by Jaacob Bowden
Camillo Villegas' coach at the University of Florida, Buddy Alexander, always told Camillo, "When you start playing professional golf and move up the ranks, you're going to get shorter". Camillo says that what his coach meant by that was that when scoring becomes such a big priority, you tend to swing more for control than for distance.
The driving distance stats (on the day that I'm checking them) between the PGA Tour and Nationwide Tour seem to support this. The Nationwide Tour average is 288.7 yards with 14 guys averaging over 300 yards...the PGA Tour average is down at 285.9 yards with only 9 guys averaging over 300 yards.
For those of you that hit the ball over 260 yards (or even with enough distance to reach each green with an iron or hybrid from the tee boxes you like to play), you have enough distance to play good golf. The other day I played a round of golf with ONLY my 3-SW and still shot 73.
If you're at this level of distance and are truly interested in scoring lower, stop trying to hit it so far and quit worrying so much about distance. It's important only to a certain extent. In 2008, Corey Pavin had a lower scoring average (70.33 at 261.4 yards per drive) than Bubba Watson (70.79 at 315.1 yards per drive).
Rather, focus more time on your pitching, chipping, and putting. As long as you have "enough" distance relative to the tee boxes you play, you can still shoot par or better with a good short game.
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