Judging distance to the flag in Golf?

Question

If I played the same course each time, it would be easier. But are there any tricks / techniques to working out an accurate distance to the hole when you are on the fairway?

Answer 1

The majority of " eye-balling " distances on a course comes from experience whether you play on a strange course or your home course. The more often one plays the same layout the easier it is to predict distance accurately. If you can gauge the distance of say 50 yards on your course, you can gauge 50 yards on any course. The same holds true for any length shot . Even without fairway markers you will judge distances to hazards or to greens through visual experience.

Answer 2

Most courses have distances to the center of the green marked on sprinkler heads in the fairway and rough.  Or, they will have posts at 200, 150, and 100.  Some courses have GPS on the carts.  Some courses are mapped and you can buy a hand held GPS unit with the distances to front, center, and back.

Answer 3

yea most courses have one of those markers... just count your steps to or from the marker to find out how many yards your are from the flag

Answer 4

On the fairway, there is always a yardage marker, usually marks 100 yards, 150 yards and 200 yards to center of green.  

So find the marker and walk off the yardage to your ball, there you have it.  

If you play the same course over and over, it is easier to find the yardage markers and you will start to remember the approx distances, however if you have a range finder or a gps, it is alot easier.

Answer 5

Beyond about 90 feet, the human eyes are REALLY poor at judging distances.  To compound this issue, golf course architects purposely design holes to prevent you from accurately judging distances through the use of site lines, elevation changes, trees, etc.  

So, the low tech way is to use the Kirby markers and/or sprinkler heads when in the fairway.  From the rough and or trees this becomes impossible.

High tech ways include laser/optical and GPS range finders.    Laser finders work when you can see the flag and when you are reasonably close to be able to hold it steady.  GPS units work no matter where you are, and no matter what is in front of you.  

In all cases, the distance you are looking at is the distance to the center of the green, not necessarily the distance to the actual hole.  By the fact that you are asking this, getting the distance the center of the green will do your game enough good so that you really don't need the accuracy to the actual flag stick.

Answer 6

It's just a matter of time and familiarity. Until you do catch on see if the pro shop has a yardage book available. It will speed up play until you catch on.

Answer 7

You can buy a range finder.  You can easily find some listed on ebay.

Answer 8

Human perceptions are inaccurate.  That's why they have fairway marker to tell you the distance.  From there you can walk to your ball and that gives a pretty accurate yardage.  If you are a scratch golfer and hit it consistently, you may want to buy a range finder.

Answer 9

just get more experienced, but if you have to guess just go with your first gut feeling

Answer 10

well, they do have markers placed numorous distances to the hole, and a marker from the tee.