Good Drive Percentage
? Stat of the Day ?
In today’s ‘Stat of the Day’ segment, we are looking at ‘Good Drive Percentage’. It is defined as : “On Par 4 and Par 5’s, the number of fairways hit, plus the number of greens or fringe in regulation when the drive was not in the fairway on the tee shot divided by the number of par 4 and par 5’s played.”
This provides another metric to use as a ‘supporting variable’ when looking at your ‘off the tee’ performance, as this particular variable tries to include tee shots that are ‘good enough’ to be able to still hit the green or fringe in regulation.
In a similar way to ‘Driving Accuracy’ (which we covered here), Good Drive Percentage is binary and only looks at if the specific conditions are fulfilled. This means that it fails to catch certain nuances in our golf games, such as the distance you hit your tee shot, or the severity of the miss. Here are a few examples of this:
- A player hits a 300 yard drive off the tee and hits the fairway. This is included as a ‘Good Drive’. Another player hits a PW off the tee and also hits the fairway. These two tee shots are exactly the same in value according to the ‘Good Drive Percentage’ as they both fulfill the criteria.
- A player misses the fairway by 1 inch and then misses the green and fringe by 1 inch. Most likely, the player is in a very good position to make a par but according to the ‘Good Drive Percentage’, this was a bad drive as it didn’t fulfill any of the criteria. Meanwhile, another player hits the ball out of bounds off the tee. This is also a ‘bad drive’ as it doesn’t fulfill the criteria.
? By the numbers ?:
Good Drive Percentage
PGA Tour Average: 82.5%
Pac-12 Men’s Average: 84.5%
College Men: 83%
College Women: 85%
