In our forums, our members have been reacting to an interesting statistic regarding driving accuracy on the LPGA and PGA Tour. WRXer ‘me05501’ kicks off the thread, saying:

“Russell Henley leads the PGA Tour this year in Driving Accuracy at 74.2%.

If he played on the LPGA his Driving Accuracy would rank 53rd.

Wondering what factors are most relevant here:

• Are these stats collected the same way or are there important differences?
• Do LPGA players prioritize hitting fairways because it’s more difficult for them to escape the rough, or perhaps to maximize GIR?
• Are the fairways on the LPGA Tour just that much wider on average?
• Finally, what would be the likely result of a PGA Tour pro prioritizing Driving Accuracy above all else? If someone could manage to sniff the 85% Driving Accuracy rate of top LPGA, would it be a winning strategy?”

And our members have been engaged in a lively discussion breaking down their theories as to why this is the case.

Here are a few posts from the thread, but make sure to check out the entire discussion and have your say at the link below.

• TLUBulldogGolf: “I can’t imagine the stats are done any differently. He hits it much farther than even the longest LPGA player, especially in the air, and compared to the most accurate the difference is even more stark. Most of the longer hitters on the LPGA are hitting fairways at a lower clip than Henley. LPGA set ups are probably a bit easier on average, not sure about fairway width. I imagine you’d have to give up too much distance to be that accurate, and he’s probably not off the fairway by much most of the time. He’s top 5 in distance from edge of fairway.”
• golferdude54: “Tiger averaged over 298 yards hitting over 70% of fairways in 2000. They’ve made the fairways wider and driver and ball technology has improved so much since 2000 and yet I’m positive no one is averaging over 298 yards while hitting over 70% of fairways.”
• bazinky: “In my opinion, it’s a mistake to look at golf driving accuracy without taking into account swing speed and driving distance. If you have two golfers that both hit the fairway on 80% of their tee shots, but one has an average driving distance of 260 and the other has an average driving distance of 300 yards, they are NOT equally accurate. A longer driver has to have a much lower off-line angle dispersion to hit the same number of fairways.”

Entire Thread: Why do LPGA pros have far greater driving accuracy than PGA Tour pros? – GolfWRXers discuss