# Pretty stoked, hit a 280 yard drive



## Denominator

After getting abnormally embarrassed at my swing speed at Roger Dunn's golf, i'd been doubting my ability to hit the ball far. Mind you, I go to the range alot, and hit further then 99% of the people there, but according to their calculations, i'd be lucky to hit a 240 yard drive :dunno:

Well I went to Westchester, to play the course. The first holes were miserable, as I felt really uncomfortable playing around strangers. After a little while I started to catch a rhythm, and was feeling good with my iron shots. Come the 6th hole (Which is 287 yards long), and slightly uphill, I felt pretty loose, and was just thinking, what the heck, i've played horrible thus far, might as well not think about it, and just whack the ball (Sometimes I keep thinking about my posture being off). I hit the ball dead center on my driver (I love my Ping G15), and follow through from the inside out approach. The ball just grenades off the tee, gains altitude rather quickly, and launches completely and utterly *straight*. I landed 2 feet away from the green, directly in front of the flag. Everyone in the group was congratulating me, and calling me Mr. Driver. It was an uplifting experience to say the very least, and made a miserable game that day, all that much more to remember. 

Just wanted to let you guys know, don't believe those monitors. I don't think they are all that accurate.


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## Fourputt

Was the drive verified by anything except the distance on the score card? If not then you still don't know how far you really hit it. Card distances are notoriously inconsistent, and tee markers get moved around a lot. You may have hit farther than you think, but more likely it isn't as far as the card would have you believe. 

Just a word of warning, unless you have the means to actually measure the shot yourself (GPS or laser), you really can't know. :dunno:

By the way, I don't trust launch monitors either...


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## Surtees

Nice hit I wouldnt be to worried if it was 270 or 290 yards for your drive but doesnt it feel great when your drive lands just off the green keep it up, and dont worry about what the computer says.


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## broken tee

if I hit a ball that far I'd be a struttin. :thumbsup: good going


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## Denominator

Yeah, i'm not too sure about the ball being measured, distance wise. In the past I used a GPS device on one of the golf carts I was driving, and it measured my drive at 285 yards. Mind you that shot was downhill, and a long time ago. I think I can wack the ball MUCH harder then back then. At my buddies range I can basically hit beyond the range. I can hit the back of Scholl Canyon's range too. 

For me I feel that much more rewarded when I hit a long drive. I've always wanted to hit with my driver far. My goal is to hit 285 yards 70% of the time. I doubt i'll hit a 300 yard drive. 

Grip it and rip it


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## Fourputt

I hit 2 consecutive drives a couple of weeks ago that went 280 yards... GPS measured.. I wish I knew exactly where that swing came from as my typical drive is in the 240-250 range.


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## broken tee

Fourputt said:


> I hit 2 consecutive drives a couple of weeks ago that went 280 yards... GPS measured.. I wish I knew exactly where that swing came from as my typical drive is in the 240-250 range.


I'm happy when I hit your distance I average 220


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## Up North

Fourputt said:


> I hit 2 consecutive drives a couple of weeks ago that went 280 yards... GPS measured.. I wish I knew exactly where that swing came from as my typical drive is in the 240-250 range.


Were the batteries in that GPS fully charged and working properly? Unless they are fresh out of the box or properly charged you may not have driven the ball as far as you think you did. 

Just kidding Fourputt, thought I'd give you a bad time since you're bustin' Denominator's chops a little on the length of his drive.

Congrats on the drive Denominator, it feels good to rip one every once in a while. I hit one a couple months ago on a 348 yard par 4, left me with about 40 yards into the green on my next shot. Felt good, longest drive I've hit in a while. (Haven't hit one since either...LOL)

Buck


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## Fourputt

Up North said:


> Were the batteries in that GPS fully charged and working properly? Unless they are fresh out of the box or properly charged you may not have driven the ball as far as you think you did.
> 
> Just kidding Fourputt, thought I'd give you a bad time since you're bustin' Denominator's chops a little on the length of his drive.
> 
> Congrats on the drive Denominator, it feels good to rip one every once in a while. I hit one a couple months ago on a 348 yard par 4, left me with about 40 yards into the green on my next shot. Felt good, longest drive I've hit in a while. (Haven't hit one since either...LOL)
> 
> Buck


I wasn't so much busting his chops as I was just asking. 280 yards is a whale of a drive, even here in the Mile High City, and more power to anyone who can consistently hit a ball that far and in the general direction he's aiming. 

I play a hole on a course here that cards about 320, yet I've driven the green there, and often run the ball up within about 10-30 yards of it. I know for a fact that the hole doesn't actually measure much more than about 290 from the tees I play to the center of the green... but it was apparently measured quite creatively on the scorecard. Until I got a GPS I thought I was King Kong on that hole... now I know better.


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## broken tee

Fourputt said:


> I wasn't so much busting his chops as I was just asking. 280 yards is a whale of a drive, even here in the Mile High City, and more power to anyone who can consistently hit a ball that far and in the general direction he's aiming.
> 
> I play a hole on a course here that cards about 320, yet I've driven the green there, and often run the ball up within about 10-30 yards of it. I know for a fact that the hole doesn't actually measure much more than about 290 from the tees I play to the center of the green... but it was apparently measured quite creatively on the scorecard. Until I got a GPS I thought I was King Kong on that hole... now I know better.


That is still a hell of a drive if you are consistantlly getting to with in 10-30yards of the hole


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## Surtees

I wouldn't be to upset if i was get 40 yards of the hole with my drive. But with out having a gps we can only use the measurements that are given to us and try to work out our distances off that. I normally try to escape electroincs while on the course so I'll stick to me, my stick, good company and the distance markers.


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## Fourputt

Surtees said:


> I wouldn't be to upset if i was get 40 yards of the hole with my drive. But with out having a gps we can only use the measurements that are given to us and try to work out our distances off that. I normally try to escape electroincs while on the course so I'll stick to me, my stick, good company and the distance markers.


My only point is that the only way you can gauge the true length of any shot is to actually measure it, and the ONLY way to do that accurately IS with an electronic device. You can also get pretty close using the measurement function in Google Earth if your course is in an area where they have high resolution satellite photos. 

With the moving around of tee markers, and the creative, and often ego inspired distances on the scorecard, simply taking the card's figures at face value will almost never give you a number that's more than a rough approximation at best. I've seen holes where taking the card number will put you 40 yards off from reality. Cutting a dogleg can totally invalidate any calculation using the card length for a hole. 

I've hit to just 80 yards from the center of the green on the 18th hole on my home course. The card says it's 430 yards long. Subtracting that I just hit a 350 yard drive. NOT!!! The actual measured length of that drive in Google Earth is 300. What happened to the other 50 yards?


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## Surtees

the other 50 yards is waiting at the 19th
Now just to be pain full I disagree that you can only measure accurately using an electronic device. What about a metre wheel in the US I guess it would be a yard wheel. As you walk along pushing it along with you it clicks over metre by metre on a little non electronic gauge. Thats a good measurement too. Sorry Rick it's late and I need to go to bed and I just want to be painful. I'm really not to fussed how far I drive the ball it's the number that I write down on my score card that matters. but it does feel good to grip it and rip it as Denominator said.


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## broken tee

Fourputt said:


> My only point is that the only way you can gauge the true length of any shot is to actually measure it, and the ONLY way to do that accurately IS with an electronic device. You can also get pretty close using the measurement function in Google Earth if your course is in an area where they have high resolution satellite photos.
> 
> With the moving around of tee markers, and the creative, and often ego inspired distances on the scorecard, simply taking the card's figures at face value will almost never give you a number that's more than a rough approximation at best. I've seen holes where taking the card number will put you 40 yards off from reality. Cutting a dogleg can totally invalidate any calculation using the card length for a hole.
> 
> I've hit to just 80 yards from the center of the green on the 18th hole on my home course. The card says it's 430 yards long. Subtracting that I just hit a 350 yard drive. NOT!!! The actual measured length of that drive in Google Earth is 300. What happened to the other 50 yards?


 Did they remodel the course at any time?


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## Fourputt

Surtees said:


> the other 50 yards is waiting at the 19th
> Now just to be pain full I disagree that you can only measure accurately using an electronic device. What about a metre wheel in the US I guess it would be a yard wheel. As you walk along pushing it along with you it clicks over metre by metre on a little non electronic gauge. Thats a good measurement too. Sorry Rick it's late and I need to go to bed and I just want to be painful. I'm really not to fussed how far I drive the ball it's the number that I write down on my score card that matters. but it does feel good to grip it and rip it as Denominator said.


The wheel will give a bogus result if you use it on anything but a perfectly flat surface. Any hills or mounds will skew the results. That's why courses use laser rangefinders to measure the distances from the sprinklers and yardage markers to the green. What they don't do is measure from the tee to those markers. Even a hole that is accurately measured by laser is still only measured down the center of the fairway to the center point of any dogleg, then from that point to the green, so that yardage is only accurate if the hole is dead straight.



broken tee said:


> Did they remodel the course at any time?


Nope... the 18th is a sharp dogleg left and when you cut the corner over the fairway bunkers, you can cut 50 yards off the length of the hole. It takes a 250 yard carry to clear those bunkers to the 150 yard markers. If you hit exactly to the 150 markers, then you have 250 + 150 = 400. That is 30 yards short of the card length. The more you cut off the dogleg, the more you gain against the card yardage. My longest drive ever on that hole was 321 yards (but some of that was crossing to the far side of the fairway), and that left me just 50 yards to the center of the green.... or almost 60 yards short of the card length. But I could have hit to the near side of the fairway with a 290 yard drive and still had the same distance to the green (290 + 50 = 340 that's 90 yards short of the card yardage yet it's the same shot to the green). The card measurement of 430 yards is accurate when measured from the tee to the center of the dogleg, then from there to the center of the green.

That's what I mean when I say that using the scorecard for a measurement tool is pretty risky. Having and using an electronic rangefinding device is an eye opener. I thought I was a consistent 270 yard driver until I started measuring.... and found that I was a pretty average 240-250 even at over 5000 feet elevation.


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## broken tee

Rick, if your hitting 240-250 consistantlly you are really smacking the ball for our age group. :thumbsup: walk with pride Laddy, walk with pride.


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## Surtees

Of course if you are hitting over the trees on a dogleg the card distance means nothing. I don't know anyone that hits over the trees on a 350 m dogleg lands 30m from the green and then really believes that they just hit 320m


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## Fourputt

Surtees said:


> Of course if you are hitting over the trees on a dogleg the card distance means nothing. I don't know anyone that hits over the trees on a 350 m dogleg lands 30m from the green and then really believes that they just hit 320m


You haven't met some of the guys I know then...


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## Surtees

hahaha yes Rick we might joke that we just hit it over 300m but that about as far as we go with it.


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## broken tee

Oh my Gosh! you haven't figured this out yet


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## Surtees

Oh my gosh I haven't deceide if I should ban you for spamming lol.


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