attempted discrediting. As mentioned in my post, I'm sure Sean is a nice guy. It's ironic that he searched my posts for content...

 

I'll take the high road, wish him the best and suggest that he blocks my posts.

[PowderedToastMan]

I sincerely appreciate the kindness shown to me through the emails and phone calls as related to yet another attempted discrediting. As mentioned in my post, I'm sure Sean is a nice guy. It's ironic that he searched my posts for content...

 

I'll take the high road, wish him the best and suggest that he blocks my posts.

The only person who should block your posts is Mrs. Pelz. And maybe her mother.

[DavePelz4]

I sincerely appreciate the kindness shown to me through the emails and phone calls as related to yet another attempted discrediting. As mentioned in my post, I'm sure Sean is a nice guy. It's ironic that he searched my posts for content...

 

I'll take the high road, wish him the best and suggest that he blocks my posts.

The only person who should block your posts is Mrs. Pelz. And maybe her mother.

 

Mrs. Pelz does her fair share of blocking!

[Terry Gold]

Just as an example that the vast majority of golfers over estimate the distance they can hit each club......

 

I watch golf on the course 40 hours a week, well until 2 months ago when I retired, and I can tell you the safest place to be when people hit to the green is in the middle to the back of said green. 90% of ALL golfers are short of the green with approaches. I had NO fear of being hit by a golf ball as long as I was standing on the back fringe. Then, if the ball did actually make it to the green 50% of those where already rolling on the ground. Very few golfers hit greens on the carry. I know it sounds bad but for the average Joe golfer it is true. I was asked all the time if I feared being hit by a ball and I always laughed and explained the above. People have egos that they can't deal with. BTW - The ladies were just as bad as the guys when estimating what club to carry onto a green.

 

The closet I ever came to being hit was today. I was playing golf!! We were headed up the middle of our fairway when ball hit the front of our cart on the fly. It came from a tee box on an opposing fairway. We never saw it coming, no "FORE", no nothing. Just a bunch of stupid people playing the tips that had no business being there. Sorry....rant over.

 

It might sound a bit sleazy, but I have a couple good buddies that always underclub. Nice guys, but they suffer from the proverbial 'one time I hit it x number of yards' syndrome, So, if the club selection subject arises on a par three or approach shot, and they say pull a 7 iron when they need to be hitting at least a 5, I'll sometimes propose a bet that they won't even reach the fringe, even bladed. It's more for their benefit than to pad my pockets. Really. It is!

[garyt]

Ah, yes, the old "long but wild" vs. "short but deadly accurate" caricatures starting to emerge...

 

If you're thinking of accuracy in yards left or right, of course a shorter hitter is going to find more fairways.

 

A 300 yard drive that's 3* offline is 15.7 yards offline

A 250 yard drive that's 3* offline is 13.1 yards offline

A 200 yard drive that's 3* offline is 10 yards offline

 

So, it's close to 1:1 yards offline increases as your distance increases.

 

If 2 players swing with the same effort, just because one is stronger or has a faster tempo, why is he stereotyped as always being wild? I don't get it.

 

It is a huge advantage if you only need 250 yards and a fairway to be hitting a shorter club. So if you need to hit a driver to go 250, and I need a 5 wood, I'm holding a club that's 2-3 inches shorter, and inherently more accurate.

 

It's easy to use anecdotes about some guy's game you saw once, or your local "steady Eddie," but when comparing large amounts of data, of course more distance is going to equate to bigger misses. It's math.

 

That's a good point. I've certainly got more accurate as I've aged, just for what you mentioned.The same ball I hit years ago that would've found the woods now only gets into the rough. But add 20 more yards to it and it's OB. My Dad is 93 and hits it about 150-170. He never misses a FW.

[garyt]

These "does distance matter" threads always devolve into the short hitters trying to justify their lack of distance. And I'm saying this as a short hitter. Yes, I've beaten guys who were much longer than me and I've been beaten by guys who were shorter than me, but ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL longer is better. And I emphasize all things being equal. Sure a guy who hits it a ton but can't find a fw to save his life and can't putt will lose to a short hitting low capper but is that really a fair comparison? Take your own game, if you were suddenly two clubs longer with the same accuracy wouldn't you be much better?

[deadsolid...shank]

Just as an example that the vast majority of golfers over estimate the distance they can hit each club......

 

I watch golf on the course 40 hours a week, well until 2 months ago when I retired, and I can tell you the safest place to be when people hit to the green is in the middle to the back of said green. 90% of ALL golfers are short of the green with approaches. I had NO fear of being hit by a golf ball as long as I was standing on the back fringe. Then, if the ball did actually make it to the green 50% of those where already rolling on the ground. Very few golfers hit greens on the carry. I know it sounds bad but for the average Joe golfer it is true. I was asked all the time if I feared being hit by a ball and I always laughed and explained the above. People have egos that they can't deal with. BTW - The ladies were just as bad as the guys when estimating what club to carry onto a green.

 

The closet I ever came to being hit was today. I was playing golf!! We were headed up the middle of our fairway when ball hit the front of our cart on the fly. It came from a tee box on an opposing fairway. We never saw it coming, no "FORE", no nothing. Just a bunch of stupid people playing the tips that had no business being there. Sorry....rant over.

 

It might sound a bit sleazy, but I have a couple good buddies that always underclub. Nice guys, but they suffer from the proverbial 'one time I hit it x number of yards' syndrome, So, if the club selection subject arises on a par three or approach shot, and they say pull a 7 iron when they need to be hitting at least a 5, I'll sometimes propose a bet that they won't even reach the fringe, even bladed. It's more for their benefit than to pad my pockets. Really. It is!

 

I have a buddy that is the same. Ex college coach so we can't "coach" him!

 

He hits it square the majority of the time, usually pretty much on line. And probably 90% of the time he's 1/2 to 1 club short. It's like clockwork. He's so good on and around the greens (and he's usually left with a fairly simple chip) that he still scores well. Just not a guy to give advice to, but I can't imagine the number of birdie looks he'd have with one more club on every approach.

[naval2006]

It's true distance is a big advantage. But now as yesteryear long hitters are few in the amateur ranks, especially at club level. I don't know how many WRX's can show IRL the 170 yard 7 iron they hit on average. I'm a short hitter but due to handicap most of the times I hit the longest in most of the threesomes or foursomes I play on any given Saturday.

 

Distance has become the modern Utopia, but as someone stated above, a few guys have it and the rest has to grind to the green. You may gain 10/15 yards to hit it 250. Your average bomber will go 280 without sweating.

[Boricua Golf]

I average about 280-285, some days my swing feels great and get a few more yards, like posted above, I tend to be the longer ball on my Saturday group, again not a bomber by any means, but long enough I guess...

[PJ72]

population averages aside. how do they measure each golfers average distance? if you put them on a monitor hitting 10 balls, the handicap golfer hits so many flubs that their "average" distance is not really a true reflection of the expected distance output from their swing.

 

Oy. The thread title may use the word "average", but the chart is using median, not mean (i.e. average). If I hit 9 balls with distances of 10, 10, 10, 10, 230, 230, 240, 250, 260, the mean median is 230 yards.

 

Edit for brain cramp.

I'm not sure why you made the first 4 distances just 10 yards, but you've got it right.

 

I think what's interesting about the modal average is that it simply takes the middle value in an ascending data set. This takes care of the outliers, usually.

[billh17]

No clue what the point of this post is, but I'm new to golf and here are my distances per club shortest to longest;

 

Lob- 91 yds

56 degree- 98yards

Pitch- 141ds

9I-153yds

8I-164yds

7I- 188yd

6I- 201yds

5I- 211yds

4I- 219yds

 

3H- 230yds

3W-252yds

 

Driver-278yds

 

Then you are a natural ! Good for you ! Truly hope you enjoy the game !

[Ghost of Snead]

I tried to cut and paste the article, but was unsuccessful. Here is the link:

 

http://www.golfdiges...ll-surprise-you

 

80% has a handicap between 18-36.

they hit on average 195 yards.

I also played with kids that can hit it long but also loose the ball really often due to some wild hook or some other thing.

normal over the top young kid, 220 or so yards on average.

on a good swing.

 

yea thats golf instruction median value all over the world.

it shows how good your pga instructors are.

 

That's an interesting point.

 

Not really ... just another slam at instructors by someone who hasn't instructed anyone.

[Sean2]

No clue what the point of this post is, but I'm new to golf and here are my distances per club shortest to longest;

 

Lob- 91 yds

56 degree- 98yards

Pitch- 141ds

9I-153yds

8I-164yds

7I- 188yd

6I- 201yds

5I- 211yds

4I- 219yds

 

3H- 230yds

3W-252yds

 

Driver-278yds

 

Well, you are well above average. :-)

[Sean2]

No clue what the point of this post is, but I'm new to golf and here are my distances per club shortest to longest;

 

Lob- 91 yds

56 degree- 98yards

Pitch- 141ds

9I-153yds

8I-164yds

7I- 188yd

6I- 201yds

5I- 211yds

4I- 219yds

 

3H- 230yds

3W-252yds

 

Driver-278yds

 

The point actually is that most players don't know their actual distances.

 

Many go off of the distance of a hole. 350 yard par 4. They hit their drive and end up around 50 out - wow! 300 yard drive. But they never realize that the hole may not have actually been 350.

 

Worse yet are those players who go off of Trackman or other similar devices.

 

To get my actual average distance off of the drives I used my GPS device. Exactly 237 average at the time. This was the actual distance per the device from the point on the tee area where I hit the ball to the point the ball ended up.

 

And so...

 

The point of the OP is that most players go off of some really big assumptions and don't hit the ball nearly as far as they actually believe. It's an age old debate on here and one that gets a lot of feathers ruffled up. Not sure if it's because of ego or what - but it sure causes some members to go on the defensive for some reason.

 

I think golfers do themselves a disservice by not knowing how far they hit each club...it makes scoring that much more difficult. And yes, I think ego plays a part. I have played with a number of golfers who were surprised when they came up short of the green, and saying they usually hit their 7 iron, for example, "x" number of yards. For many they may have nuked their 7-iron a couple of times that far, but their average is quite a bit shorter.

 

Most green are usually 30 yards deep. If I have 135 to the middle I know I have 150 to the back and 120 to the front. I err on the side of caution and will hit my 145 club, because I know even if I hit it well it will still be on the green, however if I mis-hit it a little I know I will still be on the green. This is an especially useful approach if there is a hazard guarding the front of the green. For me my misses are usually long as I can't stand to under-club. :-)

[North Butte]

As I'm obliged to point out every time there's a distance thread, depending on the situation a miss short of the green may not be from a mistake in tactics or an incorrect idea of ones distances. Sometimes it's better to be 20 yards short of the green than to be 2 yards over.

 

At least speaking of my own home course there are always several hole locations each day fairly close to the back of the green. On some of those holes the proper club is one that will reach hole high only if it is hit dead solid perfect. Going up one extra club and then hitting it will would lead to a double bogey from over the green. Taking barely enough club and then mishitting slightly means being just short of the green with a very straightforward chip and putt for par, no worse than bogey in play.

 

I've seen some older style courses with severe back-to-front tilts to almost every green. You'll see even very good players who know exactly how far they hit each club come up short 10x more often than they go long when playing those courses. It would be a mistake to say, "Look at those poor fools, they must think they hit their irons way farther than the really do. They've been coming up short all day".

[rawdog]

Ah, yes, the old "long but wild" vs. "short but deadly accurate" caricatures starting to emerge...

 

If you're thinking of accuracy in yards left or right, of course a shorter hitter is going to find more fairways.

 

A 300 yard drive that's 3* offline is 15.7 yards offline

A 250 yard drive that's 3* offline is 13.1 yards offline

A 200 yard drive that's 3* offline is 10 yards offline

 

So, it's close to 1:1 yards offline increases as your distance increases.

 

If 2 players swing with the same effort, just because one is stronger or has a faster tempo, why is he stereotyped as always being wild? I don't get it.

 

It is a huge advantage if you only need 250 yards and a fairway to be hitting a shorter club. So if you need to hit a driver to go 250, and I need a 5 wood, I'm holding a club that's 2-3 inches shorter, and inherently more accurate.

 

It's easy to use anecdotes about some guy's game you saw once, or your local "steady Eddie," but when comparing large amounts of data, of course more distance is going to equate to bigger misses. It's math.

Anybody would take any one of those numbers you used in your example. 300 yard drive and only 15 yards off the center of the fairway. That sounds more like Iron Byron swinging than many of the golfers I see out on the golf course. Of course thats the case. With the 3 degree example, that is the not the amateur player I run into on the golf course, that is more your single digit amateur. 15 yards off center still puts you in the fairway. Even at 250 yards and being 13 yards off. If you guaranteed me 13 yards off a 250 yard drive I would say deal. Then I would practice my mid to long irons like crazy. The misconception is that the distance has nothing to do with how well you hit the ball. That person driving the ball 300 hundred yards hits it pretty dam straight if they are only 15 yards off the center. That is a pro who plays a cut on their drive. We are talking about the players who describe their mishits not as baby fades or draws but more like banana slice or a pull hook. Im not saying that each joe smoe on the course fits the description to a tee but all the players in my group that tend to have distance issues is because they are playing those banana slices or pull hooks back into our fairway.

 

Very good point. I picked 3* just to illustrate a point that even at a level of accuracy most would consider to be good, a longer drive might result in a missed fairway. The rest of this isn't directed at you, because you don't need a lecture. I just want to throw it out there for discussion.

 

Broadie states in his book that the average 90 shooter is about 6.5 degrees offline with drives. Plugging that in, I get:

 

300 yard drive = 34 yards offline

250 yard drive = 28 yards offline

200 yard drive = 23 yards offline

 

The difference in distance offline between a 200yd hitter and a 300yd hitter is 11 yards, or 33 feet. I feel like sometimes guys on here make it sound like longer hitters are just crazy wild or hitting it off the planet. Guys who are crazy wild are people with poor or inconsistent swings.

 

Accuracy in degrees is typically positively related to distance. This is because better golfers are longer and more accurate. Broadie shows that in his book on page 104. Below is a photo of it. A better, more reliable swing is capable more distance and more accuracy.

 

Are there guys that buck this trend? Yeah, that's why there's a baseline with circles around it. There are guys with great swings who are accurate because they aren't strong enough to get the ball WAY offline. So those swing flaws they have don't have as big of an effect on where their balls goes. It's not a knock on them. It's just how they are born, or how they aged, or whatever.

 

Side note, Broadie uses 75% distance, which basically the 75th percentile distance of their drives. It's the value at which, if a golfer hit 100 drives, 25 would be longer than this value and 75 would be shorter. I like this. It shows what a golfer is capable of, while also factoring in some of the bad shots.

[rawdog]

As I'm obliged to point out every time there's a distance thread, depending on the situation a miss short of the green may not be from a mistake in tactics or an incorrect idea of ones distances. Sometimes it's better to be 20 yards short of the green than to be 2 yards over.

 

At least speaking of my own home course there are always several hole locations each day fairly close to the back of the green. On some of those holes the proper club is one that will reach hole high only if it is hit dead solid perfect. Going up one extra club and then hitting it will would lead to a double bogey from over the green. Taking barely enough club and then mishitting slightly means being just short of the green with a very straightforward chip and putt for par, no worse than bogey in play.

 

I've seen some older style courses with severe back-to-front tilts to almost every green. You'll see even very good players who know exactly how far they hit each club come up short 10x more often than they go long when playing those courses. It would be a mistake to say, "Look at those poor fools, they must think they hit their irons way farther than the really do. They've been coming up short all day".

 

Great point. Seems like a lot of courses are this way in Ohio. I'm not going to short-side myself with a downhill chip/pitch just to make sure I got it all the way to the pin. I'll take the uphill bump and run all day.

 

That being said, it seems like most of the people I play with choose a club based on what will happen if the shot is struck perfectly, rather than accounting for distance loss on a mishit. Psychology at it's finest.

[rawdog]

No clue what the point of this post is, but I'm new to golf and here are my distances per club shortest to longest;

 

Lob- 91 yds

56 degree- 98yards

Pitch- 141ds

9I-153yds

8I-164yds

7I- 188yd

6I- 201yds

5I- 211yds

4I- 219yds

 

3H- 230yds

3W-252yds

 

Driver-278yds

 

The point actually is that most players don't know their actual distances.

 

Many go off of the distance of a hole. 350 yard par 4. They hit their drive and end up around 50 out - wow! 300 yard drive. But they never realize that the hole may not have actually been 350.

 

Worse yet are those players who go off of Trackman or other similar devices.

 

To get my actual average distance off of the drives I used my GPS device. Exactly 237 average at the time. This was the actual distance per the device from the point on the tee area where I hit the ball to the point the ball ended up.

 

And so...

 

The point of the OP is that most players go off of some really big assumptions and don't hit the ball nearly as far as they actually believe. It's an age old debate on here and one that gets a lot of feathers ruffled up. Not sure if it's because of ego or what - but it sure causes some members to go on the defensive for some reason.

 

I think golfers do themselves a disservice by not knowing how far they hit each club...it makes scoring that much more difficult. And yes, I think ego plays a part. I have played with a number of golfers who were surprised when they came up short of the green, and saying they usually hit their 7 iron, for example, "x" number of yards. For many they may have nuked their 7-iron a couple of times that far, but their average is quite a bit shorter.

 

Most green are usually 30 yards deep. If I have 135 to the middle I know I have 150 to the back and 120 to the front. I err on the side of caution and will hit my 145 club, because I know even if I hit it well it will still be on the green, however if I mis-hit it a little I know I will still be on the green. This is an especially useful approach if there is a hazard guarding the front of the green. For me my misses are usually long as I can't stand to under-club. :-)

 

The guy just doesn't miss greens. The subdued arrogance Bob Rotella preaches. Love it!

 

(just having some fun with ya. good post)

[jerebear21]

as I've gotten longer, my accuracy off the tee is even better. heck i'm averaging 8-9 GIR now as I've gotten longer. and my misses are around the greens.

 

amazing what 2 years with iteach can do to your golf game. my observations on others are the more wild their swing, the shorter their distances usually are. they are wasting energy and most likely leaking power.

[North Butte]

I learned to play golf on a public course with tiny, rock-hard greens tilted back to front and grassed on Common Bermuda. So any iron shot landing middle of green or deeper was over and pretty much dead. And the grass was so grainy, bumpy and slow that any 20-foot putt going in was much more about luck than skill.

 

There was one guy in my regular group who was the opposite of "doesn't miss greens". He almost never hit a green and when he did it was because the ball landed short and bounced up a couple feet onto the front edge. He was a 10 handicapper and almost never made a birdie. But he would play a little running chip shot (always with his pitching wedge) uphill to a spot a few feet below the hole and in a typical round he'd make maybe 70% of those remaining 3, 4, 5, 6 foot uphill par putts.

 

Kind of frustrating to get beat by a guy who hits 2 GIR the entire round and shoots 79.

[deadsolid...shank]

As I'm obliged to point out every time there's a distance thread, depending on the situation a miss short of the green may not be from a mistake in tactics or an incorrect idea of ones distances. Sometimes it's better to be 20 yards short of the green than to be 2 yards over.

 

At least speaking of my own home course there are always several hole locations each day fairly close to the back of the green. On some of those holes the proper club is one that will reach hole high only if it is hit dead solid perfect. Going up one extra club and then hitting it will would lead to a double bogey from over the green. Taking barely enough club and then mishitting slightly means being just short of the green with a very straightforward chip and putt for par, no worse than bogey in play.

 

I've seen some older style courses with severe back-to-front tilts to almost every green. You'll see even very good players who know exactly how far they hit each club come up short 10x more often than they go long when playing those courses. It would be a mistake to say, "Look at those poor fools, they must think they hit their irons way farther than the really do. They've been coming up short all day".

 

Great point North.

 

Our course is this. Old school parkland style, small greens tilted front to back with thick rough around them.

 

We talk quite a bit that this a course where missing pin high, especially to back pins, means a lot of bogies. Seldom take enough club to reach a back pin.

[deadsolid...shank]

No clue what the point of this post is, but I'm new to golf and here are my distances per club shortest to longest;

 

Lob- 91 yds

56 degree- 98yards

Pitch- 141ds

9I-153yds

8I-164yds

7I- 188yd

6I- 201yds

5I- 211yds

4I- 219yds

 

3H- 230yds

3W-252yds

 

Driver-278yds

 

It appears a gap wedge would be a really good investment.

[llewol007]

Ah, yes, the old "long but wild" vs. "short but deadly accurate" caricatures starting to emerge...

 

If you're thinking of accuracy in yards left or right, of course a shorter hitter is going to find more fairways.

 

A 300 yard drive that's 3* offline is 15.7 yards offline

A 250 yard drive that's 3* offline is 13.1 yards offline

A 200 yard drive that's 3* offline is 10 yards offline

 

So, it's close to 1:1 yards offline increases as your distance increases.

 

If 2 players swing with the same effort, just because one is stronger or has a faster tempo, why is he stereotyped as always being wild? I don't get it.

 

It is a huge advantage if you only need 250 yards and a fairway to be hitting a shorter club. So if you need to hit a driver to go 250, and I need a 5 wood, I'm holding a club that's 2-3 inches shorter, and inherently more accurate.

 

It's easy to use anecdotes about some guy's game you saw once, or your local "steady Eddie," but when comparing large amounts of data, of course more distance is going to equate to bigger misses. It's math.

Anybody would take any one of those numbers you used in your example. 300 yard drive and only 15 yards off the center of the fairway. That sounds more like Iron Byron swinging than many of the golfers I see out on the golf course. Of course thats the case. With the 3 degree example, that is the not the amateur player I run into on the golf course, that is more your single digit amateur. 15 yards off center still puts you in the fairway. Even at 250 yards and being 13 yards off. If you guaranteed me 13 yards off a 250 yard drive I would say deal. Then I would practice my mid to long irons like crazy. The misconception is that the distance has nothing to do with how well you hit the ball. That person driving the ball 300 hundred yards hits it pretty dam straight if they are only 15 yards off the center. That is a pro who plays a cut on their drive. We are talking about the players who describe their mishits not as baby fades or draws but more like banana slice or a pull hook. Im not saying that each joe smoe on the course fits the description to a tee but all the players in my group that tend to have distance issues is because they are playing those banana slices or pull hooks back into our fairway.

 

Very good point. I picked 3* just to illustrate a point that even at a level of accuracy most would consider to be good, a longer drive might result in a missed fairway. The rest of this isn't directed at you, because you don't need a lecture. I just want to throw it out there for discussion.

 

Broadie states in his book that the average 90 shooter is about 6.5 degrees offline with drives. Plugging that in, I get:

 

300 yard drive = 34 yards offline

250 yard drive = 28 yards offline

200 yard drive = 23 yards offline

 

The difference in distance offline between a 200yd hitter and a 300yd hitter is 11 yards, or 33 feet. I feel like sometimes guys on here make it sound like longer hitters are just crazy wild or hitting it off the planet. Guys who are crazy wild are people with poor or inconsistent swings.

 

Accuracy in degrees is typically positively related to distance. This is because better golfers are longer and more accurate. Broadie shows that in his book on page 104. Below is a photo of it. A better, more reliable swing is capable more distance and more accuracy.

 

Are there guys that buck this trend? Yeah, that's why there's a baseline with circles around it. There are guys with great swings who are accurate because they aren't strong enough to get the ball WAY offline. So those swing flaws they have don't have as big of an effect on where their balls goes. It's not a knock on them. It's just how they are born, or how they aged, or whatever.

 

Side note, Broadie uses 75% distance, which basically the 75th percentile distance of their drives. It's the value at which, if a golfer hit 100 drives, 25 would be longer than this value and 75 would be shorter. I like this. It shows what a golfer is capable of, while also factoring in some of the bad shots.

Love this info. "Accuracy in degrees is typically positively related to distance. This is because better golfers are longer and more accurate. Broadie shows that in his book on page 104. Below is a photo of it. A better, more reliable swing is capable more distance and more accuracy." So true. I like discussions like this. And thats why there are those who hit it long and are featured on Espn every so often and then there are those who play every weekend for a living.

[Argonne69]

I learned to play golf on a public course with tiny, rock-hard greens tilted back to front and grassed on Common Bermuda. So any iron shot landing middle of green or deeper was over and pretty much dead. And the grass was so grainy, bumpy and slow that any 20-foot putt going in was much more about luck than skill.

 

There was one guy in my regular group who was the opposite of "doesn't miss greens". He almost never hit a green and when he did it was because the ball landed short and bounced up a couple feet onto the front edge. He was a 10 handicapper and almost never made a birdie. But he would play a little running chip shot (always with his pitching wedge) uphill to a spot a few feet below the hole and in a typical round he'd make maybe 70% of those remaining 3, 4, 5, 6 foot uphill par putts.

 

Kind of frustrating to get beat by a guy who hits 2 GIR the entire round and shoots 79.

 

It's a game of good misses.

[vbb]

I think it is harder to hit the driver consistently far than it is to hit irons. As a mid-low teens handicapper in my late 30s, I believe I'm right there as an "average" golfer. My normal drives are maybe 240yds, so nothing spectacular, but I also have wayyy more distance robbing sidespin than I should. On the other hand, I hit my irons comparatively well, and have what is considered above average height and carry with my irons. 175 carry with my 7i and 195 with my 5i. Part of this is due to the fact my iron swing is better because my home course is short and tight 5900 par 70 from the back. I use my irons a lot and therefore I dont have as much practice with the big stick.

 

I've found that driver distance is harder to achieve, but if you hit your irons decently well, you dont need driver very often.

[bigred90gt]

No clue what the point of this post is, but I'm new to golf and here are my distances per club shortest to longest;

 

Lob- 91 yds

56 degree- 98yards

Pitch- 141ds

9I-153yds

8I-164yds

7I- 188yd

6I- 201yds

5I- 211yds

4I- 219yds

 

3H- 230yds

3W-252yds

 

Driver-278yds

 

You have some vary interesting distance gaps.

 

LW-SW - 7 yards

SW-PW - 43 yards

PW-9i - 12 yards

9i-8i - 11 yards

8i-7i - 24 yards

7i-6i - 13 yards

6i-5i - 10 yards

5i-4i - 8 yards

 

Granted, I don't know what irons you are playing or what the lofts are, but I know that when I was hitting my 7i 180ish (Mizuno MP68 blades so not low lofted SGI clubs), I was hitting my 56 SW 120ish. I only had a gap of around 25 yards between my SW and PW, which was filled nicely by a 52 deg GW. A 43 yard gap is several clubs, so something is off. Also, 24 yards from 8i to 7i is quite a stretch. How are you determining your distances and what irons are you playing?

[larrybud]

A 300 yard drive that's 3* offline is 15.7 yards offline

A 250 yard drive that's 3* offline is 13.1 yards offline

A 200 yard drive that's 3* offline is 10 yards offline

 

Probably even more if the "offline" part is due to an open clubface. Those #s are correct if a straight push or pull, but the ball will spin even more offline. Also, the longer hitter will have a faster club head speed, so the spin will be even more pronounced!

[jut111]

Per game golf, yesterday I hit a lousy heeled push cut 285 down wind and an on the screws drive on a wet fairway into the wind 220.

 

I also hit a green from 190 out downwind with a 35 degree 7 iron, and came up short from 150 with a 5 iron.

 

Where do I fit on the spectrum?

[North Butte]

Per game golf, yesterday I hit a lousy heeled push cut 285 down wind and an on the screws drive on a wet fairway into the wind 220.

 

I also hit a green from 190 out downwind with a 35 degree 7 iron, and came up short from 150 with a 5 iron.

 

Where do I fit on the spectrum?

 

Sounds about typical. I think you fall in the category called "golfer".

[jut111]

Per game golf, yesterday I hit a lousy heeled push cut 285 down wind and an on the screws drive on a wet fairway into the wind 220.

 

I also hit a green from 190 out downwind with a 35 degree 7 iron, and came up short from 150 with a 5 iron.

 

Where do I fit on the spectrum?

 

Sounds about typical. I think you fall in the category called "golfer".

 

My point exactly.