What is the Average Driving Distance?

Last updated on February 16, 2021

Did you know that the average driving distance has many variations? The driving distance can be pretty huge when you watch live golf matches on TV. An average PGA tour player can hit a golf ball really precise & hard and that results in a great tee shot. Unfortunately amateur golfers can’t get the ball that far, not even all pro players can. If you want to have a good image of your average driver distance, then this is the article for you to read.

Average Driving Distance in General

An average PGA Tour player can hit the ball within the 290 yard-range. This is not the range for the amateur golfers, because they don’t hit their driver that far. The USGA Distance Insight Report measured the average driver distance for men and women. Lou Stagner crunched new numbers in October 2020. According to his tweet the average driving distance for all men golf players is 217 yards! This number is an improvement, because back in 2017 the average distance was 208 yards. The average number for women is 148 yards, also an impressive number!

In 1996 the average driving distance was 200 yards for all men golf players. That means that in 25 years the average is increased by 17 yards.

Differences Between Men and Women

As you can read above, the average driving distance between men and women varies. Like in every other sport, women have a muscle build that differs from men. But 148 yards is still an impressive average number! The longest drive is 261.5 yards for women, and 341.4 for men. Here are the men and women average driving charts, so you can see all scores clearly:

Average Driving Distance by Age

Everyone has their own way of playing golf. The swing, angle, speed and more can vary a lot between all the golf players. There can be a big difference between people’s driver distance by age. We have spoken about the differences between men and women, but this is also an important factor that results in different average driving distances. When you get older you have less power, but when you are too young your muscles are not fully developed.

There are numbers from Arccos Golf in 2019 which are calculated in average by age. Between 20 to 29 years the golf players have the furthest average distance. The average drive of this age category was 239.7 yards. How older the players become, the more the average decreases. We can see big differences between the age categories starting from the 50’s. The muscles are getting weaker each decade.

Here are the average driving distances by age:

10-19: Average of 234.2 yards
20-29: Average of 239.7 yards
30-39: Average of 233.7 yards
40-49: Average of 225.9 yards
50-59: Average of 215.4 yards
60-69: Average of 204.5 yards
70 and up: Average of 190.4 yards

Average Driving Distance by Handicap

Like said before, there is much difference between pro and amateur golfers. But for real, the gap is huge between the lowest- and highest handicapped players. We got a chart for you with data from 1996 to 2019. You can see the average driver distance for each year and each handicap (range).

You can see two topping out averages in the chart, in 1999-2000 and 2004-2005. A partial reason for these higher averages are the technical equipment improvements. From 1999-2000 there were new golf balls on the market. We still use these ‘liquid-filled’ golf balls nowadays. From 2004-2005 the club manufacturers were changing the club thickness and were making more variation between club weights.

Here is the chart for the average distance by handicap:

You can also see the huge gap between pro and amateur golfers. If you want to get your driving distance at a pro level you have to practice a lot.

Do You Want to Increase Your Average Driver Distance?

The driving range is the place to be if you want to improve your driving skills with a driver. I recommend you to have a teacher that can tell you exactly how to have a proper technique etc. If you think you don’t need a teacher, then watch videos or read articles about how to improve this skill. We already have gathered a video for you:

Summary

We can conclude that the average driving distance primarily depends on gender, age and handicap. This is because men have more muscles than women, younger people mostly have more power than older people and pro golf players have far more experience with playing the sport.

Bryson DeChambeau has the highest average driving distance this season. His score is 329.2 yards! This is over 100 yards more than the average amateur male golf player has. This gap is huge, but don’t worry. There are pro players out there that have an average tee score around 275 yards, but still are major champions.