From The
Editor
Bill Cromwell, Editor-in-Chief TEE TIMES GOLF GUIDE™ Magazine
You Crushed It!
It’ s always fun playing golf with friends when you tee off on a 420-yard par 4 and hear those scared words,“ Wow, you crushed it,” as you stripe one down the middle. But then, I get to your ball and realize I’ m still 194 yards from the green. I hit the drive 226 yards— crushed it— by whose standards?
Now, when I was 30, my drives usually went about 295 to 325 yards when I“ crushed it,” but who knew what zip code or fairway( or woods) they would land in. It was best in those days to play courses with back-and-forth fairways and very little timber lining them, or bring plenty of golf balls.
Still, my 76-year-old friend insists that I( age 70) crush drives, and on a good day, I can reach 245 yards off the tee— maybe 20 yards farther than his. However, on average, it’ s more like 230 yards if we’ re honest. It’ s easy to track my( or his) shot distances with my handy Bushnell GPS watch. Most importantly, I hit far more fairways now, leading to more pars than when I was 30.
Now, when the friend and I discuss“ crushing it,” it normally transitions to PGA TOUR players. They“ Crush it!”
In June, at the Rocket Classic, 20-year-old Aldrich Potgieter became the youngest winner from South Africa in PGA TOUR history. He can crush it! As a rookie this year, Potgieter leads the TOUR in driving distance. His average is just over 337 yards per drive, with his longest at the Rocket Classic was 374 yards— he“ crushed” it! Wow! Currently, Potgieter is more than 25 yards farther than the PGA TOUR’ s average driving distance.
Even crazier, I watched( on TV) Potgieter at the Rocket Classic hit 9-irons 194 yards on his approach shots to the greens. How is that possible? Average mid-handicap golfers hit 9-irons 110 to 125 yards. I would use a 5-wood for 194-yard shots. We mere mortals need not agonize. How far do amateurs really hit the ball? Arccos’ s news release in May announced,“ Arccos, the global leader in A. I.- powered golf performance tracking, on May 7, released the 2025 edition of its Annual Driving Distance Report. Now in its seventh year, the 32-page report is Arccos’ most comprehensive to date— drawing on more than four million rounds played by Arccos users worldwide in 2024 alone to offer a data-rich look at realworld amateur driving performance across age, gender and skill level. The report focuses exclusively on driver tee shots hit on par 4s and par 5s, automatically captured and verified through the Arccos platform. It analyzes total driving yardages( carry plus rollout) based on a random sample of 25,000 Arccos users and 6.5 million shots, both men and women.”
The report states that male golfers with a 0 – 4.9 handicap averaged 250 yards with their driver and hit 49.3 % of the fairways. Those with a handicap of 30-plus averaged 184.9 yards and hit 40.6 % of fairways. That’ s a 65-yard difference and nearly a nine-point gap in accuracy.
The women’ s driving data was similar, to a point. Women golfers in the 0 – 4.9 handicap group averaged 213.9 yards, compared to 140.5 yards for 30-plus handicaps— a difference of 73.4 yards. But accuracy didn’ t vary much. The best players hit 56.5 % of fairways, while the least accurate group( 15.0 – 19.9 handicaps) hit 54.7 %. For women, driving accuracy doesn’ t appear to relate strongly to handicap.
The full 32-page 2025 Edition of the Arccos Annual Driving Distance Report, including data visualizations and analysis by age, gender, and handicap, is available free at www. arccosgolf. com / pages / annual-driving-distance-report.
Most importantly, we are not tour players! Play the correct tees for your game and have fun— or play the tips for double bogey. Regardless, enjoy the game!
6 August 2025 TEE TIMES GOLF GUIDE
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