Thank you to those who mentioned they read the Fun Facts section. It is appreciated!

This is a longer one but quite interesting. Every year Arccos releases an Annual Driving Distance Report. You can request the whole document here. I've pulled info from Lou Stagner's newsletter which you can find here.

Key Takeaways (per the newsletter)

Distance still matters. Always has, always will. Shorter hitters often look more accurate, but that is physics, not technique. Do not get hung up on fairways hit. Focus on keeping the ball in play. The biggest opportunity for improvement is reducing penalty and recovery situations.

As we age, we all tend to lose distance. I would encourage you to look into strength and mobility training as well as overspeed training to help fight off that distance loss. Your scores will thank you for that!

Now into the report...

Distance is Still Flat

For all the talk about distance gains in amateur golf, the data continues to say... not really.

In 2018, male players averaged 224.0 yards off the tee. In 2025, that number is 224.1. There is some wobbling in the data year-to-year, but overall, it’s essentially flat. For female players, the average went from 179.2 in 2018 to 175.7 in 2025.

Distance Declines With Age

This is no surprise, but there is a strong relationship between age and driving distance. The older we get, the shorter we tend to get.

A male player in their twenties with a 0 to 4.9 handicap averages 263 yards off the tee. By their seventies, that same profile drops to 209 yards. That is a 54-yard difference.

Accuracy Appears to Improve With Age, But There's More to It

At first glance, older players look more accurate. But that accuracy comes with a qualifier.

Low-handicap male players in their twenties hit 42 percent of fairways. By their seventies, that number rises to 60 percent.

This doesn’t mean they hit the ball straighter… hitting it shorter is a BIG contributor to hitting more fairways. Shorter shots produce smaller dispersions, which leads to more fairways. The gain in accuracy is more about physics.

This shows how average driving distance and fairway percent move in opposite directions as players get older.

Wayward Drives

This table shows how often players are hitting driver into a penalty or recovery situation. The lower the handicap, the more likely they are to keep the ball in play.

Players with a 0 to 4.9 handicap hit only 12 percent of drives into recovery or penalty situations. Players with a 30+ handicap hit 45.1 percent. Nearly one out of every two tee shots leads to a problem.

This is where scorecards go to die... Not in the rough, but in re-loading, punching out, or taking drops.