Every golfer dreams of hitting long, straight drives down the fairway, but in reality, distance and accuracy don’t always go hand in hand. While some players prioritise power off the tee, others focus on control to keep the ball in play.
In the women’s game, stats reveal fascinating trends across handicap levels, showing who hits it the farthest and who finds the most fairways.
While the longest hitters on the LPGA Tour such as Nelly Korda and Emily Pedersen average around 280 yards off the tee, club-level distances are understandably more modest.
The average driving distance for a female handicap golfer is 177 yards.Thanks to performance data supplied by Shot Scope, our official data partner, we can break down driver total distances and accuracy for female amateur golfers by handicap, as seen in the table below. This offers a clear picture of how far you might expect to hit, depending on your level of play.
When comparing handicaps, it’s no surprise that lower-handicap players hit the ball farther, proving that strong technique plays a major role in driving distance. Among the scratch or better golfers and 1-5 handicappers, they average 252 and 235 yards off the tee respectively.
Distance steadily declines with those women playing off a handicap of 26+, hitting the ball an average total distance of 166 yards. Just as distances drop as the handicap level increases for female golfers, it's the same trend for male players.
But accuracy tells a slightly different story. When it comes to fairways hit, the most accurate group of female players are within the scratch or better category, managing 60%, but women with a handicap of 21-25 are not far behind, hitting 59% fairways.
The least accurate are the 1-5 handicappers at 54% and this reinforces the idea that slower swing speeds can lead to better control off the tee.
