- 9 hours 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.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:02we all think we know how far we should hit each iron but what is the truth well i've got
00:07all the
00:07data to analyze how far you should be hitting each iron so in this video we can take a look
00:12at 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
00:48iron 154
00:49which i think i think some people might think is a little short for a zero to five index handicap
00:54and
00:55we're going to get a lot of that as this video goes on i think the numbers are smaller than
00:58what
00:58we thought uh eight iron 144.6 nine iron 133.6 and finally the pitching wedge uh 119.2 now
01:10uh as we go
01:11through each index i'm going to talk about the biggest gap in the bag for each index from this
01:15median data from arcos and interestingly for a zero to five handicapper that biggest gap becomes between
01:20the four and the five iron uh with a 14.1 yard difference that's the biggest which to me at
01:26least
01:26shows really consistent gapping through the bag that 14 yard gap is the biggest one that's probably
01:32why they're a zero to five index handicapper that that strike is consistent and that gapping is
01:37therefore consistent as well so that's something interesting to look at and again i think we're used
01:41to seeing tour pros at their seven irons 180 plus yards and therefore think low handicap golfers do the
01:47same this shows they don't that seven iron averaging that median distance of 154 i think quite a lot of
01:53people might hit that who aren't in that and who aren't in that handicap index so it's an interesting
01:58stat and one to look out for as we work through handicap indexes okay so i'm stood 147 yards away
02:04from
02:04the pin behind me and that incidentally is the exact median carry distance a five to ten handicap index
02:10golfer hits their seven iron so i'll bring up the graph now show you the rest of the distances for
02:15this handicap index so uh five to ten index their four iron will carry 175.9 yards five iron 163
02:23.9
02:23six iron 157 exactly seven iron 147.3 so not quite 147 like i just said uh eight iron 139
02:31.2
02:32nine iron 128.4 and finally that pitching wedge goes 113.7 yards now remember these are average distances
02:39so i know you might think they're a little bit smaller but you know that is taking everything into
02:44account from a huge set of golfers by the way um interestingly biggest gap in the bag for the five
02:50to ten index is the other side of the bag from the zero to five so the biggest gap is
02:55between nine
02:55iron and pitching wedge which is 14.7 yards which is a little bit more than a club you'd say
03:00and it's
03:01an interesting one i think a lot of golfers who sit in this range might want to figure out because
03:05these are scoring clubs having a big gap between your nine and your pitching wedge might cost you a
03:09couple of greens hit across around want to know and want to make a note of as you go through
03:14the
03:14rest of the indexes now i fall into this category range i'm a 6.5 index so if i bring
03:19up my arcos app
03:20now show a little screen recording of my distances i'm actually a little bit above the average and i'm
03:25not just showing off there i just thought i'd bring it up uh but my seven iron average is 156
03:30now
03:30i've used this app for three years now logged all my shots since i've been using it so
03:35this is really accurate for how far i hit all my clubs obviously very useful and you can also see
03:39that my gap between my pitching wedge and nine iron corresponds as well that's actually 16 yards
03:44so a little bit more than the average but one i need to work on and whether that's changing lofts
03:49or working on striking my pitching wedge better i don't know what it is but this all computes as
03:53well from my arcos data as well as the generic data for five to ten indexes right next up i'm
03:58stood
03:59141 yards away from that pin behind me which is the average median carry distance for a seven iron
04:04for ten to fifteen 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
04:18.4 to be
04:19precise uh eight iron 134.3 nine iron 124 exactly and pitching wedge 108.2 yards and again like the
04:30uh
04:31five to ten index golfer that biggest gap in the bag of all the irons is between the pitching
04:37wedge and the nine iron this time it's 15.8 yards which again is like a club and a half
04:41sort of
04:41distance here uh which is really interesting thing that came up as we did this research uh alongside
04:46arcos and compared to a zero to five index golfer uh these 10 to 15 are pretty much a club
04:53shorter
04:53in terms of distance so i guess if you sit in this range and you play with a low single
04:58figure golfer
04:59when they pull out an eight iron you'll be pulling out a seven iron uh on average to compute with
05:03that
05:03distance right i've moved up the hole again we're now 135 yards away from that pin which is the average
05:08carry distance for a seven iron for 15 to 20 index golfer now considering the average handicap i think
05:14at least in the uk is 17 this should be relevant to most of you watching now just bring up
05:20the data
05:20again for you to visualize and look at the rest of the clubs so four iron carry 156.6 five
05:26iron 148.1
05:28six iron 143.9 there's that seven iron 135 exactly on average uh eight iron 129 99 118.6 and
05:39pitching
05:40wedge 101.6 now again the eagle-eyed amongst you will see the biggest gapping in there is again for
05:46these
05:4715 to 20 index golfers uh between the pitching wedge and the nine iron and it's gone even further this
05:52time it's now 17 yards between those two clubs uh i don't know why that is let me know down
05:56in the
05:56comments why you think the gapping there is so much larger but when you go further up the bag and
06:02you see
06:02the gap in between like five iron and four iron for example at 156 and 148 is like eight yards
06:08and then
06:09all of a sudden there's a 17 yard gap between the bottom of the bag something's going on there let
06:13me
06:15average distances for what i would consider at least to be the average golfer okay last handicap index
06:21we'll look at in this video 2025 golfers i've come to 128 yards out and that is the average distance
06:27those golfers are hitting their seven iron uh let's look at the rest of the data again i'll bring up
06:32all this pretty imagery for you uh their four iron will go 146.9 yards on average five iron 140
06:39.5
06:40six iron 137.5 seven iron 128.9 eight iron 123.8 nine iron 113.1 and lastly the pitching
06:50wedge 94.6 yards
06:53and shock horror again it's a trend we've seen but the biggest gap in the bag for 20 to 25
06:59index golfers
06:59is that nine to pitching wedge and this time it's eked out even further 18.5 yards uh again let
07:06me know
07:06why you think that's the case i think realistically obviously the ball becomes harder to strike the
07:11less loft there is on the irons right so you can see that four iron five iron six iron all
07:16going a
07:16very similar distance but that starts to spread out as there's a bit more loft on the club and
07:20and they strike start to strike the ball a little better that's my theory anyway but as we've seen
07:24for each index as it gets a little you know higher that gap between the wedge and the nine iron
07:29gets
07:29bigger and those top end clubs just kind of squeeze into one similar-ish number but really interesting
07:35no doubt and lastly on on these index golfers uh that zero to five handicap golf we saw averaging
07:41their eight iron of 144 that's about four iron for this kind of golfers there's a four club difference
07:46between that zero to five index golfer and that 20 to 25 index golfer now before we wrap this video
07:51i'm going to head to the green i'm going to briefly talk about green and regulation percentages
07:56fun stuff okay so to round this video off i've come to the greens chat about green and regulation
08:01percentage by handicap by distance as well so our customers put this data together for us
08:06to see how often you should be hitting a green from what distance depending on your handicap right
08:11also very complex it isn't i'm gonna bring up a graph now uh take a look at it pause if
08:16you need
08:16to to digest it a little bit more but i want to look at two specific parts of this which
08:20was
08:21the 100 to 124 yards and the percentages so a zero handicap scratch golfer from that distance
08:27will hit the green just a little under 70 percent of the time bearing in mind they're probably hitting
08:31what a pitching wedge or a gap wedge in from here that's obviously impressive but they also missed
08:35three and ten from that range uh so food for thought when you get a bit angry about yourself
08:39for missing a green from not that far away the best golfers they do it as well for you 20
08:44handicap
08:45golfer so just a little bit above what the average handicap is 40 of the time so again not a
08:49lot
08:50but that's probably because they're coming in with as we saw uh more yeah more loft in their hand
08:55like an eight or a seven iron for their average distance right so it's a little bit harder to
08:59control uh so food for thought there about sort of how often you're hitting a green from what doesn't
09:04feel like a long way out if you go to the other end of this graph and look at 200
09:08plus yards again
09:10never kick yourself for missing a green from that far away it doesn't happen very often look at the
09:14zero index golfer hitting it less than 20 percent of the time and that 20 handicapper sort of doing it
09:19occasionally a couple of percent i wouldn't worry about it too much but again from all the distances there
09:24from that brilliant graph you can get a really good idea of how often you should be hitting the
09:28green from what distance so we spoke about distance earlier how far you should be in each club but
09:33obviously proximity to this thing the flag and the hole is very important as well and just having a
09:37knowledge of that i think can feed good information to the mind when you're out on the golf course right
09:42so thanks again for our cost put our brilliant data together and let me know down in the comments
09:47where do you sit within your handicap index uh are you a little bit above it like i am which
09:51i'm very
09:51excited about obviously because distance is cool uh you're about average you're a little bit below
09:55let me know where you sit and if you were surprised by any of the numbers because i certainly was
09:59and
10:00let me know about that nine iron pitching wedge gap thing i don't know what's going on there if you've
10:04got any ideas let me know i'd love to hear about it but for now i hope you enjoyed this
10:07video thank
10:07you for watching i'll see you next time
Comments