WATCHING the pros seemingly effortlessly blast their drives 300 metres or more can be deflating for the average amateur golfer.
You watch that on television – or probably worse in person – and then go back to your own game in the local comp at your club and your own efforts seem very puny by comparison.
The distance comparison was even more stark at the just completed season opening Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, where a number of drives were over 400 yards (though probably helped greatly by some of the severe sloping fairways at the Kapalua Resort).
It turns out amateurs everywhere should take heart, they may be mostly way behind the pros, but so are most of their contemporaries.
Figures published by Golf Digest and sourced from the people at Game Golf, the digital game analysing system, show a perhaps surprising lack of distance from the average amateur.
The figures, taken in 2016 from golfers all over the world, show the average driving distance is just 219.55 yards (and we’ll keep the quoted figures in yards for simplicity sake).
Other club distances showed the median 3-wood distance at 186.89 yards, 7-iron at 133.48 yards and pitching wedge at a 73.97 mark.
Unsurprisingly, as the table below shows, the average driving distance goes down as the handicap and age of players goes up.
