The Reddit "mythical golfer who hits 300 yard drives"

[hollabachgt]

4 minutes ago, klebs01 said:

Ha. We have a new bar. Having a median drive of 300 isn’t even enough now. 🤣

 

If a player has a median drive of 300 yards, that would mean that at least 50% of their drives go 300 yards, and ~49% of their drives are longer than 300 yards. That's a lot more significant than your original 20-40%

[Nard_S]

Played a dozen rounds with a guy who easily averaged 300. Hitting 4 or 5 irons into par 5's. Seen kids at range who slam the top of a 100-foot net that's 240 yards out. They are 300 without doubt. I'm 60 and 250 is a miss. The gear is better, so goalpost has been moved by technology, but we also have trickled down a much better technique. Teaching 30 years ago was in the dark ages, it's still not great but it's a much improved. That said, the 300-yard drive is a false idol and is over emphasized here & everywhere else. It has worth but there's other aspects that should be held in parity of value. Chasing speed to attain greater efficiencies is just one part of several aspects to playing well. It's just not the silver bullet it's redundantly hyped to be.

[mshills]

Gear is better. 
Instruction is better. 
Fitness is orders of magnitude better. 
Athleticism is orders of magnitude better. 
Drives are longer. 
 

It is not hard to understand, and again, there are a lot of people out there who can move it. 

[golfpractitioner5]

Arcos and Shotscope data has less than 5% of the population that uses their technology for tracking distance averaging 300 yards off the tee.  The largest average being somewhere between 200-230 yards off the tee.  That average amongst everyday golfers has apparently not changed much over the last 20 years even with advancements in ball and equipment technology.

 

So far this year on the PGA tour, only 36% of all qualified players are averaging more than 300 yards off the tee.  Also, only 36 players on tour have had 50% or more of their drives go over 300 yards off the tee.  The PGA tour stats are just for this season up to this point provided by Shotlink data.

 

This topic will always have varying opinions due to the fact that there is no defined answer for what is a 300 yard driver of the golf ball.  

 

Is it average overall total distance of all measured drives?

 

Is it a certain percentage of overall drives that go over the 300 total yard mark?

 

Is it just that occasional perfect conditions shot with the perfect roll out that is rare but gets you past 300 yards total?

 

 

I've thought about those 3 questions a lot over the last couple days, and my personal believe is as follows:

 

I will consider someone a 300 yard driver of the golf ball if they can do it 20% of their drives on a golf course.  That is just 1/5 drives, so not asking for 50%.  I think 20% is a fair number.

 

I won't include LM 300 yards anymore after talking to a fitter/coach yesterday.  He stated with what he sees from doing LM and on course instruction for 10 years, he might see 1/10 people who hit 300 yard drives on LM carry it over to a course for what he considers a regular basis.  He was the one who told me he considers them a 300 yard driver if they can do it 20% of the time on the course which is where I decided my number would be.

[PedronNiall]

7 hours ago, golfpractitioner5 said:

Arcos and Shotscope data has less than 5% of the population that uses their technology for tracking distance averaging 300 yards off the tee.  The largest average being somewhere between 200-230 yards off the tee.  That average amongst everyday golfers has apparently not changed much over the last 20 years even with advancements in ball and equipment technology.

 

So far this year on the PGA tour, only 36% of all qualified players are averaging more than 300 yards off the tee.  Also, only 36 players on tour have had 50% or more of their drives go over 300 yards off the tee.  The PGA tour stats are just for this season up to this point provided by Shotlink data.

 

This topic will always have varying opinions due to the fact that there is no defined answer for what is a 300 yard driver of the golf ball.  

 

Is it average overall total distance of all measured drives?

 

Is it a certain percentage of overall drives that go over the 300 total yard mark?

 

Is it just that occasional perfect conditions shot with the perfect roll out that is rare but gets you past 300 yards total?

 

 

I've thought about those 3 questions a lot over the last couple days, and my personal believe is as follows:

 

I will consider someone a 300 yard driver of the golf ball if they can do it 20% of their drives on a golf course.  That is just 1/5 drives, so not asking for 50%.  I think 20% is a fair number.

 

I won't include LM 300 yards anymore after talking to a fitter/coach yesterday.  He stated with what he sees from doing LM and on course instruction for 10 years, he might see 1/10 people who hit 300 yard drives on LM carry it over to a course for what he considers a regular basis.  He was the one who told me he considers them a 300 yard driver if they can do it 20% of the time on the course which is where I decided my number would be.

Pointed out already, but keep in mind that this is a forum filled with people who are at minimum enthusiasts of the game for the most part. There's a much higher percentage of golfers here who play at a decent or better level often on better than average courses, and regardless of the course, who play a large number of rounds per year. People here are much more likely to run into players who are long off the tee, and the ones who play better courses are much more likely to end up playing with talented players, especially younger ones who have grown up learning to hit it long first then refine the technique. 

 

The number of threads on speed training on this site should make it unsurprising that those really into golf these days often include going for distance as a part of the golf puzzle. 

[golfpractitioner5]

2 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

Pointed out already, but keep in mind that this is a forum filled with people who are at minimum enthusiasts of the game for the most part. There's a much higher percentage of golfers here who play at a decent or better level often on better than average courses, and regardless of the course, who play a large number of rounds per year. People here are much more likely to run into players who are long off the tee, and the ones who play better courses are much more likely to end up playing with talented players, especially younger ones who have grown up learning to hit it long first then refine the technique. 

 

The number of threads on speed training on this site should make it unsurprising that those really into golf these days often include going for distance as a part of the golf puzzle. 

I 100% agree with you that it’s not uncommon to run into someone on the golf course that can touch 300 yards on a drive on a semi regular basis. By semi regular, I mean once every 2-3 rounds. I play as a single a lot and come across it during most of my rounds with random pairings where a guy or two will catch a drive perfect in the round and get out over 300 yards. During the summer around here when the courses dry up, I’ll generally even get a 300 yarder every couple rounds, but I am not a 300 yard driver of the golf ball. I sit comfortably between 245-265 yards total. The point I was trying to make is what constitutes a person to actually be considered a 300 yard driver.

 

I think the trouble is everyone has their own opinion on what puts a person in a category of a 300 total yards driver.

 

For me, you don’t even have to average 300 yards off the tee. I’ll call you a 300 yard driver if you average less than 300 yards total off the tee but get at least 20% of your drives over 300 yards.  Basically, 1-2 drives per round over 300 yards. Honestly, I’ll probably call you a 300 yard driver of the golf ball if you average just 10% of your drives over 300 yards as that is still pretty often in golf terms for me.

[caeye0710]

I play regularly with one guy who consistently hit it over 300. He's a former UNC standout.

 

I might get 1 out of 10 or 15 out that far. Don't think I even did back in my "younger" days when I played 150-175 rounds a year, but that was before the launch monitor era. 

 

 

[micscottj]

Most people wouldn't know a 300 yd drive if it bit them on the a**. Most tee boxes have incorrect length on them. And it is almost always overstated. 

[Nard_S]

i keep hearing how "know one knows yardages", but every player has GPS, every cart has GPS, at least one in a group has a laser and the courses get surveyed to within inches. My course has sloped yardage markers, along with the standard. Been that way for years too, lol.

[toddbournes]

4 hours ago, micscottj said:

Most people wouldn't know a 300 yd drive if it bit them on the a**. Most tee boxes have incorrect length on them. And it is almost always overstated. 

This is the most of it. 400 yard hole on the card, dogleg right, hit a cut over the corner and have 100 in. Voila 300 yard drive. Realistically went 270-280 and cut 20 yards off the hole. Just one example. I play a lot of golf with a lot of people and the ones that consistently hit it over 300 off the tee are rare. 

[PuffyC]

1 hour ago, Nard_S said:

i keep hearing how "know one knows yardages", but every player has GPS, every cart has GPS, at least one in a group has a laser and the courses get surveyed to within inches. My course has sloped yardage markers, along with the standard. Been that way for years too, lol.

We play mostly public courses and the majority don’t have carts with GPS. Half the guys I play with don’t use a laser range finder of an app either. The courses all have yardage markers but the tee markers move +/- 10 yards weekly. The driving ranges with the boards listing yardages are equally inaccurate.

 

I played for 30 years and thought I knew how far I hit my clubs but then I got Arccos and it was quite enlightening. It insists on averaging all my mediocre drives as well as the 1 or 2 a round where I might stripe it downhill from an elevated tee box with a 20mph tailwind onto a fairway that hasn’t seen water in a month. Actually had one of those 10 days ago and that drive went 326. Do I regularly drive the ball over 300? Not even close.

[Nard_S]

34 minutes ago, PuffyC said:

We play mostly public courses and the majority don’t have carts with GPS. Half the guys I play with don’t use a laser range finder of an app either. The courses all have yardage markers but the tee markers move +/- 10 yards weekly. The driving ranges with the boards listing yardages are equally inaccurate.

 

I played for 30 years and thought I knew how far I hit my clubs but then I got Arccos and it was quite enlightening. It insists on averaging all my mediocre drives as well as the 1 or 2 a round where I might stripe it downhill from an elevated tee box with a 20mph tailwind onto a fairway that hasn’t seen water in a month. Actually had one of those 10 days ago and that drive went 326. Do I regularly drive the ball over 300? Not even close.

Been about 7 years but every fairway bunker or tree of significance has yardages on the card, have GPS on carts, have sloped adjusted 150 markers and all par 3 have new markers that include slope. Nearly everyone I play with uses GPS, there's usually one with laser and yeah, he's the 300 guy. He hits 4i & 5i irons into par 5's lying two.  I know the course by back of hand, never need it but I do have a Cool Shot Pro II for Xmas. It's ludicrous to say no one knows how far they hit, at least where I play and it's been that way for a very long time.

[LeoLeo99]

I'm well past my prime but back in the day, we were hitting it 270 to 280 with wooden clubs and steel shafts and them old balls.  I can easily see that being 300+ with today's equipment and balls.  

[akronswitness]

16 hours ago, Nard_S said:

i keep hearing how "know one knows yardages", but every player has GPS, every cart has GPS, at least one in a group has a laser and the courses get surveyed to within inches. My course has sloped yardage markers, along with the standard. Been that way for years too, lol.

 

The issue I normally see is people use scorecards for calculations. Not everybody has watches/rangefinders. Local courses use scorecards that were based in 2019 calculations but they moved the tees 10x since then. Using scorecard yardages are likely false at the majority of courses. Those type of places aren't paying money to reprint scorecards every time they change the tees

 

 Which is why on the scorecard my drive went 310, but my watch is telling me it was 282. Part of the reason I spent $300 on a watch is because scorecard yardages are so innacurate.

Edited February 28 by akronswitness

[jda]

I think that most adults who are right on the fringe of being consistent 300 yard drivers have the correct tools and know how to use them.  Some of the high school kids that I know who can bomb it way past 300 don't have much of this because they are young and poor, but they don't need it to know that on a 430 yard scorecard hole that if they are constantly 90-100 yards out that they likely made it 300 yards.  These kids eventually get the right stuff once they figure out if they want to play more but only the super privileged kids have much more than a hand-me-down set.

[RoyalMustang]

17 hours ago, Nard_S said:

i keep hearing how "know one knows yardages", but every player has GPS, every cart has GPS, at least one in a group has a laser and the courses get surveyed to within inches. My course has sloped yardage markers, along with the standard. Been that way for years too, lol.

 

No kidding. It's not hard to see how far you are hitting it in this day and age with technology. 

 

For example, I land in this stupid bunker 1 out of every 5 rounds. A great drive is just to the right of it (rolls out to 320 if it doesn't catch the bunker) and a solid drive is to the left of it, same distance. In both locations I can get home in 2 with a hybrid or less. Hitting the bunker results in a layup and wedge to the green. Unless the wind is up, I'm within 20 yards of this bunker off the tee most every round.  

 

Point being, it's fairly easy to call BS on someone claiming 300 yard drives if you got a GPS golf app. Sure, in this example, if I'm in the "A" location (just right of the bunker, which tends to roll out quite a bit), I'm looking at 6-iron into the green on a 325 yard drive, so it has shortened the hole by 15 yards. But it's still 325 from the tee; it has to be a serious dogleg to cut off 100 yards as another poster suggested. 

[RoyalMustang]

2 hours ago, LeoLeo99 said:

I'm well past my prime but back in the day, we were hitting it 270 to 280 with wooden clubs and steel shafts and them old balls.  I can easily see that being 300+ with today's equipment and balls.  

 

When I was a kid, the state champion was a senior at my HS. He was hitting at least 260 uphill on our range, in cold coastal weather. I tried hitting his driver one day and couldn't get the thing 10 feet off the ground. It was like trying out Hermann Maier's GS skis. My buddy saw me and said "that thing is made for Kurt, not for you...he's got 70 lbs of muscle on you. Enough said". 

[NRJyzr]

14 hours ago, Nard_S said:

Been about 7 years but every fairway bunker or tree of significance has yardages on the card, have GPS on carts, have sloped adjusted 150 markers and all par 3 have new markers that include slope. Nearly everyone I play with uses GPS, there's usually one with laser and yeah, he's the 300 guy. He hits 4i & 5i irons into par 5's lying two.  I know the course by back of hand, never need it but I do have a Cool Shot Pro II for Xmas. It's ludicrous to say no one knows how far they hit, at least where I play and it's been that way for a very long time.

 

23 minutes ago, RoyalMustang said:

 

No kidding. It's not hard to see how far you are hitting it in this day and age with technology. 

 

For example, I land in this stupid bunker 1 out of every 5 rounds. A great drive is just to the right of it (rolls out to 320 if it doesn't catch the bunker) and a solid drive is to the left of it, same distance. In both locations I can get home in 2 with a hybrid or less. Hitting the bunker results in a layup and wedge to the green. Unless the wind is up, I'm within 20 yards of this bunker off the tee most every round.  

 

Point being, it's fairly easy to call BS on someone claiming 300 yard drives if you got a GPS golf app. Sure, in this example, if I'm in the "A" location (just right of the bunker, which tends to roll out quite a bit), I'm looking at 6-iron into the green on a 325 yard drive, so it has shortened the hole by 15 yards. But it's still 325 from the tee; it has to be a serious dogleg to cut off 100 yards as another poster suggested. 

 

 

I've actually used Google Earth to verify numbers of a couple of my more absurd distance drives.  Relatively speaking.

 

And, as you say, not that hard.  Anyone with a PC can do this

 

[jda]

Do you all not know about those little books that have dead-on-balls accurate distances from every where on every hole?  I am kidding.

You can laser shoot back to the tee and hit the chests of the guys behind you.  If they are 301 and a tee ahead of where you teed off, then you made it.

[NRJyzr]

3 hours ago, LeoLeo99 said:

I'm well past my prime but back in the day, we were hitting it 270 to 280 with wooden clubs and steel shafts and them old balls.  I can easily see that being 300+ with today's equipment and balls.  

 

In 2013/2014, I spent quite a bit of time going back and forth with Zing laminates and a couple different Ti drivers.  I found I was getting similar distance to you with the Zing, and remarkably similar to the Ti drivers (which has to do with launch conditions for yours truly with those Ti clubheads).

 

Back then, I'd have benefitted greatly from very low spin clubheads that exist now.  As I did when I got a Fly-Z+.

 

The main point I'm trying to make is that I'm a nobody.  I'm just a guy who used to play baseball, and had done some moderate weight lifting in my 30s and 40s, and I was able to produce that kind of distance.  Someone with more athletic ability, as well as younger (i turned 50 in the fall of 2013), should have no trouble blowing past the numbers I was seeing.

 

[Mascot]

20 hours ago, Nard_S said:

i keep hearing how "know one knows yardages"

 

Are we really gonna let him get away with this monstrosity of a sentence??

 

No one knows 🤣

[TLUBulldogGolf]

I basically never see anything close to it outside competitive golf. But it's pretty commonplace there. 

[BHI 99]

On 2/21/2024 at 11:07 AM, Nard_S said:

That said, the 300-yard drive is a false idol and is over emphasized here & everywhere else. It has worth but there's other aspects that should be held in parity of value. Chasing speed to attain greater efficiencies is just one part of several aspects to playing well. It's just not the silver bullet it's redundantly hyped to be.

 

Easily erased missing a 3 footer. 🤣

[Kai Slater]

My wife's cousin is/was a club pro who missed the Champions Tour by two strokes at Q school.  He's the only one I've played with that could go 300+ and even he didn't do this regularly; most of his drives would be in the 280's.  I've hit a small handful of 300 yard drives over my many years, but definitely not very often and nobody that I regularly play with hits 300.

[_chris]

I would bet I hit over 300 on half my drives per round on given courses (verified by others and using GPS). I played a very hard course on Friday where I only hit driver twice though. My average is still probably only 260 ish cause of the one or two holes I will shank or top it. Averages are a funny thing. 

[bcjim]

Averages are not that helpful for us amateur and hack golfers.  When planning a shot,  I suspect the ideal number to go on is something like the average of shots after tossing the 10-20% that are duffs and the 5% that are the longest.

[RmoorePE]

My friends used to tell me that my drives were 300 yards, but it is just because they wanted to believe theirs were 275 yards. 

 

Then range finders, watches and launch monitors appeared. We all had to swallow hard and realize we sucked much more than we thought.

 

 

[nosedive32]

On 2/7/2024 at 1:38 PM, RoyalMustang said:

I've heard this from time to time Reddit. It got me thinking: how often do you play with someone who can hit the ball 300 yards on a regular basis? 

 

I have a few guys: 

1) buddy of mine, mid 30's, played baseball and has a pretty powerful swing. He's pretty wild but can match me in distance a couple of swings a round. Not consistently though. 

2) guy in occasional playing group, + 2 cap, usually not 300 off the tee but can get there. Deadly accurate at 275-280 though. 

3) another guy in occasional playing group, played on a team that qualified in the NCAAs multiple times. He carries over 300 on every swing. 

4) group of players we were paired with that had recently graduated college and were on a mini-tour. All were carrying 300+. On the first hole we played, which is 365 and slightly uphill, all the guys were within 50 yards of the green.  

5) Another buddy who is a 13 cap. He just swings way too hard though and rarely connects.  

6) a couple of the HS kids that I've been paired with are getting out over 300 regularly. 

 

I'd wager it's not exactly rare to find a player capable of driving 300. Carrying 300, that's tougher but still NOT that rare. But the Reddit crowd seems to think so. Sure, I don't think I've ever been paired with a rando hitting the ball that far; it would be cool if I did.

My cousin doesn't play much golf anymore but 300 yards is easy for him. He peaked close to scratch a few times. In the regular money games I play it most guys are older so no one is scaring 300 (and they weren't doing it back in their primes either even if they had modern equipment)

 

I've had a few pairings in some local tournaments (Mostly play scrambles but I've played a few individual tournaments) where I'll come across one or two guys that regular hit it 300+, but it's a strong minority of average Joes who hit it 300+ consistently.

 

Assuming I play 60 rounds a year, I might hit around 5 freak balls where I have perfect ground and weather conditions, try to hammer one, and connect that hits 300 total.

 

Normal good drive for me is around 250 total distance and I don't play with many guys who hit it further.

[shankasaurus rex]

On 2/27/2024 at 7:42 PM, PuffyC said:

We play mostly public courses and the majority don’t have carts with GPS. Half the guys I play with don’t use a laser range finder of an app either.

That's not normal. I spent all last year playing public courses (in multiple states), and almost everyone had a rangefinder, an app, or both.

[MountainKing]

On 2/7/2024 at 12:38 PM, RoyalMustang said:

I've heard this from time to time Reddit. It got me thinking: how often do you play with someone who can hit the ball 300 yards on a regular basis? 

 

I have a few guys: 

1) buddy of mine, mid 30's, played baseball and has a pretty powerful swing. He's pretty wild but can match me in distance a couple of swings a round. Not consistently though. 

2) guy in occasional playing group, + 2 cap, usually not 300 off the tee but can get there. Deadly accurate at 275-280 though. 

3) another guy in occasional playing group, played on a team that qualified in the NCAAs multiple times. He carries over 300 on every swing. 

4) group of players we were paired with that had recently graduated college and were on a mini-tour. All were carrying 300+. On the first hole we played, which is 365 and slightly uphill, all the guys were within 50 yards of the green.  

5) Another buddy who is a 13 cap. He just swings way too hard though and rarely connects.  

6) a couple of the HS kids that I've been paired with are getting out over 300 regularly. 

 

I'd wager it's not exactly rare to find a player capable of driving 300. Carrying 300, that's tougher but still NOT that rare. But the Reddit crowd seems to think so. Sure, I don't think I've ever been paired with a rando hitting the ball that far; it would be cool if I did.

 

Most golfers have no idea what a 300 yard drive looks like.  I generally am around 270 these days and I get multiple comments from strangers during a year saying "man that must be 325".   I half wonder if some of it is so they don't have to admit to themselves that they're only hitting it 220.