PGA Method Driving Distance Thread

So the first data is in from today's round. I played Northern Bear and picked two holes that go in opposite directions, SW and NE. The distances were measured with a Sky Caddie and Bushnell 1500 Tournament Edition from the ball to the teebox marker.

The 1st hole was number one. It's a 435 yard par 4. My drive was 295 yards.

The 2nd hole was number 6. It's a 535 yard par 5. My drive was 290 yards.

That's an average of 292.5 yards for the day.

I happened to hit driver on both holes.

The temperature today was 25 degrees celcius and the wind was calm.


If anyone else is interested in getting an average this way and has the data, post in this thread. I'll be playing again Monday so I'll post again and pick different holes depending on wind direction so one is upwind and one is downwind. As I said, wind was calm today but blowing in the NW direction, so that's why I chose the holes I did.

I like this idea. I measured all my drives by GPS today. Fairways only, minus the one that hit a tree, but ended up in the fairway!

N1 220
N3 233
N5 197
N6 210
S1 219
S2 212
S4 222
S5 213
S7 232
S9 206
Avg 216.4

Yes I hit driver on every hole. When you ladybug it around like me you have to!

This was in a club tournament. The course was wet. With the 70mm of rain on Thursday several bunkers were large puddles today. Wind was calm - 10k

Since I averaged 216 in wet conditions I may have to up my "overall estimate" of 220. :P

Unfortunately todays event was played from the blues, and I found I did not score well despite my decent drives. Too many long approaches, and I had a problem with my wrist for a few holes after the "monster drive" on North 3. I Tried to lay off the wrist and that had bad results. Oh well. I am encouraged by my driving stats anyway! :thumbsup

Well I don't know what my average driving distance was today. All I know is I shot +5 for 18 holes, after being +5 after 9 holes. I got er going on the back 9 :lmfao

You know to me this worrying about driving distance is just that, a worry. I am not playing this game for a living, I could care less if I hit it 300. Tell you one thing, on the last hole of the day I actually popped up my drive and had 175 in. My buddy was 75 yards past me off the tee. I had a 1 foot putt for par, he had to make a 3 footer for par. So that is the reason I do not get wound up in driving distances, or iron distances for that matter.

You hit what you hit, I'll be hitting what I need to hit. I sure will not be basing my club selection on someone elses club selection. On the scorecards I use there is only a spot for the score on the hole, not my driving distance off the tee :laughing:

Hey Dan, you are not a LADYBUG :lmfao :lmfao :lmfao

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Originally Posted by Dan Kilbank

The course was wet. With the 70mm of rain on Thursday several bunkers were large puddles today. Wind was calm - 10k

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That's one problem with this method, it's very condition dependent. I didn't track my distance today but I did take note of my average roll-out. Somewhere around 3 feet.

Longest was about 6 feet and I had a couple go backwards. :(

Let's please limit this one thread to reports on measured drives. Include conditions as that will be helpfull.

Thanks. :thumbsup

OK the two drives today that I could actually get a yardage on, at least as accurate as can be without GPS. 266 and 267. How's that for average? One par 5 I hit 5 wood off the tee to avoid the hazard, that baby drive was 220. I won't count it as that was a 5 wood. My other drives would have been around 250-260 if I had hit the fairways :-)

I don't have a range-finder or a GPS, but I played Chateau Cartier and figured I'd keep track of my drives on the back to back Par 5's (13 and 14 I believe) using just the yardage markers (so take this as you will). The 13th is 491 from the back and I had 211 in dead centre of the fairway so you can call it 280 if you want. Next hole measures 495 I believe and I had 218 yards in (walked off to 200 picket). 277, but I was off the fairway so it really wouldn't count using the PGA method.

Take those two drives and it was an average of 278.5 which is higher than my average that I posted in the other thread, but most of my other drives were just a tad shorter and a couple dropped back into the 250 range, so I'm sticking with my 260 guess.

Conditions were quite soft at the course, and the whole course made you think that they sold their mowers after the big rainfall this week so there wasn't much to talk about with regards to roll. I was gonna whine about my back aching too, but I'll save that excuse for another day.

That's great, but I think the prerequisite here was GPS or laser rangefinder measured distances. :rolleyes

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Originally Posted by Dan Kilbank

That's great, but I think the prerequisite here was GPS or laser rangefinder measured distances. :rolleyes

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Yes. You must be able to accurately measure your drives in order for a comparison, and you must use the PGA method of choosing one hole upwind and one downwind, so basically one hole must be in the opposite direction of the other.

This is just to compare to what we see posted for PGA numbers since they don't take an average of all of their drives on one day.

You should also pick two holes before you play them in order for this to be relevant. You can't just take your best two drives then divide them by two or the method is not accurate.

Take the distance from the two holes you picked even if you didn't end up hitting driver for whatever reason.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Kilbank

That's great, but I think the prerequisite here was GPS or laser rangefinder measured distances. :rolleyes

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Right but Dan not all of us have those. So we use the yardage markers.

To be honest, I really do not see the point of this thread other than it appears to be for bragging rights ;)

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Originally Posted by Golfbum

Right but Dan not all of us have those. So we use the yardage markers.

To be honest, I really do not see the point of this thread other than it appears to be for bragging rights ;)

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The point of the thread is to show that we would probably have a different "average" than we mentioned before if we used the PGA method, and that's why we see only 315 as the top "average" on Tour. That "average" is only made up of 2 holes per round, some in which a long iron or hybrid even is used.

It also shows that if someone says they hit the ball 285 for their average as we saw in the other thread, that it's not relevant to compare them to a PGA player where a different method is used, or to compare ability in that respect. We all know the long hitters in the PGA are capable of close to 400 or more yards, where the long hitters from this board are probably only capable of 80 or more yards less than that.

It's also to squash the comments about, "I think you're over-estimating how far you hit the ball because the Touring Pros are only averaging 315."

Someone else(at this time I forget who), mentioned they would track their next 5 rounds with the PGA method so I thought it would be interesting to start a thread so if others were interested in doing the same, they could post results here.

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Originally Posted by Golfbum

Right but Dan not all of us have those.

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The idea is for those who can accurately measure to post their results here. Estimates belong in the other thread. I don't view this as being for bragging rights, or I would not have posted myself. Nothing to brag about there. This is to get a realistic look at measured drive lengths by the poster's here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Kilbank

The idea is for those who can accurately measure to post their results here. Estimates belong in the other thread. I don't view this as being for bragging rights, or I would not have posted myself. Nothing to brag about there. This is to get a realistic look at measured drive lengths by the poster's here.

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100% agreed.

As I said before, it doesn't matter how long you hit the ball anyway if you can't putt.

I'm more impressed by GIR's, fewest putts, and score over how far someone can hit the ball.

How about Google Earth using tee boxes and landmarks?

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Originally Posted by Daft_driver

How about Google Earth using tee boxes and landmarks?

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I tried that, but I couldn't pick out any specific places to measure to so I decided not to fudge anything that way. My holes met the criteria and I chose them before the round, but my lack of a device for an accurate measurement kind of invalidates my numbers. That being said I am keeping my eye out for a range-finder, so hopefully I'll have a little more to contribute to this thread in the future.

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Originally Posted by Daft_driver

How about Google Earth using tee boxes and landmarks?

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Should work if you can find landmarks I would think.

That's exactly what I did.

Ended up being the same two holes Hoolio mentionned at Cartier. On 13, ended up being 315 and the 14th was 290. So an average of 302.5 for that day...

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Originally Posted by EdmontonGolfer

Should work if you can find landmarks I would think.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Daft_driver

That's exactly what I did.

Ended up being the same two holes Hoolio mentionned at Cartier. On 13, ended up being 315 and the 14th was 290. So an average of 302.5 for that day...

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Nice Phil! Way to let the big dog eat! HAHA!!

Went to Northern Bear again today.

The temperature was 30 degrees, winds SSE @ 5 km/h so again, calm.

I picked # 3 which runs NNE and # 11 that runs SSE.

One ran downwind and one upwind.

#3 is a 403 yard par 4. I ended up using my 3 wood because it's a bit narrow, but driver can be used if you want to be 100 yards out. Today I decided to hit 3-wood to give myself about 130-140 to the pin.

#11 is a 447 yard par 4, which I also used a 3-wood on because of the marsh that runs along the back side of the landing area.

I picked these holes by the wind direction, just as they are done in the PGA tournaments, to keep it accurate eventhough I may or may not use driver on these holes.

The numbers...

#3 - 273 yards.
#11- 286 yards.

Average of 279.5 yards for the day with two 3-woods.

So, that leaves my average as measured by PGA Tour method as 286 yards for the two days, where half the drives were with 3-woods.

So you can see how an average drops as soon as you bring another club into the mix like J.B Holmes did at the 2006 FBR Open, where he was pounding 360-365 yard drives all day, but as I had mentioned in another thread, one of the holes that was set out to measure for average he decided to use a long iron, thus making his average 315 yards.

Someone else must measure their drives with GPS or range finder.

Keep the posts coming.:thumbsup

I took the Laser link out for a demo run today. This thing works with a little reflector that is added to the top of the flag. I calculated my drives on two holes were the wind and the elevation was not a factor. First hole I hit 270Y on the dot. I hit the ball high on the clubface. Not a very good hit but still traveled a good distance. The second drive was 298Y. That one I hit pure. Average distance is 284. If I’m not mistaken I listed 275-280 average off the tee in the other thread. Pretty good estimate.

I was also impressed on the distance I hit some clubs. My 5W for example, I had 251Y to the pin for my second shot on a par 5 wind sideways with no elevation. Just a straight forward 251Y shot. I hit my 5W 242Y. I was on the green putting for eagle. I had no idea that I could hit 240 with 5W from the fairway. I was just trying to get as close as possible to the green. I tried it again on another par 5 with the same result.


Going to start a threat on the Link Golf Rangefinder. This thing is just amazing. Got to get me one…

Mike