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There was a thread where this was being talked about which I can't find now, but I did a little research on the subject I thought was interesting.

Based on her all of her PGA Tour results, Michelle would rank near the bottom in terms of driving distance and total driving. It was mentioned that during her Sony Open appearance this year, she ranked much higher, to which I responded that I think the Sony is not a good place to judge driving distance (it being in the Hawaiin trade winds and all).

I did a bit of research, and here is what I found:

Out of the top 30 in driving distance at the Sony, 29 players had an average driving distance higher than that of their season average:

1 Jeremy Tucker 337.50, PGA Tour Avg.: Unavailable
2 Bubba Watson 329.00, PGA Tour Avg.: 320.9
3 Camilo Villegas 328.25, PGA Tour Avg.: 304.6
4 Adam Scott 327.25, PGA Tour Avg.: 302.7
5 Charley Hoffman 322.00, PGA Tour Avg.: 305.4
6 Roger Tambellini 318.25, PGA Tour Avg.: 300.0
7 Troy Matteson 316.50, PGA Tour Avg.: 298.4
8 Jeff Gove 316.25, PGA Tour Avg.: 290.7
9 Chris Couch 315.50, PGA Tour Avg.: 300.6
10 Vijay Singh 314.50, PGA Tour Avg.: 296.0
11 Harrison Frazar 314.25, PGA Tour Avg.: 302.8
12 Robert Garrigus 314.00, PGA Tour Avg.: 312.5
13 Bart Bryant 313.50, PGA Tour Avg.: 280.1
14 John Engler, Jr. 312.50, PGA Tour Avg.: 288.6
15 Charles Warren 311.50, PGA Tour Avg.: 299.9
16 David Branshaw 311.25, PGA Tour Avg.: 290.8
17 Aaron Baddeley 311.00, PGA Tour Avg.: 290.1
18 Craig Perks 311.00, PGA Tour Avg.: Unavailable
19 Craig Barlow 310.25, PGA Tour Avg.: 293.9
20 Alex Aragon 309.75, PGA Tour Avg.: 303.3
21 Carl Pettersson 307.75, PGA Tour Avg.: 286.9
22 Rory Sabbatini 306.75, PGA Tour Avg.: 292.0
23 Ryuji Imada 306.50, PGA Tour Avg.: 286.3
24 David Toms 306.25, PGA Tour Avg.: 286.8
25 Lucas Glover 306.25, PGA Tour Avg.: 299.3
26 Tag Ridings 306.00, PGA Tour Avg.: 307.1
27 Stewart Cink 305.75, PGA Tour Avg.: 293.0
28 Richard S. Johnson 305.75, PGA Tour Avg.: 286.2
29 Jonathan Kaye 305.75, PGA Tour Avg.: 294.2
30 Jon Mills 305.25, PGA Tour Avg.: 297.7

* Only 1 Player - Tag Ridings - had an average at the Sony below his season average.
* 11 Players averaged 20 yards or more over their season average at the Sony
* Bart Bryant averaged 33.5 yards over his season average on Tour.

If you take the top 30 in driving distance at any pga tournament. Isn't it likely that since they are in the top 30 drivers there, that their average is likely to above their season average?

Think about it. If they are in the top 30, that is obviously a good driving tournament for them, so of course it is likely to be above their season average.

Take the bottom 30 drivers, and it will be likely that they will be below their season average.

I don't see why. Not only were these averages high, they were really high. David Toms averaged 306 yards!

I'm open to any statistics that may disprove my theorem, so to speak, but I found the statistics from this tournament very interesting.

Michelle was ahead of 42 players in driving distance at the Sony Open.

Whether the course is long or short in comparison to other courses does not matter.
Whether there were winds or not does not matter.

It the course was so easy to drive long from, why was it not easy for the 42 players who drove less distances than Michelle did.

The Sony Open probably doesn't have as much roll or wind effecting the tee shots as the Mercedes Championships, but at the same time it certainly has more roll than plenty of other tournaments on Tour. The Bridgestone Invitational recently had a ton of roll due to drier conditions (if I remember right, Tiger was averaging in the 340 range for the week) than normal for Ohio and the averages are similar to that of the Sony Open.

But it certainly does matter that 29 of the top 30 in driving distance were above their Tour averages, including 11 players who were more than 20 yards over their average.

Yeah, I just went and looked at the Bridgestone leaderboard again. As you mentioned about David Toms being above 305 yards average at Sony, he was hitting it around 292 at Bridgestone. If Bridgestone was above average by quite a bit, then Sony was way above average. Michelle is definitely a long hitter (probably the longest hitter) for a woman, but it appears as though she's average or maybe even below average against the men. There's no shame in that though. I think she'll hit it further the older she gets to be honest. I'd love to hit the ball as far as she does, particularly with my irons (I'm a short knocker and not afraid to admit it LOL).

Yeah, his Tour average (when I checked, anyway) is around 286 for the year.

None whatsoever

Indeed, there is nothing wrong with average, and I agree with you that she is below average.
I would have estimated that she was about 20% up from the bottom. I only took issue with people who said she was only better than about 5 players, which would put her practically at the bottom of the league.

In the Sony Open first 2 rounds, she was 30% up on the field. I actually think that was quite good.

I think so too. Around that time, she was placing about 5th in driving in most lpga events. Over the last 3 lpga events she was first, so I think she is actually hitting it longer than she did at the Sony Open.
That's doesn't mean she'll hit it as long as Tiger, just more that she might hit it as long as Sean O'Hair 292.3 average, or Justin Rose 290.8 average.

I don't think she will be around golf when shes 24 or so. Shes going to make all the money she could ever need before shes 20 (thanks Nike) and be done with it. JMO but she has no drive to be the greatest.

Yes, where driving averages ballooned across the board, as shown clearly above.

Again, I reiterate that taking her averages accross all of her PGA Tour appearances would put her without a shadow of a doubt in the bottom 10% on the PGA Tour. It's a fact.

It's actually even lower than that, but I don't want to beat a dead horse.

She led the U.S. Women's Open in driving distance... at 265 yards a pop.

Do you have any driving distance statistics for those 3 LPGA events she lead in driving distance?

Why didn't they balloon for the 42 players behind her in driving distance at that event?

US Open Driving:

1 WIE, Michelle 264.9
2 SJODIN, Karin 258.0
3 GUSTAFSON, Sophie 254.8
3 OCHOA, Lorena 254.8
5 LINCICOME, Brittany 254.3
6 HURST, Pat 253.1
7 PETTERSEN, Suzann 249.4
8 HJORTH, Maria 247.8
9 LEE, Jee Young 246.4
10 SHARP, Alena 245.5
11 STUPPLES, Karen 245.3
12 PAK, Se Ri 245.0
13 BADER, Beth 241.4
14 TURNER, Sherri 240.0
15 BLUMENHERST, Amanda (a) 239.4
16 SORENSTAM, Annika 239.3
17 KERR, Cristie 238.3
18 AMMACCAPANE, Dina 236.9
19 PRESSEL, Morgan 236.5
20 KIM, Kimberly (a) 236.4
field average: 231.6 yards


Evian Masters:

1 Michelle Wie 272.50
2 Sophie Gustafson 269.00
3 Laura Davies 268.63
4 Brittany Lincicome 266.50
5 Sakura Yokomine 265.63
6 Se Ri Pak 263.63
7 *Amy Yang 263.50
8 Lorena Ochoa 261.50
9 Wendy Doolan 261.25
10 Karrie Webb 260.75
11 Cristie Kerr 258.50
12 Pat Hurst 258.25
13 Helen Alfredsson 258.25
14 Jee Young Lee 257.88
15 Brittany Lang 257.50
16 Annika Sorenstam 256.00
17 Suzann Pettersen 254.57
18 Laura Diaz 252.63
19 Gwladys Nocera 251.50
20 Veronica Zorzi 250.13
field average: 242.6 yards



British Open:

1 Michelle Wie 295.75
2 Sophie Gustafson 291.75
3 Lorena Ochoa 277.00
4 Brittany Lincicome 276.00
5 Jee Young Lee 274.75
6 Laura Davies 274.25
7 Nikki Garrett 272.50
8 Angela Stanford 272.25
9 Wendy Ward 270.50
10 Laura Diaz 266.00
11 Young-A Yang 264.75
12 Maria Hjorth 264.50
13 Cristie Kerr 264.25
14 Annika Sorenstam 264.25
15 Lindsey Wright 264.00
16 Iben Tinning 264.00
17 Gwladys Nocera 263.50
18 Joo Mi Kim 262.75
19 Sakura Yokomine 260.33
20 Juli Inkster 260.25
field average: 252.2 yards

Who says they didn't? Until you have something of substance with which to question the stats I posted, I think they speak for themselves.


Thanks for supporting my point

Average over those 3 Tournaments: 277.1 yards, good for 185th on the PGA Tour, just behind Jerry Kelly.

Or how's about this:

Michelle's 2006 PGA Tour stats:

http://www.pgatour.com/players/stats/476953/2006

Driving distance: 161st
Driving accuracy: 191th
Total driving: 199th.

Where does that put her?

What would be dead last in total driving.

http://www.pgatour.com/stats/leaders/r/2006/129

Originally Posted by rodney_c
Why didn't they balloon for the 42 players behind her in driving distance at that event?

List of the 42 players who drove less distance at the Sony than Michelle in the first 2 rounds.
If it was an easy driving course, why were there drives less than Michelle's drives on the same course in the same tournament.

100 Michelle Wie 286.00
101 Wes Short, Jr. 286.00
102 Jason Bohn 285.75
103 Daisuke Maruyama 285.50
104 Ryan Moore 285.25
105 Tim Petrovic 285.00
106 Tom Lehman 284.50
107 Steve Lowery 283.25
108 Fred Funk 283.00
109 Jeff Sluman 283.00
110 Tom Pernice, Jr. 282.50
111 Charlie Wi 281.75
112 Brad Faxon 281.50
113 James Driscoll 281.50
114 Vance Veazey 281.25
115 Justin Rose 281.25
116 Stephen Leaney 281.25
117 Chris Riley 280.00
118 Arron Oberholser 279.50
119 Jerry Smith 279.00
120 Arjun Atwal 278.50
121 Thomas Levet 277.25
122 Shane Bertsch 277.00
123 Tom Byrum 276.50
124 Nathan Green 274.25
125 Peter Jacobsen 274.25
126 Jim Furyk 274.00
127 Mike Weir 273.50
128 Peter Lonard 273.00
129 Todd Hamilton 271.50
130 Jerry Kelly 270.50
131 Jay Haas 270.50
132 Shiv Kapur 269.75
133 Tadahiro Takayama 269.75
134 Jason Gore 269.50
135 Michael Allen 269.25
136 David McKenzie 267.75
137 Jeff Overton 267.50
138 Corey Pavin 267.25
139 Brandan Kop 266.50
140 Charles Howell III 264.50
141 Nicholas Thompson 264.25
142 Todd Fischer 258.25
143 Loren Roberts 255.50

The problem with that is those events were not on the pga tour. lpga tour course setups are set up to support short hitters. That's why the likes of Mi Hyun Kim averaging about 230 yards can win. Very often on an lpga course, the player runs out of fairway at 280 yards.

Driving varies greatly, depending on the course.

Sean O'Hair driving averages:
Sony: 286.5 yards.
Buick: 293.5 yards
AT&T: 273.7 yards.
BellSouth Classic: 301.8 yards.