Every single person i have showed their actual distance using GPS is shocked. They all thought they hit it atleast 20-30 yards farther. People think ok, its a 400 yd hole i have 150 according to the marker in the fairway i must have hit it 250?! no. you didnt. you hit it 230. I am an average hitter with normal drive about 220-240 yards. I would never count in the duffs or massive downhill wind at my back drives in my equation of avg tee shots w/driver.

Do you guys count driving distance for drives that miss the fairway? I do, and average 280 off the tee..

Surely the only kind of average distance figure that's helpfully meaningful is one that ignores the dreadful mis-hits.

If you include them then the figure you're left with is likely to be significantly less that the distance you're most likely to hit it without a mis-hit.

Well, unless you play a lot and mis-hit rarely in which case the sample of mis-hits is too low to make much of a difference.

I my case, I play too infrequently and mis-hit too often to dare include them. I need to know how far the ball will go when I DON'T mis-hit a squibber about 70yds.

That just leaves the question of what to do about the unusually long ones...

jpjeffery wrote:

Surely the only kind of average distance figure that's helpfully meaningful is one that ignores the dreadful mis-hits. If you include them then the figure you're left with is likely to be significantly less that the distance you're most likely to hit it without a mis-hit. Well, unless you play a lot and mis-hit rarely in which case the sample of mis-hits is too low to make much of a difference. I my case, I play too infrequently and mis-hit too often to dare include them. I need to know how far the ball will go when I DON'T mis-hit a squibber about 70yds. That just leaves the question of what to do about the unusually long ones...

When I keep track of my average drive, I include the mishits and the unusually long ones. The only ones I struggle trying to figure out what to do with are the errant ones that I never find.

If you do keep ALL the numbers, then you've got what computer programmers call GIGO (garbage in, garbage out}. I think most people would be interested in knowing "can I hit driver here without going off the end of the dogleg" rather than some precise number to the third decimal place of my life history that includes 45 dribbles and 3 300 yard drives

merlin3driver wrote:

If you do keep ALL the numbers, then you've got what computer programmers call GIGO (garbage in, garbage out}. I think most people would be interested in knowing "can I hit driver here without going off the end of the dogleg" rather than some precise number to the third decimal place of my life history that includes 45 dribbles and 3 300 yard drives

These computer programmers must not have much of a background in statistics, then. Perhaps a more accurate question would be "what distance is your median drive". That's how to eliminate the stuff off the top and bottom.

When I pull my driver out of the bag, one of the questions I always ask myself is "how far away is trouble". I've had way too many drives that look awesome until I get up to where it landed to find that I ran out of fairway.

As a programmer, the first thing one should ask is: "why?". Why do you keep "average distances"?

Is it just a number to brag about? Or are you interested in tracking your progress? Than you prolly should include all those rocket- and topped balls as well as those super-drives with back-wind.

Or is it that you want to know how far on average you drive, so that you can take that into account in your gameplan? In that case, don't include the duffers.

I agree Jev.

With bowling, I learnt a powerful lesson.

NEVER ADJUST on a bad shot.
If its a bad shot, then adjusting for it is madness.

You have to adjust based on your good shots... otherwise you're just adding additional ISSUE into the mix.

For a slicer. If you aim left because you know you slice SOMETIMES, now all your shots will miss left, except for the BAD SHOT.

Now if you hit that all the time, and that is your GOOD SHOT thats different.

If I worry about that duff, or that duck hook, thats when i do it... and you cant FIX a terrible shot, except by not making it.

Speaking of distance though... I normally play white, I sometimes come close to driving this par 4 green, but since I was playing the tips, i thought oh well... can't make it and just hit it anyways.

So I drove even though these 4 old guys were on the green with their carts on this side of the green, in front of the bunkers. I let the shorter hitters in our group hit first, but not wanting to slow our group down anymore, I thought I'll hit.

As soon as I knew I wouldn't hit them, I nailed it, and I pinged right off their Golf Cart.

I guess they shouldn't assume the cart is safe in front of the green and not where they are supposed to park, just because they can't hit it that far.
I guess I should know better too, because I only ever hit it great when there is a chance of hitting someone or something lol.

Although, I guess we're different, some friends bought some clubs from dicks today, and the guy on the launch monitor was talking to them about distance, and was impressed, and then he said, the biggest hitters we've ever seen in here is these 2 big brothers from NZ... lol I guess I'm getting a rep.

That made me laugh.

jev wrote:

As a programmer, the first thing one should ask is: "why?". Why do you keep "average distances"? Is it just a number to brag about? Or are you interested in tracking your progress? Than you prolly should include all those rocket- and topped balls as well as those super-drives with back-wind. Or is it that you want to know how far on average you drive, so that you can take that into account in your gameplan? In that case, don't include the duffers.

Precisely. I track my average distance because I want to track progress. If I'm looking for a number that tells me which club I should use, I'll go by median distance. But as I stated, I'm always looking out for trouble. If there is a lake at 300 yards, I'm going to lay up.

Bryan K wrote:

jev wrote: As a programmer, the first thing one should ask is: "why?". Why do you keep "average distances"? Is it just a number to brag about? Or are you interested in tracking your progress? Than you prolly should include all those rocket- and topped balls as well as those super-drives with back-wind. Or is it that you want to know how far on average you drive, so that you can take that into account in your gameplan? In that case, don't include the duffers. Precisely. I track my average distance because I want to track progress. If I'm looking for a number that tells me which club I should use, I'll go by median distance. But as I stated, I'm always looking out for trouble. If there is a lake at 300 yards, I'm going to lay up.

If there is water at 400 yards i'll lay up lol.
I'll probably hit the cart path and bounce all the way there

Where there is water, there's a way

Thank you JEV

lol. Sorry, but as someone mentioned above, using gps, drives are a lot shorter than people think.

I've been playing golf for 30 something years on and off, and have played with hundreds and hundreds of different people. I probably average 230 yards using a driver. My normal playing friends probably average 240. With all the different people we've played with over the years, very few hit it even as far as I do and we normally play from the blues. Very few people out drive my friends.

My guess is that the real average is probably around 220 using driver. Also, with the exception of you single digit golfers, my guess is that the majority of you have NEVER hit it 300 yards. My thinking is that if you are over a 12 handicap and hit the ball 300 yards every few rounds then the driver is pretty much the only club you can hit well. Let's get realistic here....

I agree 100% KV. I have never experienced that long a drive in my life. Even with cart path assist. But I can keep the ball in play. Many guys knock the crap out of the ball and either end up in deep s--t or not much short game.

Everyone wants distance but knowing how far each club goes is the name of the game.

From the Wall Street Journal:

On no subject are golfers, especially male golfers, more deluded than on the distance they hit their drives, with the possible exception of their attractiveness to beverage-cart personnel. Here are the brutal facts, accumulated by Dave Pelz over several years of monitoring thousands of players at amateur tournaments. He used the same ShotLink equipment used by the PGA Tour to determine that, in 2011, the world's best players averaged 291 yards off the tee. Male amateurs who play to a 30 handicap average drives of 166 yards; 20-handicappers average 183 yards; 10-handicappers average 214 yards; scratch amateurs average 235 yards.

Admittedly, players within a handicap range may very well hit the ball above the average distance. In order to have an average there typically are numbers both higher and lower. Still, it does tend to support those who feel driving distances are often over stated.

they need a "like" button here ^^