Oh, there are plenty of long drive guys that can hit it 75 yards past Koepka. The winning drive at Remax last year was 435.
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I'm for really large fairways, but with really gnarly rough. Punish if you miss, but give you the opportunity to bomb it if you can.

Crazy to think you ARE NOT better off if you hit 271 yards, yet hit 80% of fairways, compared to 35 yards further and 50% of the fairways. I know that plays better at muni courses without punishing rough or alot of OB, but on these difficult courses that surprises me. I would think that driving accuracy would be most helpful unless you are just a Corey Pavin hitter. When I think back to my best rounds, those are the ones I'm always in the fairway, not making big numbers and capitalizing when I can.

Wouldn't it be dependent on the course? I know "strokes gained" is a relatively new stat, but all golf courses and their set up are different (LDO), so wonder how accurate that currently is. Kind of like how in MLB they have park adjusted stats, does it account for that?
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Yeah, but they typically put those guys on super elevated tees, downwind, hard landing areas, in really humid environments and/or high altitudes to maximize that. But yea, those guys can smash it. I bet they dial it down when they are trying to score on real golf courses. Makes you wonder how far some of the Tour guys can hit it, if they have no regard to control.
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I don't think he was meaning people can't hit it that far, but more no one with tour driving accuracy would be hitting it that far. Even a 2 time long drive champion like Jamie Sadlowski averages with the current longest hitters on the PGA Tour since he turned pro.
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Here is how the tour explains it, using Rickie Fowler's tee shot as an example.

Fowler hit his tee shot 330 yards on the 446-yard, par-4 before sticking his 116-yard approach shot 16 feet, 11 inches from the hole.

Tee shot: TPC Sawgrass' 18th hole is a 446-yard, par-4. The PGA TOUR's scoring average, or baseline, on a par-4 of that length is 4.100. Fowler hit his tee shot on No. 18 in the fairway, 116 yards from the hole. The TOUR scoring average from the fairway, 116 yards from the hole, is 2.825. He gained 0.275 strokes on his tee shot. Here's how:

Baseline for tee - Baseline for second shot - 1 = strokes gained: off-the-tee
4.100 - 2.825 = 1.275 - 1 = +0.275

One is subtracted from the difference between the two baselines to account for the shot that Fowler hit.


They measure the average to make from every distance in one inch increments from every type of lie. A player takes, on average, 3 shots to get down from 100 yards out in the rough compared to 3 shots on average from 170 in the fairway.

If you think about it from a risk reward perspective, hitting the ball that much farther doesn't really hurt you that much in the rough (of course, some rough *is* more penal than others), but you gain significant benefits if you hit it long in the fairway.
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It's crazy, that in just 15-20 years the average PGA Tour drive has increased 20-25 yards.

I guess I need to buy new clubs? They had Pro V's back in 2002 and $500 drivers back then too. The USGA places a certain limit on clubs to even be legal, I figured back around 2000 that clubs & balls were maxing out at their technological limits.

What is the culprit for the increase in distance over the last 15-20 years?
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While equipment has helped some in 15-20 years, I think a big part of it is Trackman (and other launch monitors.) Players now know the optimal numbers needed to hit a maximum efficiency drive and they can tweak their equipment and swing to get that desired result.
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If you turn on the Golf Channel right now there are long drive guys on. They are averaging mid 140s to 150 in swing speed. Ryan Winther has gotten as high as 167 mph. The fastest single measured swing on tour is right at 130. Koepka topped out at 126. He might be able to get up to 135 swinging all out with a longer shaft.

Factoring in 2.5 yard average for each mph of clubhead speed you're still looking at a difference of 40-80 yards.
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I get that hitting the fairway is everybody's goal (duh), but how do they calculate "strokes gained off the tee", drive distance and accuracy turning a par-5 into a par-4, a par-4 into a par-3, so those would be "1 stroke gained"?
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It's literally explained in significant detail five posts down from the one you quoted.
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NM, I found it in post 215 of this thread.
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The other factor is that these guys have turned into workout monsters. Look at Tiger, McIlroy, Koepke etc. These guys are jacked
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Nanz brought up a prophetic quote from Gary Player about how eventually guys who could play football would choose golf, and once they did, would change the game forever with 400 yard drives ect.

Very prophetic although I can't find the actual quote. As for Tiger, never rooted for him when he was "Tiger". Now, with the comeback story, it would be cool to see him win. He has the game for it again. The issue now is that instead of only having to out-duel 1 or 2 guys and intimidate the rest, he has like 20. There are so many skilled players now that aren't going to back down. Or even if a few do, the numbers game will say that when Tiger is fighting 5 top 20 players on Sunday, he is going to have to really, really earn it.

How many times in the past would a 64 from Tiger have won it. Now it just got him within 2. Kind of crazy.
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Now, Tiger has to try to win with competition much like Nicklaus had to do. Nicklaus competed against Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Billy Casper, and Tom Watson (to name the best).
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The difference isn't the top of the fields. When Tiger was dominant, Singh, Mickelson, and Els were all winning their share of majors. Phil has the second most top threes in history, trailing only Jack.

The real difference is that the average tour pro is significantly better than the average pro was in 2000. The difficulty in winning majors now comes from the depth in the middle, not at the top.

I think what you're going to find in this modern era is that guys will get hot for about 18-24 months, and that will be the period where they win almost all of their majors. You'll end up with a lot of guys winning 2-3 majors, but maybe only one player in a generation winning more than five, which is how it was between Jack and Tiger.
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