I got the recent Golf Digest magazine yesterday, which put the distance or direction debate to bed for good. At least for me.
There is a feature every month called “What’s in My Bag”, where a touring pro talks about the clubs in their bag. There is a sidebar that shows how far they hit each club.
This month the pro was Danielle Kang. I looked at the distance sidebar and almost fell off my chair.
When I was playing my best, my distances were hers, plus or minus a yard. And yet, she is one of the best female golfers in the world, I was a hack trying to get a single-digit handicap.
We can talk about short game and putting, I have no doubt that she is much better than I was in both those parts of the game.
But the real difference is in the long game. She is much straighter every time she hits the ball. I was just trying to get the ball on the green. She is aiming for a quadrant of the green and hitting it.
True, you need to be good around the green, but without a swing that hits the ball straight, you’re playing for bogeys and hard pars.