At what point does lack of distance matter?

Here’s Dustin Johnson, one of the longest, if not longest hitters on Tour today, on distance.

Q: You’re obviously one of the longer hitters out there. How important is distance off the tee?
A: I don’t know. It’s always an advantage to be able to get it out there a long way, because I’m hitting shorter clubs into holes, but it’s not too important. Ask Freddie Funk or Corey Pavin. They hit it nowhere, but they still competed and won multiple times and had very long careers and are still playing well to this day. So it’s not that important.

Q: Would you trade 20 yards for, say, two more made putts per round?
A: Yeah, for sure. How long are these putts?

Q: Anything. Take two misses each round and turn 'em into makes.
A: Two per round? Damn right I would trade 20 yards for that!

Let’s be honest, it’s MUCH easier to take this point of view when you are contemplating going from hitting it 310 yards, to 290 yards.

I notice the guys who make this ‘easy’ decision are also very long. Even Lag, years ago was a long player. And is still long enough even with older gear that this question really wouldn’t bother him.

Ask me if I would add 20 yards to my drives to miss 2 putts per round. Let’s see, I average 28 putts a game, and have trouble making some par 4’s in two shots, and certainly pull out 4 irons while playing partners pull out 8 irons… Hmmm… hell yes sign me up for that trade off.

The only thing I won’t do is go back to an armsy swing for that yardage.

Is everyone in on the distance hype/marketing nowadays?

I was watching some of the PGA tourney over the weekend and it was a par-3 hole (can’t remember the distance) but the broadcast labeled the player on the tee was hitting a 9i. I was watching some of the swing in slo-mo on DVR and I actually caught, and could clearly see a “7” on bottom of the club in follow-through.

Are the caddies just reporting the wrong clubs to the TV reporters (in a strategically purposeful lie to appear to boost their players ability) or are the reporters/broadcast lying? Who knows. But despite knowing these tour guys are much longer than us mere mortals all through their bag, I will from now on take what club they are “hitting” with a grain of salt.

Just all part of the big plot to sell distance. I wonder if even the OEM’s are paying to report wrong clubs?

Im only very new to the game of golf, maybe 6 months.Im also rather ordinary at the game currently. Although I have noticed distance only matters(a little) in the realm of very low handicappers from my experience, also it depends what your regular course plays like.

I used to bomb it out a fair way being caught up in the newest driver hype. All my mates still are, we’d all be lucky to hit 30% of fairways, and totally stuff the 110m approach shot to 30m wide of the green or spend 2 shots getting out of trees and lucky to come away with a double.

My latest round I intentionally blocked pushed all my drives down the middle barely 200m on the roll.only missing 2 fairways all day, I then experimented with laying up my second shot just short to stay out of trouble and reduce risk of a wayward shot. All my mates were into me about hitting like a school girl, but added score cards saw me clear by 12 shots.Also I have never made so many par’s in a row.

I also think for us weekend golfers it depends what your home course is like. Your going to develop your game accordingly. If theres lots of 400+ yard par 4’s then a short hitter may look a worse player than on another course with short par 4’s.

nicely done…it’s really only a game of how many…not how you get it done…brains over brawn usually wins out

It’s incredible how some more forward thinking course management can help shave strokes off…

Played the first round of our local pennant on the weekend. Scratch division (not the top level - 2nd down).

I beat a bomb and gouge player just my short precision tee shots and hitting greens. He was easily 50-80 meters longer off the tee but mostly in the wrong spot on the fairway, or playing out of the trees… So length doesnt = scoring … ehehe

Way back when my uncle Bill had a set of irons I think they were Henry Griffitt’s made up with 7 stamped on the bottom of all of them. Omg it was funny. He was so pissed and fed up with all the guys in his group peeking and clubbing off him that he paid a fortune for a bag full of 7 irons. I remember he had to make a secret mark the ferrule on the 3, the longest one because he couldn’t eyeball between it and the 4. We played Pebble together once with caddies and the look on his caddy’s face was stone cold priceless. The kid was totally befuddled and lost in space all day. And he never even made the obvious crack which would be on every approach snipping ‘i think it’s a 7 iron…’

And now for a bit of not so comic relief. If this was my buddy Phil, well, it might be just another sea story. But Padraig Harrington?

BTW, Mr. Harrington kinda nails it right around the 6:20 mark, doesn’t he?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wguFY0DDoAU[/youtube]

I look at distance a little differently perhaps, and us small guys probably think and feel the same way.

I think getting the max distance out of what you can bring to the table is just one key variable in order to play well…like a Pavin who I am confident did not loose distance because of some swing disturbance. He not only was using all his body could efficiently offer, but did so and worked the ball at the same time. For instance, if the mass of my being is perfectly moved and all I can carry is 300 yards, then that’s what I bring to the table. However, if there are attack errors and poor trajectory which results in a 270 carry then that could be an issue.

So I tend to think not in terms of at what point does distance matter, rather at what point does size matter relative to proficiency…but that’s just me.

We had this discussion at the range when one of the PGA guys said I had world-class distance. I said that was hogwash…because I have to jump on a frying pan to get it to go 280 yards, but he said given my size I’m hitting a distance of greater than a 2:1 ratio. Meaning since I weigh 120 pounds and my carry distance is over 240, than I am in good company. So under his assumption a guy weighing in at 220 should be able to carry 440…which is unlikely. Always kind of wondered about that. Would love to have a 220 pound frame for a week and see what happens as, afterall, it is a F=MxA equation.

Funny, I hardly ever work the ball. I can, but why, the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line and us small guys don’t like long yardage cut shots as a distance penalty. So some of us small guys learn straight… go straight at it…and play appropriate length courses, and work our way out of trouble if you can’t keep it in front of you. :slight_smile:

RR…you can carry it 280 at 120lbs??? I would say that IS really good/great. You ARE getting all the horsepower out of your engine. WTG.

BTW, I think you said you had converted to Hogan Apex 4 shafts now…or a stiff eqivalent, and a 1970’s era Hogan blade…is that right? What are your specs on your 5i…length, swing weight, and what kinda carry do you play for?

Who ever thought an eagle would look up to a rat? :smiley:

A 120 lb rat is to looked up to, eagle or no eagle.

I’ve done quite a bit of statistical research on this matter lately.

Basically, on the PGA Tour and other men’s pro tour golf along with upper tier amateur golf, strokes are gained or lost the most from what I call ‘The Danger Zone’ which is approach shots from 175-225 yards. I would label that as the most important component performance at those levels of golf. Putting is important, probably the 2nd most important, but it needs to be measured with what’s called ‘Putts Gained’ statistic, not ‘Putts per round’ or ‘Putts Per GIR.’ Those stats have major flaws in them for obvious reasons. But if you’re in the top 5 in the Danger Zone and one of the worst putters on Tour, you will almost likely keep your card. Robert Allenby is a great example. So was Jason Bohn in 2009. If you think about it for a second…if you’re great in the Danger Zone, it’s likely to stay that way time after time. If you’re terrible there, it’s likely to be that way time after time. But with putting, you can get hot and that can make a great Danger Zone player into a contender for the weekend. And let’s look at some of the greats, Hogan and Trevino. Terrible putters at significant points of their careers, but still dominated.

Where power is helpful is that the golfers will hit a lesser percentage of their shots in the Danger Zone. Somebody like Bubba Watson will average about 14 times in the Danger Zone in a 4 round tournament. Somebody like Brian Gay will average about 20 times in the Danger Zone 20 times in a four round tournament. Those are the longest and shortest drivers on Tour. The discrepancy isn’t THAT wide because most of the par-3’s on Tour are usually between 175-225 yards, so Bubba can’t avoid those shots. Still though, 1 shot in the Danger Zone is EXTREMELY important. So if Watson and Gay each play 30 tournaments in a season, Gay may wind up with 180 more shots from the Danger Zone in a year.

Danger Zone play still has a strong correlation to stroke average for the bomber. You can bomb it and hit it very accurately off the tee, but if you’re awful from the Danger Zone, you ain’t keeping your card unless you get hot one week and pull out a victory. Even if you putt well.

What guys like Dustin Johnson and Bubba tend to do is they are actually pretty good from the Danger Zone. However, they are mediocre to bad from everywhere else, That’s because they get a lot more shots from shorter distances than your average Tour player. Although, they get a lot more shots from the rough from those distances (Tour players are about 30% less accurate from the rough than they are from the fairway). So even if they are mediocre from 140 yards out, that’s still going to be better than somebody who is really great from 185 yards out. So all they have to do is putt average (which they both are average Tour putters) and they collect pay checks, contend in the occasional major, etc. Where lack of distance matters is if you’re getting much more shots from the Danger Zone than the rest of the field. The odds just work against you from that point. Brian Gay is very good from the Danger Zone. But, even he still has to be a great putter because he’s going to have probably 2-3 shots more per 4-round tournament from the Danger Zone than even the average length player off the tee.

3JACK

Eagle: I picked up some Apex Channelbacks not long ago just because they had Apex 4’s in them. So far, I like them a lot and do not see me changing back to my regular Apex Edge with Apex 3’s anytime soon. I really don’t know all the specs on the new set except for taking them down 3* from standard. I don’t pay too much attention to SW and length perhaps like I should…I know it’s important in the big picture, but I just like the firmness and the overall feel of the Channelbacks…that’s really all I care about…I can feel out the rest

I haven’t used blades in years as I too got sucked into marketing stratagies that are counter-productive in the long run and makes one lazy. And I don’t really know about the distances yet…but then again I don’t really play to distances when I get a chance to play. I use whatever club I sense will get the job done. But if I had to bet my life on a minimal carry distance with that Apex 4 5-iron, I would say 180 yards. I hit my Hogan 7 wood 200 if perfect and 190 generally, but they are, dare I say Aldila graphite. :laughing:

Don’t always hit that 280 carry distance. That would be the ideal, all the molecules lining up perfectly, nice weather, minimal clothes, etc. I don’t generally play for that distance if that makes sense.

One of my bugaboos when playing has always been this: If I am standing on a short par 4- say 270-280 yards, I can a lot of times get home in 1 with a few bounces mixed in…so the actual carry is a little short of that at those times for sure. All I know on the tee is if I put my best move on the ball, it’s home. I don’t “see” the distance…I just know that perfection equals the distance while standing on the tee.

However, when standing on the tee of a par 5 in which I “see” the distance ( the flag over 500 yards away ) now I get all goofed up and will struggle to get past 250 yards because the perfection aspect takes a back seat to an unsettling need of “muscling one out there”. So when I see something as far away it bothers the brain a lot off the tee, because then my “smallness of weight and stature” rattles the brain big time because " I want to swing to a distance". Hope that makes sense. Whereas on the previously mentioned Par 4, I don’t have that rattling going on…I’m just thinking “pure it”. If I could think “pure it” on the par 5’s life would be much easier…I’ve tried…real hard to do for a small person. :slight_smile:

Well if things don’t go well in Japan soon, we may certainly see one. :laughing:

BTW: drove by the range yesterday just to make sure all our crap is in the same place and guess what I saw?

Ok I tell 'ya…the fricken hens had black baby chickens last fall and there are now 2 full grown black roosters roaming around. :astonished: This could get real interesting SOON. Will for sure get a picture of them and their attacking dispositions and post it. This year no prisoners…do you suppose a genetic trait has been passed between the 2 generations and they will be predisposed to attack a range rat without warning. :laughing:

RR, thanks for the follow-up. I’m just trying to glean some nuggets. I bet we all can relate to what you say about distance. My course has a hole with a lake far down the fairway, and depending on the time of year and weather, it becomes reachable for me with a good drive or even a 3 wood.

So one day I step up, thinking the driver may be too much today, so I’ll just swing a 3 wood easy…and it jumps off and makes it to the water, nearly on the fly. No intent except swing easy. I need to tap into that regularly.

Yes Eagle, the lay-up phenomena speaks volumes.

But what I was getting to is that on the par 4 tee…I’m not going at it easy. I would guess about 85% which I do for everything mostly. Anything less than that to me feels like a complete feel shot that I call a “feather shot”.

When I get to the par 5’s and see “distance”, I think I start to exceed 85% and probably get close to jumping out of my shoes.

BUT…things have changed a little in the last year with me in terms of hitting or swinging, so I will cetainly examine this within the next few months. I suspect that by now hitting with post impact acceleration, that my drives on short, reachable par 4’s and drives on the par 5’s will be close to the same. I think when I saw “distance” on the par 5 as a swinger and tried to muslce it out there it just threw the timing off. I think I just answered my own question, as while I was typing that last sentence I noticed using the words muscle and swinging in the same context.

Hmmmm…it will be nice to see what happens to driving a ball while embracing a hit instead of a swing. :slight_smile:

…280 yard carry/120 lbs… that’s more yards per pound than the Wee Iceman.

we need to change your name from RR to MM…Mighty Mouse !! :laughing:

Good stuff Eagle.

Let’s put it this way. Although I do “bulge out” to 128 in the winter --I’ll take a challenge from anyone the same size and weight.

Won’t be even close. Except who can accept that challenge besides someone in 7th grade. :laughing:

Bubba Watson better make sure he wins a major real fast before his swing falls apart completly… This thing he is calling a swing is getting more violent and wilder every time i watch it. And the idea of curving the ball 100y through the air - well you better be a mathematical genius to figure that stuff out to be accurate with it. I was once told at this board that Mickelson isnt a guy you want to look at when you look for a solid swing - Bubba Watson makes Mickelson look like Hogan!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_me … ng_golfers

If you look at the Majors won in the last decade - there are quite a couple players in the mix that arent the longest - that makes it pretty clear that you dont have to drive it 300y to win big tournaments. Another thing is - that in the big championships wayward shots get more penalized compared to the weekly hackfest what they call the PGA-Tour where you can miss 100y left and still have a clean shot into a green. So people who bomb&spray it of the tee will have a lot more difficulty in the big championships than on those manicured playgrounds they normally play on.

I was just watching him in some interview the other day and he said he NEVER had a lesson and he decided to go pro (he was stuck between golf and baseball) when he shot a 62 at some local course as an early teenager. That is sick if you ask me, never having instruction (IF that is 100% accurate) and on PGA tour speaks volumes about his athleticism. The odds of even getting a PGA card are about the same as becoming a famous Hollywood actor, yet he is currently ranked 14th in world on a put together through baseball mechanics.

But you are right, never having a lesson shows at times and he can get ugly in a hurry on a tough course. He gets by on feel he said. He said he NEVER believes his swing is at fault when he is off, it is always something else like a tight back, or he didn’t sleep well, etc. And he meant it. I thought that was an interesting statement as it shows he has highly confident belief in his ability to deliver clubface squarly despite knowing he never learned ‘proper’ mechanics and never wanting to change (Unlike Tiger who is a constant tinkerer and always seems to be fighting the deamons of his swing could be better).

Bubba just seems perfectly content to be on tour, contend and/or take a victory once in while and enjoy the limelight. I actually do like him personally as he seems down-to-earth and just enjoying life. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and appears very family oriented. But it makes me jealous there are people like this who seem to able to just do half the amount of work, carry a “I don’t care” type attitude and yet talent/athleticism/luck got them to upper elite.

They showed him on tee the other day hitting a 7i into a 200y par-3. The announcer was just like “hehe, woooww.” (it ended up in bunker).