300-yard bomber has officially arrived on advanced trip: “Absolutely send it”
This season, the four players of the PGA Tour 50 and PGA Tour champions averaged 300 yards or more from the serving area: Stewart Cink, Padraig Harrington, Brendan Jones and Cameron Percy.
This may not sound like a lot of players considering the average driving distance all The PGA Tour time is 303.7 yards, but speaks relatively high. Considering that the championship tour of the season has never exceeded a 300 yard player by 2023, and not in most seasons. It’s no surprise that the overall championship tour distance is also rising. This year, the average grizzlies are 283.3 per poke. Starting in 2024, this is a four-yard increase, nearly six yards from the ’23 and more than 14 yards from the 2013 spike. Here is the complete dataset during this period:
2025* – 283.3
2024 – 279.1
2023 – 277.6
2022 – 280.3
2021 – No data (volume)
2020 – 275
2019 – 272.2
2018 – 277.6
2017 – 275.7
2016 – 274.7
2015 – 273.3
2014 – 270.9
2013 – 269
* Until September. 7
Most of the reasons for the prosperity are obvious and ticked with why driving distances are ticked in other trips (and why governing bodies are taking action to curb gains): speed-centric technology; dedicated training (in scope and gym); and optimized technology. But there is another dynamic job: Tiger Woods’ peers are coming. (In this case, we mean “four-50.”) This is important because Woods’ generation is the first to actively pursue distance with the help of data, science and technology. What other options do they have when that guy runs around the circle, just like they’re 20 or 30 yards long?
Stewart Cink has a group of tiger chasers who have won three championships on the championship track since he turned 50 in 2023 and is second on the money list this season. “As players behind me turn 50,” Cink told reporters the other day at the Champions event in St. Louis, “these are going to be players that have had power as one of their top priorities in their game for their whole career, and now they’re just going to bring it out here. So there’s going to be more and more guys that are hitting it 170-plus ball speed off the tee and just absolutely sending it. That’s What’s going to happen and it’s coming.”
Come on, stewed? Already here!
On the 2020 PGA Tour, the average Cink T-shirt averaged “only” 295 yards. He then adjusted the attack angle, added more lofts to the driver and began to focus on biomechanics. Look: 304-305 yards became his norm, and the 175 mph or higher ball speed he still benefits today. This is the 2025 Pro Golf, but the seeds of this method were planted a few years ago. “More importantly, I think we’ve learned how to leverage techniques like launch monitors and all the data and optimizations,” Cink said of his prime numbers. “We’ve all learned hands-on moves; we’ve learned how important it is to push the ball onto the fairway. Basically every 10 yards is one tenth of the stroke. It’s like giving it up for free there, and if you can hit it for 10 yards, you can send it out 10 yards.”
Padraig Harrington thought the same way. His obsession with speeding up allowed him to speed up the train in racing in case his high-speed fluctuations would cause his face to rupture. Harrington said he paid speed at high-speed ball speeds in the 180s, and in 2024 his average driving distance on the Championship Tour was 308 yards.
Oh, did those years look up at those guys and Harrington on the PGA Tour? You may also see him bombing the drive on next year’s championship journey. Tiger Woods has not revealed his intentions for competitive golf, but when he turns 50 on December 30, he will become eligible and being able to use a shopping cart in the game will surely attract him. Ernie Els urged the woods to nail it. The same goes for Jack Nicklaus, who even predicted that Woods would win half of the championship he participated in. And, yes, Woods can still bring it there despite its physical limitations. In the 2025 TGL season, he averaged 174.7 mph and a maximum velocity of 181.2.
Other bombers also crawled at the age of 50. Charley Hoffman is still able to move the ball, reaching a half-century finish by the end of 2026. Four-time Tour champion Ryan Palmer is also getting closer. He turns 50 in 2027. Henrik Stenson, 49, is long facing relegation after Liv’s 2025 Rocks season. If he lost his lies, who knows where he might go – maybe at some point, launching missiles on the championship journey.
