Driving Distances - 1953

[Jason Topp]

An interesting study by Robert Trent Jones measuring tee shots from the 1953 US Open.

http://turf.lib.msu.edu/1950s/1953/531105.pdf

Fairway was 41 yards wide, downhill for 300 yards.  Wind quartering right to left helping.  

Average carry distance - 240
Average carry and roll distance - 261
Accuracy - 46 of 59 hit the fairway


Conclusion - the hole (at 461 yards) is no longer a terror but instead a comfortable par four that can be reached with an iron and depends on green contours to defend par.

The chart at the end shows carry and roll distances for each player in the field.

[Michael Moore]

Most players reached with an iron in 1953.

[BCrosby]

Fascinating.

Note that the hole played downhill from the tee and that there was a helping wind that increased distances "5 to 8 yards".

Hogan, the best player of the era, hit it 265. That left him an  uphill approach at just under 200 yards. He hit a 3i, maybe a 2i second?

And this is a hole that used to terrorize golfers but now  - in 1953 - plays like a normal par 4, according to RTJ?

Boy, have things changed.

We don't have par 4's today that require long iron approaches for the best players of our era. To get them to hit 3i approaches today, the 18th at Oakmont would have to be about 100 yards longer than in 1953. (That comes out to about 2 yards per year since then, which sounds about right.)

Bob

[Bill_McBride]

If I'm not mistaken, Bob, that would make #18 maybe 535 yards.  It's probably not possible, however, as that is a 330 yard drive and 205 yard 6 iron for today's top players.  I don't think we will ever see 3 irons to par 4 greens again at the highest level of the game.  Too bad.

The good news at Oakmont, then and now, is that the fun just starts once you arrive at the first green!  The greens and surrounds keep par an honest number at Oakmont.

[Craig_Rokke]

If driving distances have increased, say, 20% over those 50 years, is it logical to conclude that tour pros will be averaging 400 yards off the tee in another 50 years?

[JohnV]

If driving distances have increased, say, 20% over those 50 years, is it logical to conclude that tour pros will be averaging 400 yards off the tee in another 50 years?

Not sure where you get 20% from.  The median drive on PGA Tour this year is 289 yards (I'm too tired to figure out the average).  So that is 10.7% increase over the 261 yards that was measured in 1953.

[T_MacWood]

John
The average drive in 1953 was not 260 yards. The average drive at the 18th at Oakmont was 260 yards--downhill with a helping breeze.

My guess is the average drive in 1953 was around 250 (perhaps a little less); the average today around 300 (perhaps a little less). That would be 20% more or less.

[JESII]

I'll give you the 300, a 20% increase gets to 360. So the answer is no.

[JohnV]

Ok, so I'm not as tired as I thought.

The average drive on the PGA Tour on the measured holes is 289.14 yards so I won't give you 300.

In the article he said that the data "included some poor drives which were not characteristic".  These would have lowered the average.  Also, in the article he says the wind helped 5-8 yards so if we subtract 7 yards we would still be at 254, which means that there has been a 13.7% increase.  If we go to 250 as you say, that is a 15.7% increase.

A 20% increase would be 346 yards.
A 13.7% increase would be 329 yards.
A 15.7% increase would be 334 yards.

[Wayne_Kozun]

The increase in distance has accelerated in recent years.  The PGA web site has stats back to 1980.  In 1980 the average driving distance was 256 yards.  In 1995 this increased to 263 yards and in 2005 it is now 289 yards.  So from 1980-95 the increase only averaged about 0.5 yards per year.  In the last 10 years that has accelerated to 1.6 yards per year.  If we continue to see that same absolute increase then in 2053 we will see an average driving distance of 369 yards.

However given the limit in the COR and driver head size plus the possibility of a change in the golf ball I would bet that we will see the increases slow in the future.

[T_MacWood]

John
The average drive in 1980 was 256, do you think 253 is reasonable for '53? Don't forget the 18th is downhill.

My guess the average drive in 1953 was closer to 240 (a 20% increase would be 288). Don't tell me you've got your head burried in the sand too. Is it a USGA thing...that compels you to question the increases in the last decade?

[Bob_Huntley]

I had a chat today with Frank Souchak, a fellow member at MPCC. Frank is probably in his early ninties now but remembers the 1953 US Open as if it were yesterday. He recalled that he thought he was the longest driver in the field and the only amateur to make the cut. He led Hogan on the third day and finished tenth.

 He reminded me that the pro at Oakmont in those days was Lew Worsham and when they played, Frank gave him a shot a side.

[BCrosby]

RTJ's agenda in the article is to show that long par 4's aren't a big deal. That was an important point for him because "monster" holes were becoming one of his trademarks. So I take RTJ's numbers with a grain of salt. He had a vested interest in the pros hitting it a long way. Which is not to say that he was making stuff up. But RTJ had fish to fry and had more than a purely objective interest in his results.

I can't imagine that average driving distances on the Tour in '53 were much north of 245.

Bob

 

[Patrick_Mucci]

In 1953 irrigation systems were rudimentary, at best.

Fairways usually went brownish, greenish, yellow in the summer.

And roll was more a factor of the weather than course preperation.

Early morning to morning players encountered wet fairways, vis a vis dew.

Statistics, absent information on factors that influenced driving distance can be misleading.

BCrosby,

I doubt many players, if any players could carry the ball 245 in 1953.

Bunkers were usually around the 230 mark.
I believe it was Nicklaus and his peers that were the impetus to move them back to about 250.

In 1953 everyone wanted to swing like Gene Littler, smooth, controlled.  Distance was always desired, but not the focus of the game that it is today.

Palmer was the first to advocate swinging as hard as possible  at the ball, for junior golfers, advising them to work on their accuracy as they played and practiced more

[BCrosby]

Pat -

If you have a wide enough data sample, those variables all come out in the wash. The problem with stats pre-60's isn't that there were more variables back then, it's that you don't have a big data base to pull from.

Nonetheless, the RTJ piece is a fascinating glimpse of things circa 1953, flaws and all.

I agree about the 245 number. I was trying to give JohnV the benefit of every doubt. I too suspect it was much lower.

Bob

[JESII]

John
The average drive in 1980 was 256, do you think 253 is reasonable for '53? Don't forget the 18th is downhill.

My guess the average drive in 1953 was closer to 240 (a 20% increase would be 288). Don't tell me you've got your head burried in the sand too. Is it a USGA thing...that compels you to question the increases in the last decade?

Where does John question increases in the last decade?

The question posed by Craig Rokke was "If driving distances have increased, say, 20% over those 50 years, is it logical to conclude that tour pros will be averaging 400 yards off the tee in another 50 years?"

John simply pointed out that the numbers were off. I actually don't see any subjectivity in his posts at all.  

[Craig_Rokke]

The figure of "400 yards" was probably a little higher than I
should have chosen. Certainly , huge distance gains have been made in the last 15 years.

At any point, will diminishing returns in the distance war kick in, or can we expect tow-missile-type driver distances several decades from now?

[T_MacWood]

JES
It appeared to me he was trying to say driving distances have only increased by 10% since 1953....relatively minor increase in the last fifty years.

[JohnV]

Tom / David,

You theorize that the pros hit it 240 in 1953.  In 1980 they averaged 256 according to published data.

I think it is safe to assume that the equipment in 1980 was very similar if not the same as the equipment in 1953, persimmon drivers and balata balls.  Therefore, what do you think could have accounted for your projected 16-yard increase from 1953 to 1980?  Better conditioned athletes?  Better turf conditions?

If anything, 1980 was an era of the soft, wet, green golf course vs 1953 when irrigation was less, so the ball should have rolled less in 1980.

Even if you are correct, there was a 6.67% gain in 27 years where there was no great technological change and a 12.9% gain in the 25 years since.  Given that we might have seen a similar 6.6% increases for the same reasons, that would mean about a 6% increase is due to the new technology.  This does mean that the rate of change has doubled.  But, as others have said, the limits that are in place now will slow that rate of growth.  If anything we are 25 years ahead of where we would be with no significant technological changes.

[BCrosby]

JohnV -

My recollection was that there was steady, incremental improvement in shafts and balls from the 50's through the 80's.

The shafts on my father's old Haig Ultras from '55 were much heavier than shafts just ten years later.

Certainly the balatas I played in 1980 were much better balls than the ones I played in the early 60's. Different dimpling, rounder, less subject to cutting (which suggests that their skins must have been of a different composition).

None of those changes were revolutionary in the way graphite, titanium and Pro V's have been, but they were real  improvements nonetheless.

Bob

[JohnV]

Bob,

Good points.  Given that, who is to say that similar non-radical changes would not have occurred giving a similar increase as my last paragraph stated.  Therefore, only half the change could be attributed to the newer fancier changes and if a similar non-radical improvement happened over the next 25 years we would be in same place in 2030 as we are today.  So, all this buzz over technology is over a 6% increase in 25 years which would coulhd have been expected to occur in the next 25 naturally.

I'm being somewhat of a devil's advocate in this, but I'm trying to point out that there are a lot of people who say the sky is falling because of the new technology and I say you either buy the fact that distance in 1953 was longer than you thought or that the change due to new technologies might not be as great.

[TEPaul]

David Moriarty asked;

"Does anyone really doubt whether the top pros today hit their driver 20% further than they did in 1953?"

Yes, I do. The top pros today hit their driver only 15.6% further than they did in 1953. And I have no doubt that in 2011 the top pros will only hit their driver 12.4% further than they did in 1953. The contributing factors to this decrease in distance from 2005 will not be a competition ball it will be a few new I&B rules and regs on the ball and on the clubhead, as well as a new PGA TOUR policy to ban all fitness trailers from TOUR stops and put Mobile MacDonalds@ in their place. Finchem is concerned about lagging revenue with the PGA TOUR in the future and he's in the final stages of a 20 year contract with MacDonalds that will bring $947 million to the TOUR over the contract. They say TV makes people look 10% heavier than they really are, and in 2011 TOUR players will look 3.2% heavier on TV than they did in 2005. Some are already saying in 2011 the TOUR pros will look 13.2% heavier on TV than they did in 2005 but personally I think the people who say stuff like that are just total alarmists who are pulling numbers out of their butts.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

I like where you are going with this.

Food companies will line up to be sponsors with the new PGA logo:

"Grip it and eat it."

Bob

[JESII]

http://www.mathdl.org/images/upload_library/5/100multiParameterAnimation/mile_record_scatter.html

Please check this link and explain how technology is ruining this sport.

Because I sure don't feel like running anymore.

[A.G._Crockett]

Running is an instructive comparison to the changes in golf, at least in the sense that running now seems to have arrived at some limitation of human capacity.  The increments of improvement are now very small and widely spread for the mile run.  

To the extent that driving distance is related to bigger, stronger athletes learning to swing a driver faster, there IS a ceiling to that.  Whether or not we are at or near that ceiling remains to be seen, but to NOT factor in the changes in the type of athlete and the techniques of swinging a club in the current debate over distance is silly.  Unfortunately, it happens here all the time!

To decide what to do about a perceived problem without understanding both the causes AND the limitations of those causes is the worst sort of ignorance, and will inevitably lead to poor decision-making.

(P.S. I realize that the interplay in golf with the technology of the ball and the club is very, very different than running, so don't point that out to me!  That's not the point.