The bottom line is you have to do both, drive the ball well and have a good short game to at least shoot in the low 80's If you are not keeping your drives in play, you can take yourself out of a lot of holes right off the bat. As low post said, if you driving it in the fariway, between 180-220, you still have a chance at par on most holes. If your driving it 260, oob or in the woods, or in the bushes, your usually looking at double bogey or worse. You cannot consistently make up for this even with an excellent short game. If you drive short and straight, and can get up and down 80 percent of the time, you can probably shoot in the upper 70's on a good day to low 80's. But to really get low, meaning low 70's or below, for most of us, you have to drive it long and accurate, be able to get it up and down around th green 70-80 percent of the time and be able to sink some short or long putts for birdie. My point is, you really need to practive both long and short game.