235 yards carry = 325 yards drive !!!???!!!

[Philippe Binette]

I was watching the LA Open yesterday and on the 11th hole, the shot tracker was showing the carry distance followed by the total length of the drive...

I was seeing players after playger carrying the bal 230 - 240 and then get 80 to 100 yards of roll for 320 yards drive total....

I thought the players carried the ball about 260 - 270...

Is the 11th tee shot uphill

if not, they should mow the grass a little longer in the fairways to stop the ball.... instead of lengthening the courses.

[Alex Miller]

I was watching the LA Open yesterday and on the 11th hole, the shot tracker was showing the carry distance followed by the total length of the drive...

I was seeing players after playger carrying the bal 230 - 240 and then get 80 to 100 yards of roll for 320 yards drive total....

I thought the players carried the ball about 260 - 270...

Is the 11th tee shot uphill

if not, they should mow the grass a little longer in the fairways to stop the ball.... instead of lengthening the courses.

I saw that! I call BS on those distances though. The ball doesn't fly as far out here, but I'm sure those guys were carrying it at least 250-260. They still had a ton of roll though. I think Riviera was in great shape this weekend.

[JSlonis]

Philippe,

I would doubt that the Protracer gizmo they were using was accurate. I saw the same thing at the time and immediately thought it was wrong.  I've seen enough Trackman sessions and results to discount what they were showing on CBS.  I wouldn't put much stock into the yardages that were shown on TV.

[J_ Crisham]

Philippe,

I would doubt that the Protracer gizmo they were using was accurate. I saw the same thing at the time and immediately thought it was wrong.  I've seen enough Trackman sessions and results to discount what they were showing on CBS.  I wouldn't put much stock into the yardages that were shown on TV.

JSlonis,  I agree- on the 17th tee Jacobson hit 3 wood for position and they had it at 211 yds. Admittedly it is uphill but  in comparison he had 230yds left on his approach to 18 and hit 4 iron to the front left rough. The tracker must have been on the fritz yesterday.

[astavrides]

Philippe,

I would doubt that the Protracer gizmo they were using was accurate. I saw the same thing at the time and immediately thought it was wrong.  I've seen enough Trackman sessions and results to discount what they were showing on CBS.  I wouldn't put much stock into the yardages that were shown on TV.

JSlonis,  I agree- on the 17th tee Jacobson hit 3 wood for position and they had it at 211 yds. Admittedly it is uphill but  in comparison he had 230yds left on his approach to 18 and hit 4 iron to the front left rough. The tracker must have been on the fritz yesterday.

yeah, that Jacobson drive in particular it looked they messed up the yardage on.

[Bryan Izatt]

I saw this too.  First time I've seen this feature.  I hope they keep doing it.

I saw three instances and the 235 carry for 325 total distance certainly got my attention.  The three drives I saw had carries of 235, 245, and 271 (Schwartzel, I think)  and total distances somewhere around 325, 285 (ended in a bunker) and 315 respectively.  I saw one other where someone hit a tree - the carry was like 255 and the total was 255 which sounded reasonable.  The carry yardage stopped when the ball hit the ground.  The roll out distances were huge (except when they hit a bunker or the rough). The lower trajectory shots had more roll out.  The higher ones less.  Seems reasonable to me. 

In a 2009 study Swingman Golf reported that on the PGA Tour "The average shot hit with a driver carried 260 yards and traveled a total of 287.3 yards, including the roll."  The results yesterday at Riviera are not so unusual given these averages.  Riviera was reportedly playing very firm and fast yesterday, so the roll outs were large.

Makes me feel better about my 210 - 220 yard carries.  Now if only I played on courses where my average roll out was 27 yards that'd be nice. 

I guess maybe it's not ALL about the ball.   

[Greg Taylor]

Saw it too - that thing was defo not working or calibrated...

[Terry Lavin]

Whatever fault one finds with their methodology, there's no doubt that the ball bounced and rolled a loooong way. From a setup perspective F&F can lead to some sick driving distances.

[Bryan Izatt]

Saw it too - that thing was defo not working or calibrated...

Which part do you think was wrong?  The total distance; the roll out; or the carry distance?  Or, all three?  As Terry says, the roll outs seemed to go on a loooong ways, so unless the total distance was wrong, the carry can't be too far off.

[Alex Miller]

Saw it too - that thing was defo not working or calibrated...

Which part do you think was wrong?  The total distance; the roll out; or the carry distance?  Or, all three?  As Terry says, the roll outs seemed to go on a loooong ways, so unless the total distance was wrong, the carry can't be too far off.

What makes you take the roll out at face value? 60 yards looks like 90 yards on those cameras. I think the total distance was probably correct, but the carry and therefore roll distances seemed off to me.

[Peter Ferlicca]

I am not buying it one bit.  The first one I saw of John Merricks Drive on #11 with the 235 carry, I instantly thought that was wrong.  

Think about when they play courses that are wet, and get no roll (especially when they are playing lift, clean and place).  Trust me pros are carrying the ball more than 265 yards EVERY TIME.  When Rory McIlroy (he is longer than most) was playing at Congressional for the 2011 US OPEN when they were getting NO ROLL, on the 480 yd Par 4's he was still only having a 6 or 7 iron in to the green at best.  

I mean come on lets think about this.  Even at Crooked Stick last year for the BMW championship they were playing lift clean and place and no one was hitting 4 or 5 irons into the par 4's, and if they were only having 235 yard carries, that would leave themselves 200+ into the greens every time on long par 4's.  

[Bryan Izatt]

Alex,

Because, as an engineer, I believe in technology.    I think that eye-balling distances based on oblique camera angles is next to useless.  60 may look like 90 to you, but equally 90 could look like 60.

If you still have the recording, here's a little exercise to go through.  Put a stop watch on the roll out.  How far would a ball roll in that time?    If initially it's bouncing along at 50 mph, that's about 25 yards per second to start. Some of the roll outs seemed to me to last about 4 to 5 seconds, but I don't have the recording to check.  

[Bryan Izatt]

I am not buying it one bit.  The first one I saw of John Merricks Drive on #11 with the 235 carry, I instantly thought that was wrong.  

Think about when they play courses that are wet, and get no roll (especially when they are playing lift, clean and place).  Trust me pros are carrying the ball more than 265 yards EVERY TIME.  When Rory McIlroy (he is longer than most) was playing at Congressional for the 2011 US OPEN when they were getting NO ROLL, on the 480 yd Par 4's he was still only having a 6 or 7 iron in to the green at best.  

I mean come on lets think about this.  Even at Crooked Stick last year for the BMW championship they were playing lift clean and place and no one was hitting 4 or 5 irons into the par 4's, and if they were only having 235 yard carries, that would leave themselves 200+ into the greens every time on long par 4's.  

The 2009 study says the average carry on Tour was 260 yards.  That's what the stats say.  Anecdotally we have all seen things that don't match up to long term averages, but the stats are the stats.  Merrick is right near the middle of the pack in driving distance.  IIRC, the trajectory on the 235 yard shot was low.  Maybe he was purposely playing a low runner shot and hence the lower carry.  Schwartzel carried it 271 yards.  Do you think that was wrong too?

[JESII]

Bryan,

Did you notice Jacobsen on 17?

His drive said 185 or so in the air and 211 total. The hole measures 590. He hit that same 3 wood to about 100 yards...something didn't add up.

[Bryan Izatt]

Bryan,

Did you notice Jacobsen on 17?

His drive said 185 or so in the air and 211 total. The hole measures 590. He hit that same 3 wood to about 100 yards...something didn't add up.

No, I didn't see that one.  I was tuning in and out.

[Bryan Izatt]

Those numbers were nonsense.  Yes, the ball wasn't carrying in that air, but the only way to carry a ball 235 and have it roll 100 yards is to hit a bullet, and drive of Merrick's was no bullet. Frankly, I doubt he even KNOWS how to have a driver carry only 235.  I'd have loved to see a swing speed and ball speed and launch angle reading on that drive.  I guarantee it'd have shown a ball that will carry 265 every time, even in the worst sort of air. 

Maybe, but no one so far has any substantive evidence that the numbers are nonsense.  They don't fit in our preconceived notions of how far these guys hit the ball, so they can't be true seems to be the logic.  I stand to be corrected, but until then I think these numbers could be correct. I'll ask you the same question as I asked Alex, which number do you think was wrong or were all of them wrong.  We all seem to readily accept that the total distance at 325 is OK because that fits in our preconceived notions of Tour distance.  It was 35 yards further than Merrick hits it on average, so maybe it was wrong too.

How do you know you can trust the Trackman launch parameters if they'd happened to have had them on that tee too?  You do know that when you have "swing speed and ball speed and launch angle readings" for a shot, that the carry distance is derived from a mathematical formula that may or may not reflect how the ball flies in that particular location and weather conditions of that day.  Any idea which way the wind was blowing on the hole in question?

[JESII]

Bryan,

The evidence is that on 17 Jabosen hit his first two shots 490 yards, both with a 3 wood.

The Trackman thing told us his first one went 211 which leads to the second going 279.

He was not too disappointed with the contact/flight of his tee shot...how else could this disparity be explained?

[Scott_Burroughs]

I saw Mahan's drive on 17, they had 245 carry and 300 total, and the ball DID NOT ROLL 55 yards.  It rolled 20-25 tops, about the length of the fairway bunker it landed by.

[J_ Crisham]

Bryan,

The evidence is that on 17 Jabosen hit his first two shots 490 yards, both with a 3 wood.

The Trackman thing told us his first one went 211 which leads to the second going 279.

He was not too disappointed with the contact/flight of his tee shot...how else could this disparity be explained?

Bryan,   I posted earlier(#3) regarding Jacobsens tee ball on 17 with his 3 wood.  It finished about 30 yds from the right fairway bunker. When I played Riviera I recall the carry on the right bunker to be about 295yds. This would put his 3 wood in the neighborhood of 255-270 which is pretty likely off a tee. As I stated before he hit 4 iron 235 on his approach to 18 which is slightly uphill from where he was positioned. No way he hit his tee shot 211 yds off a tee with a 3 wood- it was a bullet up the right center of the fairway.

[Bryan Izatt]

Scott,

The bunker is 30 yards long.  Camera angles can be deceiving.


Jim and Jack,

Again, I didn't see the Jacobson's shot so it's hard to give a perspective.  Did the commentators comment on his choice of a 3 wood off the tee on a 590 yard par 5?  Did he hit the drive high or low?  Did it hit the fairway or was it in the rough?  Could he have gotten a turbo boost on the second shot?

If the end of the bunker is 295 and the bunker is 30 yards long and he was 30 yards short of the bunker that would suggest that the drive was 235 and not 211, but again it's tough to gauge distances from camera angles that we see.

As far as I can tell the ProTracer technology tracks the motion of the ball in the camera image and translates that somehow to distance.  I suppose that on 17 that ball could disappear from the image before it actually lands because of the rise in the fairway and hence provides a false low on the carry distance.  But this is only speculation on my part.  I suppose, if we had had the presence of mind at the time we could have checked the Shotlink data to corroborate the drive distance (although that wouldn't help with the carry distance.

[Pat Burke]

I thought I read somewhere that Jacobsen hit 5 wood on 17?  No?
I couldn't believe how short of the bunker he was.

I use a CG2 launch monitor at work, which seems very accurate.

I have had really mixed results with TrakMan.  It always seems short on the carry to me.

I carry the ball right about 260, sometimes numbers are way down to 235 on TrakMan

Maybe I have Doppler envy

[Bryan Izatt]

Pat,

Now, don't go and ruin my faith in Trackman technology.   

Do you use Trackman indoors or outdoors?  If it's indoors than there is some kind of algorithm that calculates carry.  That make screw up the results.  If you're using it outdoors it should be accurate as it tracks the whole flight, although I guess the background might occasionally mess things up.

BTW, the ProTracer technology that is being discussed here is NOT Trackman and is not doppler radar based as far as I can tell.  Their website, out of Sweden, is not very informative about the technology, but seems to be based on tracking the ball movement in the video image.

[Greg Tallman]

I thought I read somewhere that Jacobsen hit 5 wood on 17?  No?
I couldn't believe how short of the bunker he was.

I use a CG2 launch monitor at work, which seems very accurate.

I have had really mixed results with TrakMan.  It always seems short on the carry to me.

I carry the ball right about 260, sometimes numbers are way down to 235 on TrakMan

Maybe I have Doppler envy

What do you think the average carry distance on tour is? Not the tournament measured distances but if a guy had to hit it as far as he could what is the avaerage carry?

My guess is 285ish with 20 or so that can carry it 300+ and about the same number who would struggle to get over 270.

[Jason Topp]

What do you think the average carry distance on tour is? Not the tournament measured distances but if a guy had to hit it as far as he could what is the avaerage carry?

My guess is 285ish with 20 or so that can carry it 300+ and about the same number who would struggle to get over 270.

The PGA Tour website used to have this data but for some reason it disappeared at the beginning of this season.  http://www.pgatour.com/content/pgatour/stats/stat.02409.html

I hope it is a programming error and not an intentional choice.  I found the data pretty interesting.

[Greg Tallman]

What do you think the average carry distance on tour is? Not the tournament measured distances but if a guy had to hit it as far as he could what is the avaerage carry?

My guess is 285ish with 20 or so that can carry it 300+ and about the same number who would struggle to get over 270.

The PGA Tour website used to have this data but for some reason it disappeared at the beginning of this season.  http://www.pgatour.com/content/pgatour/stats/stat.02409.html

I hope it is a programming error and not an intentional choice.  I found the data pretty interesting.

I think the real number would be considerably higher/longer than the stats from actual events where guys are trying to get the ball in play. My question is more along the lnes of how far they CAN carry the ball. more relevant to tha average guy who is trying to hit it as far as they can on every drive.