Drive ... and how to get it

THE women of the LPGA are going the distance -- 284.5 yards to be exact. That was Karin Sjodin’s average drive in 2006, the best on the tour.

While the women’s high-flying counterparts on the PGA tour have been driving the ball notably farther over the years, the LPGA players have been on a tear of their own. The women are hitting the ball hard. Not just harder than before. Hard.

Between 1992 and 2006, the average driving distance for LPGA players increased 27.3 yards, from 223.3 to 250.6. The men over the same period gained 28.9 yards, from 260.4 to 289.3. Overall, the women out-gained the men by 1.1 percentage points.

The last 10 years have seen the women fast-forward in other areas, including rounds under par and scoring average. For example, in 1997, Stephanie Maynor led the tour in driving accuracy at 79.7% of fairways hit. In 2006, Tina Barrett and Ji Yeon Lee led the tour at 83.3%.

In a head-to-head comparison of the women’s and men’s scoring performance last year, several LPGA players were statistically equivalent to the best male players in several categories. For example, in 2006, Lorena Ochoa’s 4.47 birdie average per round, an indicator of consistent low scoring, was only slightly behind that of Tiger Woods at 4.65.

Golf analyst Dick Rugge, senior technical director for the USGA, attributes the gains in driving distance to three factors: springier drivers, lower-spinning balls (which enables them to go farther) and fitter players who are capable of swinging the club faster.

“Professional golfers are exercising more and staying fitter,” he says, with Annika Sorenstam, winner of 69 LPGA tournaments, setting the bar for women. “The women saw what she was doing,” serious strength training with a personal trainer, “and followed her path,” he says. Most golf analysts believe LPGA driving averages will probably never equal those of the men, primarily because the men have more muscle to swing the club faster. “Women have to work twice as hard to get strength in areas that men are born with,” says eight-year LPGA veteran Laura Diaz.

But they can get closer with improved mechanics and technique, says LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens. “Frankly,” says Bivens, “the women have to be more fit than the men and their mechanics have to be better. A guy can mis-hit a ball and mis-hit it farther.”

To hit the ball farther, the women are focusing not only on upper body strength but also leg and core strength, with balance as the ultimate goal. “You’ve got to have technique and balance to pull off the long shots,” says Bivens.

Diaz believes that the women are just beginning to show what they are capable of. “You’re going to see women getting stronger and stronger,” she says, and that means continued evolution in the sport.

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janet.cromley@latimes.com