[Josh Smith]

Does it exist?  That would be a great stat in my opinion.  For a number of reasons.

[Ben Hollerbach]

While not 100% precise:

Total Distance - Carry Distance should get you close to what you want to know

[William_G]

a good topic for discussion of all golf shots except putting of course, LOL

[George Freeman]

I played yesterday and the range was negative 6 inches to positive 2 feet with the driver. Less than ideal. It's been quite soggy in Chicago lately...

[Anthony Fowler]

I quickly merged the two stats, and here's a quick summary:

The average roll on tour is 15.8 yards with a standard deviation of 4.1 yards.

There is a strong negative correlation between roll and carry. The longest hitters who carry the ball 300 yards only get about 8 yards of roll, on average. The shortest hitters who carry the ball 250 yards get about 22 yards of roll, on average. in general, for every extra 10 yards of carry, you see 2.7 less yards of roll. This relationship is fairly tight -- most players' roll is predicted within a few yards by their carry distance. I'm sure a lot of this is explained by the fact that longer hitters hit fewer fairways. You also have to think about the selected sample that we're looking at. If you only carry the ball 260 yards, the only way to make it on tour is to figure out how to get a lot of roll.

In case you're curious, we can look at the outliers -- those who get a lot more or less roll than you'd expect based on their carry distance. The biggest positive outliers (who get a lot of roll) are Jason Dufner, Rory Sabbatini, Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott, and Lucas Glover. The biggest outliers on the other side (who get very little roll) are Henrik Stenson, Phil Mickelson, Mark Wilson, D.H. Lee, and Luke Donald. I don't know if there's much to be learned from this. Based on watching them and their swings, you'd guess that Stenson and Mickelson spin the ball a lot on long shots and Dufner and McIlroy spin it less, and that seems to be bourn out in the data.

Josh, let us know if and why you have some deeper interest in this statistic.

[Richard Hetzel]

What would be interesting is if it could be disaggregated even more my brand of ball and spin rate as well.

[Mike_Young]

Seems to me it would almost have to be broken down by roll on specific holes to get a good stat.  While carry is only affected by wind and altitude, it seems the roll could be affected by the slope of the fairway, the height of the grass and the moisture levels and sprinkler heads. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Not to mention grain, as some courses mow back towards the tee in the LZ to limit roll and distance for the pros.  Also, recall both Dye and Fazio saying they build slight up slopes in the fw at the 295+ range to limit roll for longer players who land in that general region.

[Steve Lang]

  hmm, what goes up must come down... 

used to be players wanted roll out.. then courses grew the rough up,
then players wanted high flight to limit roll out to keep it in fairway, then courses narrowed the fairways
then players said closer the better, who cares, and now the out there guys (dare say outliers like Bubba and Rory) take it to the max and take carry and roll and play on..

i think they should cut the rough back down and widen the fairways, hmmm there used to be a course... 

[Carl Nichols]

Seems to me it would almost have to be broken down by roll on specific holes to get a good stat.  While carry is only affected by wind and altitude, it seems the roll could be affected by the slope of the fairway, the height of the grass and the moisture levels and sprinkler heads. 

The data are derived from a lot of drives hit on the

[Carl Nichols]

Seems to me it would almost have to be broken down by roll on specific holes to get a good stat.  While carry is only affected by wind and altitude, it seems the roll could be affected by the slope of the fairway, the height of the grass and the moisture levels and sprinkler heads. 

Agreed on an individual basis.  But the data Anthony looked at are the result of a lot of drives hit by guys playing the same holes with the same characteristics (for the most part), so the general conclusions Anthony derived seem completely legit.

[Ivan Lipko]

Roll is the result of landing angle, back spin and ball speed plus the turf conditions. Most guys with shorter carries hit it shorter in the air because their launch angle is lower hence the landing angle is lower as well, thus giving more roll. Those who hit it miles carry, hit the ball higher launch so it will naturally roll less, even with little backspin.

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