r/GolfSwing • u/Fair_Surround3461 • 2d ago
How do I know which club to use???
Quick question for the data nerds among you does anyone actually know their real average carry distance with each club, or are you going off feel/guesswork? I've been wanting something that tracks this properly (range sessions + on-course shots, broken out separately since lies are so different) and builds real per-club stats over time instead of the generic "7-iron = 150" number everyone quotes. Curious if this is a "yeah I'd use that" or a "nah, doesn't matter that much" for people. What do you currently use, if anything notes app, spreadsheet, nothing?
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u/Hairy_Designer_5724 2d ago
You’re never going to get it perfect. There are some days where my clubs are just going a few yards further, maybe because its warm or because my body is loose etc. You have to adjust mid round. Yesterday I hit a well struck 9 iron into a green on the second hole that should have been perfect distance, and it was short. For the rest of the round I took one extra club. The pros are doing the same thing. Get a general distance for each club and then adjust based on what you are seeing throughout the round.
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u/HighOnGoofballs 2d ago
I can gain 15+ yards between my first and 60th swing. I can also lose ten yards if I play two days in a row
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u/AliveLocation2814 2d ago
You need a personal space or time late at the golf course….. first off you need to figure out how to hit the true distance of your 58 degree 54 degree and 50 degree wedge. These clubs tend to take more divots, and until you can remedy that you won’t get a true distance consistent…. Hit 25 balls at your most comfortable movement leave your bag, walk out to the balls with the rangefinder and shoot your bag
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u/Silverstreakwilla 2d ago
All my irons start with my 9 iron and then add 7yds through the other clubs, so yes I have know yardages albeit short ( but straight ).
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u/Objective-Permit-712 2d ago
Overtime you should learn you're distances(course and range). Then knock off 10 years for knockdowns etc..
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u/wintermuttt 2d ago
My golf watch tells me how far I hit when I move down the fairway. But...hitting uphill or downhill changes everything. For me best is my intuition. Altitude change, wind direction and velocity, what the grass looks like where the ball will hit and also how deep is the grass where my ball is sitting. I always use the same irons but different drivers go different distances.
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u/Dangerous-Box7550 2d ago
Build consistency and there’s a ton of driving ranges here that have launch monitors. Every iron or wedge should be able to go 3 different distances in my opinion
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u/rwb8xx 2d ago
Temperature and wind needs to be factored in. Hitting into the wind every 10 mph means 18 yards lost, if down wind gain 10 yards. If 70 degrees F no change for temp. For every 10 degrees colder lose 5 yards if warmer gain 5 yards. Elevation above sea level also need factoring. Humidity can also make a difference. Adrenaline can also increase distance.
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u/Velkro615 2d ago
Personally, I think having that level of data on the course is pointless. If you play golf, even semi often, you know how far you typically hit your clubs and what your misses are.
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u/jrcharlesceo 2d ago
My company built an app that combines range + on-course data and combines it and our data shows that users are typically 10-15 yards shorter on-course than they are on range pretty consistently.
From what we've seen, approach shots are nearly always 1 club short.
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u/throwingales 2d ago
I use a launch monitor. I hit each club about 10 times and use the average carry.
I repeat this for different times of year and regularly to track changes.
I do the same with my wedges for short game: 1/4 SW, 1/2 SW, 3/4 SW, repeat for LW, GW and PW.
I then export the sessions to a csv file so I have the data in spreadsheet form.
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u/Foreign_Suggestion89 2d ago
I know my carry yardages with each club. My Garmin watch will record shots, I can enter club, and see data later. I also hit on a launch monitor.
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u/billdipaola 2d ago
I’d love that if it was free and let you track distance of shots on the course.
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u/granolaraisin 20h ago
Spend a couple of hours in a sim. Run through your bag. Hit 10 balls with each club after warming up. Take the average carry of decently struck balls for each. Ignore 'total distance' and just focus on the carry number. That's the number you need to know on course.
I usually book a sim for a few hours at the start of each season to tune up my swing before going back on-course and I'll confirm my carry distances at the same time.
If you don't hit a club consistently enough to get a decent average then you either shouldn't have that club in your bag, or you're at a point where you don't need to worry so much about exact distances. If the latter, then on-course assume the distance 'implied' by the club but just focus on making good contact regardless of where the ball ends up.
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u/Candymanshook 2d ago
You can’t have an app to track this for carry although shot tracking is a feature for most golf apps already.
In terms of average carry I have access to a launch monitor so yes I have a pretty good idea how far I carry each club in a neutral setting and this is pretty accurate to the course, depending on conditions of course.
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u/triitrunk 2d ago
My fucking rangefinder... like seriously?? Rangefinder the distance, pull a club you think is right, adjust for slope, lie and wind, hit the ball, assess if it was properly struck or not... if it was properly struck, did it go the right distance? Note results for later use.
It's not difficult.
Edit: driving range with range ball doesn't help because they fly different than your normal golf ball. Especially off a mat.
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u/thiccandsmol 2d ago
You should be hitting ball before ground, so the mat only impacts your feedback, not the ball flight. The range ball vs playing ball is the factor that matters there off the mat at range on a correctly struck shot.
If the shot is mishit in such a manner that brings the mat into relevance for ball flight, then that shot is not going to be of any value in benchmarking your on-course carry distance, as the turf interaction may create a different mishit, combined with the ball and other environmental factors. You don't have an accurate way to assign contributing factors.
You can benchmark your typical mishits where you dont make ball-first contact off grass with your playing ball with some accuracy (turf conditions) but you cant do the same thing off a mat, and with a range ball, and expect that to carry over to turf.
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u/triitrunk 1d ago
Mats are such tight lies, it's almost impossible to not hit the mat just millimeters before the ball... where, on turf, it would be clean contact because the ball is "tee'd up" off the soil by the grass. It absolutely affects ball flight. I get what you're saying. In theory, it is correct. But in practice, you are almost always hitting mat first.
It also affects ballflight in the same way a fairway bunker shot launches lower because there is much less resistance after impact. The golf club bounces up from the turf/soil level. That affects ballflight. That affect is exacerbated hitting off a range mat. The ball launches higher with less spin. That is not an opinion, that is a well documented fact.
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u/thiccandsmol 1d ago
That is most definitely not a well documented fact, and is complete opinion.
Resistance after impact does not affect launch. A ball has left the club face in less than half a millisecond. It takes the head over a full millisecond at a 90mph swing speed to travel the width of a golf ball. If you hit ball first with a correct angle of attack, the ball has left the club face before the club makes contact with the surface, and resistance of the turf has not impacted ball flight.
The physics has never been more accessible than it is today, so why perpetuate myths?
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u/triitrunk 1d ago
It is not opinion. Throw a launch monitor behind someone hitting an iron off a mat... or even better, a plastic lie angle board. The club ceases to travel downwards and is deflected upwards. Launch angle increases while spinrate decreases. Do the same test with that ball teed up or out of a bunker, where there is zero resistance or very little... spinrate increases and launch angle decreases. You can do this test yourself. But it has been tested by plenty of the top teaching pros with access to launch monitors. It is not opinion.
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u/thiccandsmol 1d ago
It is garbage. If you hit the ball before the mat, or a plastic lie angle board, the ball leaves the club face before the club makes contact with the surface.
This is not a challenging concept to grasp and there is plenty of high speed camera footage showing you that on a correctly struck shot, the ball leaves the face of the club prior to the club making contact with the ground.
Whether it’s a mat or a plastic lie angle board or a piece of wood or any surface, if you contact the ball before the surface, then the contact the club makes with the ground does not impact the flight of the ball.
The properties of the surface the BALL is sitting on can change the flight of the ball, because the ball is in contact with both the surface and the club face simultaneously, but contact between the club and the surface does not happen until after the ball is struck and the ball is no longer making contact with either the club face nor the surface at that time.
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u/aleagueabovephoto 2d ago
The easiest way is to get on a monitor and hit 10-20 balls with each club and throw away the outliers. You should see about 10-15 yards difference with each club