Everyone agrees distance matters. Almost nobody puts a number on it. Here is one: 0.38 strokes a round for 10 yards, measured by adding yards to 50 real tour players and re-simulating their rounds across 30 PGA Tour courses, 1,500 player-rounds in all.
Thirty yards is worth 1.01 strokes a round. That is the honest version of "distance is king": real, worth chasing, and a lot smaller than the way it gets talked about.
Want to see what these numbers do for a player you care about? The scenario engine re-simulates a full round with the figures below as knobs you can drag. Open the scenario engine, free and no account needed.
Every extra yard is worth less than the one before
| Yards off the tee | Strokes per round | Greens in regulation | Birdies per round |
|---|---|---|---|
| -20 | +0.69 | 56.70% | 3.16 |
| -10 | +0.37 | 58.76% | 3.33 |
| same | baseline | 60.90% | 3.54 |
| +10 | -0.38 | 62.85% | 3.77 |
| +20 | -0.73 | 64.36% | 3.99 |
| +30 | -1.01 | 65.32% | 4.18 |
The first 10 yards saves 0.38 strokes. The second 10 saves 0.35, and the third only 0.28. The curve is bending, and it bends for a reason: the fairway gets narrower the further down it you go, and past a point the approach is already a wedge, so taking another 10 yards off it does not leave you much closer.
Greens in regulation go up, not down
This is the part that surprises people. Hitting it further is supposed to cost accuracy, and the usual conclusion is that it is a wash. It is not a wash: greens in regulation rise from 60.90% to 64.36% on 20 extra yards, and birdies go from 3.54 to 3.99 a round.
Whatever the longer drive gives up in position, the shorter approach more than pays for. A 150-yard shot from the rough beats a 175-yard shot from the fairway often enough to settle the argument.
Distance is worth more if you are short
The same 10 yards is not worth the same to everybody:
| Ball speed | First 10 yards | Second 10 yards | Second as share of first |
|---|---|---|---|
| 140 to 165 mph | -0.38 | -0.38 | 99.5% |
| 166 to 169 mph | -0.39 | -0.36 | 91.7% |
| 169 to 172 mph | -0.39 | -0.35 | 88.7% |
| 172 to 175 mph | -0.38 | -0.33 | 86.4% |
| 176 to 182 mph | -0.37 | -0.31 | 84.8% |
For the shortest hitters in the field, the second 10 yards is still worth 99.5% of the first. For the longest, it is down to 84.8%. The players who least need more distance are also the ones who gain least from it.
Two things stop this being a tidy story, and both are worth saying. Ball speed tracks overall quality, so the slowest group is not only shorter, it is a weaker group of players in general, and some of what looks like "short hitters gain more" is really "weaker players gain more". And the losing direction does not mirror the gaining one: taking 20 yards away costs the longest fifth +0.72 strokes against +0.60 for the shortest, which is the wrong way round for a single curve that everyone sits on at a different point. Treat the ordering as suggestive and the overall 0.38-per-10-yards as the sturdy number.
What this does not measure
This is the same swing with a faster ball. Spin and launch are held where each player actually measures, and only ball speed moves. A player who really swings harder adds dispersion along with distance, and none of that is here. Read these as an upper bound on what chasing distance buys.
Nobody is hitting it 30 yards further by choice. The +30 row is a counterfactual to show the shape of the curve, not a projection. The realistic end of this table is the 0.38 strokes in the first 10 yards.
The fairway rate is not reported here, because the round simulation does not return one. Greens in regulation is the net effect of position and approach length together, which is the thing that decides the score, but it does mean this post cannot tell you how much accuracy was given up along the way.
It is a tour professional's answer. Every adjustment is fitted from tour players' tracked shots on tour setups. Amateur fairways are wider, amateur misses are worse, and the trade is not the same one.
Each course plays in its own typical weather, which is right for comparing a player against himself and wrong for comparing two courses.
For how fast tour players actually hit it, see PGA Tour ball speed. For what the weather does to the same rounds, see what wind costs.
PropGolf models every hole from shot-level tracking data. Try it on any player or hole with the scenario engine, free and no account needed.
For live hole-by-hole prices during a tournament, see the live board.