A post on this blog by ishmail66 on the Tendencies of Today’s Bombers got me to thinking about how driving distances of recent APBA golfers compare to those from the past. While recent APBA season cards seem to have lower Average W’s and more Player Result Numbers (PRNs) of 31 or higher in the W column, what does that look like in terms of driving distances?
Unfortunately, I don’t have any APBA data on Average Driving Distances, but I do have stats on the Longest Drive per Round for each golfer. As of this moment, my Game Caddie Record Book (GCRB) contains 1,037 rounds of Longest Drive information for APBA golfers from 1864 to 2021.
Here’s my list of “Top 20” Longest Drives per Round (*one per golfer per round):
Because of ties, the list actually contains 22 names, 16 of which are from 2019 or later. This is likely due, in part, to the disproportionate number of rounds played with golfers’ cards from 2019 – 2021 (659) vs. the years before (378). Interestingly, no 2020 golfers made the list (despite 273 rounds)!
Aside from the “Top 20,” how does the rest of the field look for the 2019 – 2021 group compared to earlier golfers? Here’s the breakdown:
As you can see, the average Longest Drive is 8.5 yards farther for the 2019 -2021 group compared to the rest. Likewise, the median drive is 10 yards longer for the more recent players. No player from before 2019 has hit a drive longer than 375 yards, while Patrick Reed (2019) has one of 380 yards and Hideki Matsuyama (2019) is the overall leader at 390 yards.
To get a better idea of the distribution of these two groups, I have created a density plot for each.
While the shape of the two distributions is similar, there are at least two important differences:
(1) Most of the Longest Drives for the 2019 – 2021 group occur in the 305 – 330-yard range, while for the 1864 – 2016 group it’s more like 295 to 315 yards.
(2) The 2019 – 2021 group shows a second “peak” at around 345 yards, while the other group steadily declines after peaking at about the 310-yard mark.
None of this is terribly shocking, but it does provide some empirical support to the notion that APBA golfers from the past few seasons drive the ball 5 – 10 yards farther, on average, than their predecessors. It also suggests that they are more likely to reach the 345-yard mark than APBA golfers from the past.