Distance off tee vs. GIR

Which do you think is more important, distance off tee or GIR (greens in regulation)?

Distance is great, but if you can't hit the GIR you will have a hard time making birdie or even par.

Here is an example: Let's say you play 2 rounds and average 280 off the tee. We are assuming you bogey the missed greens and par the GIRs.

Round 1 you hit 12 greens getting 12 pars and bogey the other 6 holes to shoot 78. Round 2 you hit 6 greens getting pars and bogey the other 12 holes to shoot 84.

Obviously you would get up and down at least once and probably make a birdie. But to shoot 78 in round 2 you would need to either birdie all GIRs or get up and down on half the missed greens. Obviously getting 6 birdies is probably not going to happen and most golfers don't get up and down 50% of the time. You can continue to try to reach 300 off the tee with driver, but you should be working on your short game (putting, chipping, pitching) and iron accuracy to hit more greens. Most players go to the range when they play and hit the entire bucket of balls with full swings and mostly driver. Next time before you play a round of golf, hit the putting green, chipping green if they have one and when on the range make sure you hit some pitches and chips as well.

My order of importance in golf game:

1. Putting

2. Chipping

3. Pitching

4. Irons

5. Off tee (not necessarily driver, just try to find fairway)

The best players will work in this order before a round. You have 18 tee shots per round, but if you 2 putt every hole you will have 36 putts. You can reduce the number of putts but not tee shots.