Do You Hit Your Tee Shots Longer Than Your Peers? Now You Can See.

Forbes

08-05-2025

Arccos tracks your tee shots with these clever sensors
Apparently aging does inhibit our ability to hit a golf ball. This week, Arccos – the company that makes intelligent grip sensors for golf clubs – released its 7th Annual Driving Distance Report. In case you don't already know, Arccos records shot data from every golfer using its sensors – including distance, location, dispersion, etc. And because users – and there are a lot of them – provide their age and gender when they sign up, the company is able to amass super useful data about on-course tendencies. Captured in real time and verified using precise criteria, this data provides a transparent view of how amateur golfers perform off the tee.
This report, for instance, compares more than 4 million rounds of male and female golfers' driving distance by age and handicap collected in 2024, to every year since 2018. The full Arccos dataset now includes over 1.2 billion shots across 22 million rounds played in 160+ countries. To ensure consistency and comparability, the analysis focuses exclusively on driver tee shots hit on par 4 and par 5 holes, according to Arccos, capturing total yardage (carry distance plus rollout) without normalization for conditions such as weather, turf or elevation.
First off, despite their age or ability, men overall averaged 224 yards in 2018 and 224.7 yards in 2024. So we appear to be getting slightly longer. And women averaged 179.2 yards in 2018 and 176.2 yards in 2024. So it appears as if they are getting shorter. But I argue that this only means that more newbies are taking up the game, ever since the pandemic. And since these golfers are inexperienced, they're not hitting the ball long yet. And because they're eager to improve, they put Arccos sensors in their driver grips. So of course we're going to appear as if we are not getting longer off the tee. In reality, there are probably just more less-experienced players being included in this dataset – which of course skews the numbers.
Low-handicap men (0 to 4.9) were both the longest and most accurate off the tee, averaging 250 yards and hitting 49.3% of fairways. In contrast, high-handicap men (30+) averaged 184.9 yards and found the fairway only 40.6% of the time. As for age, guys aged 15 to 19 averaged 241.6 yards (the longest age group) which was 51.1 yards longer than those in their 70s (the shortest group). And my personal driving numbers – and distance fall-off through the years – are consistent with the data.
Another factor that struck me is that manufacturers push the longer-and-straighter message with their new drivers every year. So shouldn't we all be hitting tee shots longer, regardless of our handicap and age?
But if one sign is encouraging to me, it's that I am slightly longer and more accurate than most people in my age group. But I'm also realistic in that I know that on any given day and in any type of weather, course condition and even altitude my numbers can change on a dime.
One thing is for certain in these numbers: Older players are significantly more accurate off the tee. That's most likely because without crushing the ball, there's less of a right or left variation of ball flight. Or that they're just more experienced. Either way, it also explains why older people we play with often hit the ball straight and score better than us. Maybe we should all be striving for accuracy, as opposed to crushing our drives.
But kudos to the people at Arccos for starting the conversation.