Shortfall: Latest Arccos distance study shows near-zero growth since 2018 for average golfers

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Here’s a deeper look inside more of Arccos’ driving numbers:

Skill powers distance. Better players (those with handicaps under 5) were consistently the longest in the survey group. Across all age groupse, those low-handicaps were an average of 35 percent longer (some 63 yards!) than 30-plus handicaps. They also were 10 yards longer than 5-10 handicaps, 21 yards longer than 10-15 handicaps and 45 yards longer than 20-25 handicaps.

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Age will do more than any rollback could ever do. According to Arccos data, there’s an average of 50 yards lost between the youngest and oldest golfers in the survey, with those in their teens averaging 240 yards and those in their 70s averaging 190 yards. What’s telling is that the distance drop-off becomes precipitous as you move into your 50s. Players in their 40s had only lost 10 yards compared to teenaged versions of themselves, but it was 21 yards in their 50s, 34 yards in their 60s and half a football field in their 70s. Women golfers lost 43 yards between the youngest and oldest groups in the survey.

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Seniority equates to accuracy. Older players lost distance based on Arccos’s numbers but they were finding more fairways. Players in their 60s and 70s averaged 52 and 56 percent in fairways hit, while players in their teens and 20s hit the short grass less than 40 percent of the time.

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Skill isn’t everything, but it helps enormously. According to the company’s research, the lowest handicaps are only about 10 percentage points more accurate in terms of fairways hit than 30-plus handicaps (50 percent vs. 40 percent). But those misses hurt more the worse you are. Arccos data showed that the percentage of wayward tee shots (those that found a hazard, OB or resulted in a punch out) was the lowest with players sporting a handicap of 5 or less (just 12 percent) and was the highest among those with handicaps of 30 or higher (45 percent). Even average golfers (10-15 handicap) had nearly double the number of wayward tee balls vs. low-handicappers. Throw in the fact that low-handicappers were 21 yards longer than 10-15 handicaps and 63 yards longer than 30-plus handicaps, and you can easily see that if you want that handicap to come down, straight and long beats short and crooked every time.

According to the company, Arccos systems have captured data on 1.5 billion shots since its inception more than a decade ago. The company launched its first sensor-less stat-tracking system earlier this year.