If you spend a bit of time on 'Golf Twitter' or other social media platforms and forums, you may have come across handicap golfers bragging about their 300 yard drives.
Well, these stats from Arccos Golf - gleaned from over 800m shots tracked worldwide - may just put an end to some of those brags, as it turns out 10-handicappers aren't bombing it 300+ yards as often as they might let on.
The average driving distance for male golfers, at handicap level, is 225.9 yards with scratch players averaging 259 yards. These numbers might seem a bit short to you but remember these are measures on ALL drives, so even the ones in winter time, into wind and also the mis-hits.
The PGA Tour driving distance is average isn't even 300 yards, yet. For the 2022/23 season, the average was 299.9 yards, with Rory McIlroy topping the charts with 326.3 yards.
So, what about 10-handicappers? The average 10 index golfer drives it 233 yards - again that's throughout the year in good and bad conditions, taking into account their good and bad drives.
But what about when they really crunch it? And maybe they're downwind, downhill and playing on firm fairways?
Well, 10-handicappers are certainly capable of 300+ yard drives and they do happen - just not all too often.
For amateurs with a 10 index who use Arccos Golf, a total of 1.7% of their drives travel over 300 yards.
This is 17 drives out of 1,000 and 0.238 per round assuming they're hitting driver 14 times. This does mean that a 10 index will hit one 300+ yard drive ever four-or-so rounds.
A very interesting tidbit from the data is that 10-handicappers are actually more likely to hit their drive less than 100 yards than over 300...
