How to judge distance?

Anyone willing to share how they judge distance from 50metre in?

Usually I find that courses do not put distance marking on their sprinkler head under 50 meters, at least not the courses I play in. I realize some days the feel for distance is great and will be able to pitch it close but on some days can't judge for nuts and always overshot by alot or leave it far short.

Anyone with similar experiences?




PS: my close is around 15-20 feet not beside the pin.

I use a rangefinder nowadays. But prior to having a rangefinder there were a few things I would do.

1. If I knew the distance to center of the green (e.g. 100 yard marker), I would pace from the last marker to my ball. In Singapore you need to learn how to pace off meters for the most part ( I am guessing you already do this). If you don't know how, you need to train yourself to step in 1 meter long strides, each step counts as 1 meter, and count your steps then subtract or add to the last marker. That should give you a distance to the center of the green (+/- a few meters), from there you add on or subtract the pin if it is in the back or front.

2. If I am way inside 50 meters, say 20 meters to the green and if I have time I will run to the front edge of the green and pace it to my ball. Then add on what I think the pin is on the green from the front. (Caveat....IF I HAVE TIME, if my group is behind or the players in it are a little slow I will not do this).

3. Eyeball it. Sometimes this is better than having exact yardage as you can learn to eyeball distances. With rangefinders this is becoming less of an art. But to do it, I would essentially try to look at 10 yard or meter segments and guesstimate what I thought the yardage would be. So if I am inside of the 75 yard marker I know the most I will have is 85 or so (back pin), and then I make my estimation from there. How far am I from the last marker (eyeball), where is my ball in relation to the green (essentially calculate is it 50%, is it 75%, etc.) then calculate the pin and you should be good to go.

Hope that helps a little.

For me there are two ways, by feel and by sight.

By feel - I imagine that I am holding the ball in my right hand and throwing it to the hole, I work out the strength required and then I replicate that same feeling while holding the club in my hands.

By sight - I look back and see where the 50m marker is for frame of reference then break it down to 25m or less by simple division. If there is no 50m marker, then I search out the 100m marker and repeat the whole process by dividing it down to 50m and so on.

Hope it helps.

By the way, mine is my own simplified amateur way.

DRGjr72 used to play the PGA Tour and teach. His is the pro way.

Birdman wrote:

By the way, mine is my own simplified amateur way.

DRGjr72 used to play the PGA Tour and teach. His is the pro way.

I thot u use organic rangefinder?

blee wrote:

Birdman wrote:

By the way, mine is my own simplified amateur way.

DRGjr72 used to play the PGA Tour and teach. His is the pro way.

I thot u use organic rangefinder?

When available.

Is your real name Ben Dover?

Birdman wrote:

blee wrote:

Birdman wrote:

By the way, mine is my own simplified amateur way.

DRGjr72 used to play the PGA Tour and teach. His is the pro way.

I thot u use organic rangefinder?

When available.

Is your real name Ben Dover?

I thot that was your stage name?

Zig Zag wrote:

Anyone willing to share how they judge distance from 50metre in?

Range finder.

A lot of times, it's about feel. I can't tell for certain if it's 40m or 60m but after playing a while, especially with courses which I'm familiar with. I have a pretty decent gauge of where I am.

Of course, it doesn't help that I end up walking the dog.

There was a time I was very particular about estimating distances (aka slow play ) for approach shots....

But after a while, I realised my best executed approach shots from about 50m were usually +/-3m from my target....

Since then, I learnt to be only as demanding in estimating distances as my skills could play to.

Range finders are not allowed in tournaments right? So the main purpose of using it is to familiarise yourself with the course?

whistler wrote:

Range finders are not allowed in tournaments right? So the main purpose of using it is to familiarise yourself with the course?

if u dun play tournaments, u dun have to worry....

but most charity events do allow range finder...

u just need to ask the TD for confirmation....

I learn to estimated distance specially when my ball is 70 meter in. I felt it is easier to tell when it is 80 or 90 meters in as it is nearer to the 100 meter marker.

I will guess the distance 1st before confirm it with the range finder. Eventually, It teach me to estimate the distance by sign, the most I practice, the more accurate I get.

It help when ranger finder or GSP are not allow in tournament.

Thank you all for sharing.

Looks like I need to get myself a range finder. Any particular brands/models to recommend? Roughly what will be the damage?

Zig Zag wrote:

Thank you all for sharing.

Looks like I need to get myself a range finder. Any particular brands/models to recommend? Roughly what will be the damage?

This is one of the good model but do not know whether it is still available in BF or not

http://www.golfrepublic.org/t19946-bushnell-promo-limited-sets-available-v2-slope-edition

To judge the distance.....I used the distance marker


and feeling

Thumb method works ,usually I just estimate by feel

http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/dir3/bodyruler_angle/

I used a simple golf scope... I'm using the Barska brand, bushnell also Hv.
Easy to use but not jus as estimate... Think the level if accuracy is like the distance markers...

Anyone using a gps to get distances? Wonder how accurate and reliable are these gps?

I use GolfShot GPS and the distance to the centre of green is quite accurate. But i only tried in nsrcc so far...

Hope it helps

Zig Zag wrote:

Anyone willing to share how they judge distance from 50metre in?

Usually I find that courses do not put distance marking on their sprinkler head under 50 meters, at least not the courses I play in. I realize some days the feel for distance is great and will be able to pitch it close but on some days can't judge for nuts and always overshot by alot or leave it far short.

Anyone with similar experiences?




PS: my close is around 15-20 feet not beside the pin.

hi for ultimate convenience at touch of button u get distance from anywhere on fairway/rough/ teebox to the pin without even looking thro a scope (no need line of sight to pin even works from behind mound or thick trees or doglegs or in bunker) i use the iamcaddie... voice GPS .. hv used in on a couple of courses in JB lEGENDS + PALM VILLA and found it to be very satisfactory ...

s-killer wrote:

I use GolfShot GPS and the distance to the centre of green is quite accurate. But i only tried in nsrcc so far...

Hope it helps

This is an iPhone app right? Does it require 3G to operate? I usually play in JB so no 3G available.

If under 50 metres, I estimate it by every 10 metres...so should know how far is 10 metres. On the greens, I used my footsteps to count the number of steps from ball to the hole.

Zig Zag wrote:

s-killer wrote:

I use GolfShot GPS and the distance to the centre of green is quite accurate. But i only tried in nsrcc so far...

Hope it helps

This is an iPhone app right? Does it require 3G to operate? I usually play in JB so no 3G available.

my friend told me that you can actually download the course layout when you have internet connection. Therefore, when you are in JB, you can just use the GPS feature to get the distance from the ball to the centre of the green.

Not sure now true it is though, i have not try it out yet.

I use "Agaration"

Like Fore99, work from 10m...