- 5 minutes ago
Do you know how far you should hit your irons based on how you compare with other golfers in your handicap range? Well to see how you stack up, we've enlisted the help of golf data giants Arccos to give us a detailed breakdown of how far you should be hitting every iron in your bag and where the biggest distance gaps tend to lie.
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00:00we all think we know how far we should hit each iron but what is the truth well i've got all the
00:07data to analyze how far you should be hitting each iron so in this video we can take a look at how
00:12far each handicap index hits each iron in their bag on average this is a median carry distance
00:18and this data has come from our costs so it's nearly a billion real life shots from real golfers
00:23on real golf courses so this should give you a really good idea of where you stack up in your
00:28handicap index right so let's start with zero to five handicaps so the median distance for each
00:34iron in the bag for zero to five index handicaps looks a little something like this so we'll start
00:38with the four iron and that average carry is 187 yards five iron 172.9 six iron 163.9 seven iron 154 which
00:50i think i think some people might think is a little short for a zero to five index handicap and we're
00:55going to get a lot of that as this video goes on i think the numbers are smaller than what we thought
00:59uh eight iron 144.6 nine iron 133.6 and finally the pitching wedge uh 119.2 now uh as we go through each
01:11index i'm going to talk about the biggest gap in the bag for each index from this median data from
01:16arcos and interestingly for a zero to five handicapper that biggest gap becomes between the four and the five
01:22iron uh with a 14.1 yard difference that's the biggest which to me at least shows really consistent
01:28gapping through the bag that 14 yard gap is the biggest one that's probably why they're a zero to
01:33five index handicapper that that strike is consistent and that gapping is therefore consistent as well
01:38so that's something interesting to look at and again i think we're used to seeing tour pros at their
01:43seven irons 180 plus yards and therefore think low handicap golfers do the same this shows they don't
01:49that seven iron averaging that median distance of 154 i think quite a lot of people might hit that
01:54who aren't in that and who aren't in that handicap index so it's an interesting stat and one to look
01:59out for as we work through handicap indexes okay so i'm stood 147 yards away from the pin behind me
02:05and that incidentally is the exact median carry distance a five to ten handicap index golfer
02:11hits their seven iron so i'll bring up the graph now show you the rest of the distances for this
02:16handicap index so uh five to ten index their four iron will carry 175.9 yards five iron 163.9 six
02:24iron 157 exactly seven iron 147.3 so not quite 147 like i just said uh eight iron 139.2 nine iron 128.4
02:34and finally that pitching wedge goes 113.7 yards now remember these are average distances so i know
02:40you might think they're a little bit smaller but you know that is taking everything into account
02:45from a huge set of golfers by the way um interestingly biggest gap in the bag for the five to ten index
02:51is the other side of the bag from the zero to five so the biggest gap is between nine iron and pitching
02:56wedge which is 14.7 yards which is a little bit more than a club you'd say and it's an interesting
03:01one i think a lot of golfers who sit in this range might want to figure out because these are scoring
03:06clubs having a big gap between your nine and your pitching wedge might cost you a couple of greens hit
03:10across a round want to note and want to make a note of as you go through the rest of the indexes
03:15uh now i fall into this category range i'm a 6.5 index so if i bring up my arcos app now
03:20show a little screen recording of my distances i'm actually a little bit above the average and i'm not
03:25just showing off there i just thought i'd bring it up uh but my seven iron average is 156 now
03:30i've used this app for three years now logged all my shots since i've been using it so this is really
03:36accurate for how far i hit all my clubs obviously very useful and you can also see that my gap in
03:40between my pitching wedge and nine iron corresponds as well that's actually 16 yards so a little bit
03:45more than the average but one i need to work on and whether that's changing lofts or working on
03:49striking my pitching wedge better i don't know what it is uh but this all computes as well from my
03:53arcos data as well as the generic data for five to ten indexes right next up i'm stood 141 yards
04:00away from that pin behind me which is the average median carry distance for a seven iron
04:04for 10 to 15 index golfers let's get the graph up now and look at the rest of those stats
04:08this index golfers four iron goes 167.1 yards five iron 156.5 six iron 150.5 seven iron 141.4
04:19to be precise uh eight iron 134.3 nine iron 124 exactly and pitching wedge uh 108.2 yards and
04:29again like the uh five to ten index golfer that biggest gap in the bag of all the irons is between
04:36the pitching wedge and the nine iron this time it's 15.8 yards which again is like a club and a
04:41half sort of distance here uh which is really an interesting thing that came up as we did this
04:45research uh alongside arcos and compared to a zero to five index golfer uh these 10 to 15 are pretty
04:52much a club shorter in terms of distance so i guess if you sit in this range and you play with a
04:57low single figure golfer when they pull out an eight iron you'll be pulling out a seven iron
05:01on average to compete with that distance right i've moved up the hole again we're now 135 yards away
05:07from that pin which is the average carry distance for a seven iron for 15 to 20 index golfer now
05:13considering the average handicap i think at least in the uk is 17 this should be relevant to most of
05:18you watching now just bring up the data again for you to visualize and look at the rest of the clubs
05:22so four iron carry 156.6 five iron 148.1 six iron 143.9 there's that seven iron 135 exactly on average
05:35uh eight iron 129 nine iron 118.6 and pitching wedge 101.6 now again the eagle-eyed amongst you will see
05:43the biggest gapping in there is again for these 15 20 index golfers uh between the pitching wedge and
05:50nine iron and it's gone even further this time it's now 17 yards between those two clubs uh i don't
05:55know why that is let me know down in the comments why you think the gapping there is so much larger
06:00but when you go further up the bag and you see the gap in between like five iron and four iron for
06:04example at 156 and 148 is like eight yards and then all of a sudden there's a 17 yard gap between
06:11the bottom of the bag something's going on there let me know in the comments what you think that is
06:14but those are the average distances for what i would consider at least to be the average golfer
06:19okay last handicap index we'll look at in this video 2025 golfers i've come to 128 yards out and
06:26that is the average distance those golfers are hitting their seven iron uh let's look at the
06:30rest of the data again i'll bring up all this pretty imagery for you uh their four iron will go 146.9
06:37yards on average five iron 140.5 six iron 137.5 seven iron 128.9 eight iron 123.8 nine iron 113.1 and
06:49lastly the pitching wedge 94.6 yards and shock horror again it's a trend we've seen but the biggest gap
06:57in the bag for 20 to 25 index golfers is that nine to pitching wedge and this time it's eked out even
07:02further 18.5 yards uh again let me know why you think that's the case i think realistically
07:08obviously the ball becomes harder to strike the less loft there is on the irons right so you can
07:13see that four iron five iron six iron all going a very similar distance but that starts to spread
07:18out as there's a bit more loft on the club and and they strike start to strike the ball a little
07:22better that's my theory anyway but as we've seen for each index as it gets a little you know higher
07:27that gap between the wedge and the nine iron gets bigger and those top end clubs just kind of
07:31squeeze into one similar ish number but really interesting no doubt and lastly on these index
07:37golfers uh that zero to five handicap golf we saw averaging their eight iron of 144 that's about
07:43four iron for this kind of golfers there's a four club difference between that zero to five index
07:48golfer and that 20 to 25 index golfer now before we wrap this video i'm going to head to the green
07:53i'm going to briefly talk about green and regulation percentages fun stuff okay so to round this video
07:58off i've come to the greens chat about green and regulation percentage by handicap by distance as
08:04well so i can put this data together for us to see how often you should be hitting a green from what
08:09distance depending on your handicap right also very complex it isn't i'm gonna bring up a graph now
08:14uh take a look at it pause if you need to to digest it a little bit more but i want to look at two
08:19specific parts of this which was uh the 100 to 124 yards and the percentages so a zero handicap
08:25scratch golfer from that distance will hit the green just a little under 70 percent of the time
08:30bearing in mind they're probably hitting what a pitching wedge or a gap wedge in from here
08:33that's obviously impressive but they also miss three and ten from that range uh so food for thought
08:38when you get a bit angry about yourself for missing a green from not that far away the best golfers they
08:43do it as well uh for you 20 handicap golfer so just a little bit above what the average handicap is
08:4840 of the time so again not a lot but that's probably because they're coming in with
08:52as we saw uh more uh yeah more often than like an eight or a seven iron for their average distance
08:57right so it's a little bit harder to control uh so food for thought there about sort of how often
09:03you're hitting a green from what doesn't feel like a long way out if you go to the other end of this
09:07graph and look at 200 plus yards again never kick yourself for missing a green from that far away it
09:12doesn't happen very often look at the zero index golfer hitting it less than 20 percent of the time
09:17and that 20 handicapper sort of doing it occasionally a couple of percent i wouldn't worry about it too
09:22much but again from all the distances there from that brilliant graph you can get a really good idea
09:27of how often you should be hitting the green from what distance so we spoke about distance early and
09:31how far you should be in each club but obviously proximity to this thing the flag and the hole is
09:36very important as well and just having a knowledge of that i think can feed good information to the
09:40mind when you're out on the golf course right so thanks again for arcos put all that brilliant data
09:45together and let me know down in the comments where do you sit within your handicap index uh are
09:49you a little bit above it like i am which i'm very excited about obviously because distance is cool
09:53uh you're about average you a little bit below let me know where you sit and if you were surprised by
09:57any of the numbers because i certainly was and let me know about that nine iron pitching wedge gap thing
10:02i don't know what's going on there if you've got any ideas let me know i'd love to hear about it
10:06but for now i hope you enjoyed this video thank you for watching i'll see you next time
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