Using Arccos data tracking golfers who maintain an 11-15 handicap as they age, MyGolfSpy found that penalty strokes drop off earlier (starting in the 40s), short game and putting more weight in the 50s, and by the 60s-70s golfers are playing courses around 470 yards, even though the driver’s distance isn’t getting any shorter – even if the distance of the pilots is not shorter. change first.
A few weeks ago, we saw how driver distance changes as golfers age. That article started telling me that many golfers are thinking the same things.
How much distance do I have to lose? When does it start? What if I’m already shorter than I want to be?
The numbers were not particularly comforting. For golfers in the 10 to 14.9 handicap range, the average driver distance drops about 45 yards from the 20s to the 70s, with the biggest losses coming in the 50s and 60s.
There is good news. Distance is only part of your game.
As part of our Smarter Golf series with ArchesWe turned to the data to see what happens everywhere in the game as golfers age. We focused mainly on golfers with a handicap index of 11 to 15. The average index in that group remains almost identical in all age groups, so we can see how a 12 handicap in their 30s compares to a 12 handicap in their 60s or 70s.
An important note: these are different golfers, not the same golfers followed for 40 years. We compare golfers of different ages who have reached almost the same handicap.
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In your 40s, the penalties start to decrease before the distance
The under 30 golfer in this group averages 238 yards off the tee. At 40, it’s still 231 yards, just seven yards shorter.
The penalty kicks are already starting to move in the other direction.
The under 30 group averaged 2.11 penalty shots per round. Golfers in their 40s dropped to 1.88. From the 50s, it is 1.53 and from the 60s, 1.16.
Some of it is physics. A shorter shot has less opportunity to get into trouble and the fairways hit start to increase as the distance goes down. But the timing is interesting. The improvement of the penalty starts before the loss of really significant distance.
And it doesn’t just happen with 11 to 15 handicaps. Golfers 60 and older take fewer penalty strokes than golfers under 40 in every handicap group in the data. The reduction ranges from 34 percent for scratch five handicaps to more than 50 percent for many of the higher handicap groups.
By the time the larger distance losses arrive, these golfers are already doing a better job of keeping costly mistakes off the card.
In your 50s, where the shots come from starts to change
The 50s are where the loss of distance becomes harder to ignore. The average distance of the driver drops from 231 yards in the 40s to 221 in the 50s. At the same time, putting and short game begin to contribute more.
Compared with the group under 30, golfers in their 50s are about a third of a better shot around the green and about a third of a better shot put. From 70 plus, those differences increase to 0.72 shots around the green and 0.85 putting.
Approach performance is almost flat from below 30 to 70 plus. Even off the tee performance is only about 0.4 strokes worse over that length, despite the significant difference in driver distance.
So losing 30 or 40 yards doesn’t appear as a complete collapse in the long game.
By your 60s and 70s, the golf course changes, too
The older golfers in this data who are still in the 11 to 15 handicap range do not play the same yardage as the younger golfers in that group.
The under 30 group plays courses averaging 6,370 yards. From 70 over, that drops to 5,904 yards, nearly 470 yards shorter.
If you’ve lost 30 or 40 yards off the tee, that’s part of the adjustment. Time to change tees. The handicap differential barely changes in the age groups because the course rating and slope already count the tees played.
Older golfers who still play at roughly the same handicap as the younger group also play a course length that best suits the distance they have now.
So what changes first?
Looking at the data by decade makes the progression much easier to see.
In the 40s, the penalty kicks start to decrease before the distance is gone. In the 50s, the decrease in distance becomes more noticeable and putting and the short game start to count more than performance. By the 1960s and 1970s, golfers were playing shorter courses and hole-in-ones became less common.
Approaching the performance, meanwhile, barely moves.
This does not mean that every golfer will follow the same path. Through the full Arches population, the average handicap increased from 9.6 under 30 to 14.9 over 70 plus. Most golfers do not fully compensate for the distance they lose. The golfers we’ve seen here are the ones who manage to stay roughly in the same handicap range.
Follow how your game changes
Your game may not follow these exact patterns. How your handicap changes with age will depend on where you gain and lose strokes.
Part of maintaining your current handicap or improving it is knowing what is changing before you start guessing at corrections.
Arcos Air automatically tracks your shots, distances and strokes gained so you can see how far your clubs are going now, where your penalty shots are coming from and which parts of your game are costing you the most.
If the goal is to continue playing at the same level as your game changes, having your data is part of the process.
The place What changes in your golf game as you age? Here’s what the data shows appeared first MyGolfSpy.
