Drive (golf)

In golf stroke mechanics, a drive, also known as a tee shot, is a long-distance shot played from the tee box, intended to move the ball a great distance down the fairway towards the green.

Longest drives

An average professional male golfer is capable of hitting a drive using a 1 wood over 300 yards, maximizing power by driving the legs and hips and the body weight into the swing. Some of the biggest hitters on the PGA Tour such as Bubba Watson, Robert Garrigus, John Daly and Dustin Johnson at very best are capable of driving a ball over 350 yards, although very rare in professional play, but regularly hit drives of over 300 yards. The top 200 or so biggest hitters on the tour in 2007 averaged a drive of 265 yards or over. Some of the biggest hitters on the female tour such as Michelle Wie can hit a ball as far as most of the male players, averaging around 280 yards and capable of almost 350 yards a maximum if the course is downhill. As of 2011, Watson has the longest average drive in professional golf, with an average drive of 315.2 yards, capable of generating a ball speed of 194 mph and drives of up to 370 yards.Mike Austin holds the world record for the longest drive in professional play, driving 515 yards at the Winterwood Golf Course in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1974, blasting it 65 yards past the flag on the par-4 fifth. His golf swing, known as The Mike Austin Swing, is practiced and taught by current golf professionals. Other notable swings are Ben Hogan's swing, Jim Furyk's swing and Tiger Woods' swing. Golf driving is big business in the United States and golf driving instruction is a multimillion-dollar business with many manuals and instructors offering their expertise to maximize the drives of their consumers.

Drive

Drive or The Drive may refer to:

Behavior and psychology

Sports

Golf

Golf is a club and ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.

Golf is one of the few ball games that do not require a standardized playing area. The game is played on a course with an arranged progression of either nine or 18 holes. Each hole on the course must contain a tee box to start from, and a putting green containing the actual cup. There are other standard forms of terrain in between, such as the fairway, rough, and hazards, but each hole on a course is unique in its specific layout and arrangement.

Golf is played for the lowest number of strokes by an individual, known as stroke play, or the lowest score on the most individual holes in a complete round by an individual or team, known as match play. Stroke play is the most commonly seen format at all levels.

Origin