It’s a devilish par 3 with a forced carry of 185 yards to a pin tucked just behind a bunker.
That’s what your eyes are telling you, anyway. But can your eyes be trusted? How accurate is the average golfer when it comes to estimating yardages?
Within 5 yards? 10 yards? 20 yards?
PGA Tour professionals hole roughly 41% of putts from 10 feet, but that number drops to 5% for putts greater than 25 feet. You might have pured that 6-iron approach, but if your eyes aren’t perfectly calibrated, it’s likely costing you strokes. The point is, it pays to be close and getting it close starts with knowing the distance to the flag.
To get a sense of how accurate average golfers are when they eyeball distances, MyGolfSpy headed out to the course to dig up some answers.
DISCLAIMER: We did have a bit more fun that was likely absolutely necessary.
Brad
4 years ago
I have a Precision Pro range finder, and bought it based on MGS tests from a couple of years ago.
However, MGS have clearly made an ad here, either consciously or unconsciously. It seems the shine has worn off of the “independent” label MGS has always touted in the last year or so. I have started to take recommendations with a grain of salt unlike in the past. Not as much as some other clearly biased sites, but much more so than several years ago.
Kansas King
4 years ago
I would say you have to do some independent thinking and analysis with any organization that does testing, especially for golf. I don’t think MGS has bias because of ad revenue but more so because they are golf nuts like us. I’m not going to say there isn’t any influence because money is money. I think MGS does respectable testing for the most part but I never take their recommendations as gospel. For example, I don’t like that they value distance so much in iron and hybrid testing when distance control should be the primary directive for those clubs. It doesn’t make the testing invalid, it just means you have to look at the data yourself which I applaud MGS for giving us.
I do think MGS should periodically analyze their content and processes to ensure nothing appears overly biased (consciously or unconsciously) but for the most part things seem okay.