Fairway Stimpmeter

[Tha Living Legend]

I wish someone would invent a means of measuring the fairway conditions at tour stops. It should consider speed of the grass and the firmness of the soil.

 

Driving stats are very misleading unless you have a gauge of reference.

 

Maybe have an air cannon that fires a golf ball at 150mph with a 15* launch angle.

[Miboy62]

That would be a great job to have.

[JBones]

I would also love to see this. I was just having this conversation over the weekend. Around here, if I hit one 290, I carried it 285. If the guys on tour carry it 285, it's a 310+ drive. I've seen Phil hit 300yd 3Ws several times where the ball rolled a solid 30yds. Now, I'm in no way saying I can hit it as far as the tour players, but the driving distance are very misleading.

[Kanoito]

Same for me, I just hit 297 yard drive on Saturday (no idea how much carry + how much roll)

But that has never happened to me before.

 

I think my driver distance is maxed out at 270ish.

 

It was 474 yard straight PAR 4 and after the drive I only had around 170 yards left, so the math makes sense, but I still can't find the explanation.

 

I didn't realize temperature, humidity, fairway conditions, etc played that much of a role!

[JBones]

I didn't realize temperature, humidity, fairway conditions, etc played that much of a role!

It's amazing how much of a difference it makes. Around here, courses leave the fairways a little shaggier to combat the high heat and lack of rain during the summer. The longest drive I have ever hit was on a course that had just had a big tourney and they had the fairways cut real tight. I slaughtered a drive down the middle and it looked like it landed on the cart path with the bounce/roll I got. By the time it was all said and done, I was 63yds out on a 455yd par 4, which was a 392yd drive, per the GPS on the carts. Without exaggeration I would say I got a solid 80yds of roll. Also at that time I was 10years younger, with a 125mph swing, playing a 7*/48"/2X LD driver and I only hit the fairway once out of every 10 drives.

[btbgolf4]

The firmness of the fairways on tour are ridiculous. I average a 260-270 carry and that usually equates to around 280 yards total on my home turf, but I've played tournaments at courses where I've hit an indifferent drive 300+ yards due to roll. A couple of weeks ago I played one where it was really firm and there wasn't really a range and I hit a crappy drive that ended up around 300 on the first tee just cause of roll. The longest that day was on a 530 yard par 4 and I ended up having 170 in. The firmness makes all the difference.

[Tha Living Legend]

It would be really interesting for this week. The zoysia at AAC is hard to get firm and fast. The pros are not getting the roll that they are used to getting. This would be a perfect event for the fairway stimpmeter.