What is a long drive contest in golf?

A contest on one par 4 or 5 where the longest tee shot of the day wins. Drives are measured in yards and, at most clubs, must finish in the fairway to count.

Does a long drive have to be in the fairway?

At most clubs yes. It is a club condition rather than a Parful rule: the group applies it before recording a yardage.

How is a long drive measured?

In yards from the tee to where the ball came to rest, paced, lasered or read from a marker. Parful stores whole yards and ranks longest first.

What happens if two drives are the same length?

Parful shows them as tied. The organizer decides how to settle it and records the winner.

Why are there men's and women's long drive contests?

Because the drives come from different tees. Parful seeds both on every outing and a club that runs only one switches the other off once in its settings.

Can a long drive be run as its own competition?

Yes. Parful has a hole contest competition type with divisions of any, men, women, senior and junior and units of yards or meters.

Golf games

Parful runs this

Long drive

Also called Longest drive, Long drive contest, LD.

Long drive is a one-hole skill contest, played on a par 4 or par 5, where the longest tee shot of the day wins. Drives are measured in yards from the tee, the longest measurement leads, and most clubs require the ball to finish in the fairway to count.

Hole: One fixed par 4 or 5, chosen before the outing goes live
Measured: Yards from the tee; longest wins
Variants: Men's and women's contests, either one switched off once in settings
Fairway rule: The club's call; Parful does not check the lie
Recorded by: The group, on that hole, from its own scorecard
Ties: An exact tie shows both players as tied for the organizer to settle

How a long drive contest works

The club picks one long hole, usually a straight par 5 or a wide par 4 where the drive is the whole story. Every player hits their tee shot as normal and the longest drive of the day wins. On the ground it is often run with a marker that each new longest drive moves down the fairway. On Parful each group records its longest drive in yards and the leaderboard does the comparing.

The near-universal condition is that the drive must finish in the fairway. A 320-yard drive in the trees does not beat a 290-yard drive down the middle. That is a club rule, not something Parful enforces: the app records the yardage the group enters, so a group applies the fairway condition before it records anything.

Men's and women's contests

Because men and women usually play from different tees, the contest is run as two: a men's long drive and a women's long drive on the same hole. Parful seeds both on every new outing from the club's contest library and a club that runs only one switches the other off once in its settings. A men's contest accepts male players only and a women's contest female players only; a player with no recorded gender is allowed rather than blocked. A contest can also be restricted to one division, and the club's guest policy decides whether a guest can win.

Measuring and ties

Drives are recorded in whole yards. A new entry replaces the leader only if it is longer; a shorter entry is kept in the history and changes nothing. A player can be entered without a measurement only while nobody has been measured, which covers a group that knows who is longest but has not paced it out.

An exact tie, two drives both recorded at 287 yards, is shown as tied. Parful does not award the contest to the first name entered; the organizer settles the tie and records the winner.

How Parful runs it

1Long drive is on by default in the club's contest library, with men's and women's variants a club can switch off.
2Every new outing seeds the enabled contests. A long drive contest must be pinned to a par 4 or 5 before the outing goes live, or switched off for that day.
3On the contest hole the group scorecard shows the contest and its current leader. The group records the longest drive in the group and its yardage; the leader updates live and the outing feed announces the change.
4At close-out the leader is frozen into the results with the measurement. The organizer can assign or override the winner from the admin page.

A club can also run long drive as a standalone competition with divisions of any, men, women, senior and junior and units of yards or meters, which suits a range day or a fundraiser hole where every drive is measured by a volunteer.

Worked example

A worked example: the 9th, par 5, men's long drive

Seven groups come through the 9th. Each records the longest fairway drive in the group. Drives that missed the fairway were not recorded, by the club's rule.

Group	Player	Drive	In the fairway	Beats the leader?	Leader after this group
1	Ravi	262 yds	Yes	Yes, first measured entry	Ravi 262
2	Ben	281 yds	Yes	Yes, 281 is longer than 262	Ben 281
3	Cal	304 yds	No, right rough	Not recorded	Ben 281
4	Ed	281 yds	Yes	Exact tie	Ben and Ed tied at 281
5	Sam	275 yds	Yes	No	Ben and Ed tied at 281
6	Dee	293 yds	Yes	Yes, 293 is longer than 281	Dee 293
7	Ana	290 yds	Yes	No	Dee 293

Dee wins the men's long drive on the 9th at 293 yards. Cal's 304 was the longest ball of the day and never made the leaderboard because it finished in the rough.

The fairway decision in group 3 was made by the group, not by Parful. Had the group recorded 304 yards, the app would have accepted it as the leader.
The tie between Ben and Ed at 281 was overtaken before the organizer had to settle it.

Common variants

In the fairway only: The common condition: a drive that finishes outside the fairway does not count. A club rule applied by the group; Parful records whatever yardage is entered.
Marker on the fairway: A stake or card marks the longest drive so far and the last player to pass it wins, with no measuring. Parful ranks by yardage, so a group playing with a marker paces the winning drive and records it.
Long drive by division: Separate contests for handicap bands or age groups. Parful can restrict a contest to one division, and the standalone competition type offers senior and junior divisions.
Long drive in meters: The same contest in meters. On an outing Parful records yards; the standalone long drive competition can be set to yards or meters.