Distance Gapping and Club Yardages: How far should you hit the ball?

Mark

Improve Golf

Understanding your club yardages is crucial for making smart decisions on the course.

Hitting the ball without knowing your exact distances can lead to costly mistakes and frustration.

Accurately knowing how far you hit each club can be the difference between sticking a green and missing it entirely.

In this blog post, we’ll dive into distance gapping, how to determine your yardages, and why this knowledge is essential for lowering your scores.

MOST OF OUR STUDENTS DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW FAR THEY HIT EACH CLUB

If you can hit your driver 245 yards and your loftiest wedge 55 yards by knowing each of your other golf clubs it’s a lot easier to achieve lower scores.

How far should you really be hitting the ball and do you know the distance gaps between each of your clubs?

How far you should be hitting a particular club
Identifying what distance “gaps” are
How to distance gap your bag
Average distances for kids, men, and ladies

One of the most important questions you can ask of your game is about golf club distances – how far do I hit the ball? Do you know the answer? Knowing what distance you hit the ball and how far each club carries can help you plan your way round the golf course and lower your score. A distance gap exercise could be one of the most important hour of your season.

You can do this by either spending some time on the practice fairway or, considering the weather, a good option is to visit a golf coach who can measure your club distances using a TrackMan or Flightscope launch monitor which can measure to within a yard.

What is distance gapping?

This is where a golfer measures how far they hit the ball with each club. Once a golfer knows each club’s yardage they can then assess the ‘gaps’ in distance between each club.

Why is distance gapping so important?

For most amateurs distance, gapping helps in two ways. It sets a benchmark for how far you hit the golf ball and more importantly, it highlights distance gaps in your game that none of your clubs covers.

Some golfers may have big gaps in club distances between 190-240 yards and find it difficult to reach greens with long irons, finding themselves reaching for the fairway wood or hybrid a lot.

For others, it could be measuring the distances with wedges closer to the green.

For amateurs, it’s never been so easy to access this knowledge.

GPS devices, laser rangefinders and yardage markers all make it possible to do so on the course.

For more accurate results you can follow the pros and use a radar launch monitor.

Knowing the yardages of each club and the distance gaps between them helps plan shots with greater confidence whether it’s hot, cold, rainy, windy or uphill.

Knowing you have the right club in your hands helps commit to encouraging confident swings every time.

Make a good note of the information you get from this exercise and understand it, what were the differences between good shots and bad shots, what was the yardage that felt most comfortable and most consistent, do your yardage gaps make sense for your game?

The average distances you should be hitting

The average distances golfers are hitting.

This guide is for anyone who has absolutely no idea about the differences between golf clubs, which to use for different shots and which clubs you should definitely have in your bag.

Top Tip – One of the craziest things about so many beginner golfers is that they have absolutely no idea how far they are hitting each club.

Think about it, how do you expect to get the ball around the green consistently when you’re going in blind each time, guessing which club to use and what type of shot to take?

The average distances golfers are hitting. This guide is for anyone who has absolutely no idea about the differences between golf clubs, which to use for different shots and which clubs you should definitely have in your bag.

Here’s how far you should be hitting each club

These are only averages.

You may find that you’re above or below these numbers and that’s fine.

By knowing this information you can help drive your game forward by benchmarking your position and getting better.

Woods

Woods are probably the most exciting clubs in the bag because they offer the most distance.

When you’re taking your first shot from the tee box on Par 5’s and Par 4’s then it’s often wise to use a driver to get the maximum distance possible for that hole.

Unless you suck with the driver. In this case, you’re best off using a 3 wood, and if you’re still not comfortable with that then use a low iron.

A low iron will probably be easier to hit and as you’re using them on the fairway this should help you become more comfortable with them.

1 Wood |180 – 250+ yards | | 9° – 11°
3 Wood 160 – 230 Yards 15° – 18 °
5 Wood 140 – 210 Yards 20° – 22°

Irons

Iron’s are incredibly important as these are what you’re using on the fairway or in the rough if that’s where your balls end up.

Traditionally, there was a 2 iron, through to a 9 iron, then your set will have included or offered extra a pitching wedge and a sand wedge.

If you’re a beginner golfer who’s just trying golf out then you don’t need to go spending hundreds and hundreds, sometimes even thousands on your golf set.

3 iron – 160 – 200 Yards 19° – 21 °
4 iron 150 – 190 Yards 24° – 26 °
5 iron 140 – 180 Yards 27° – 29 °
6 iron 130 – 160 Yards 30° – 32 °
7 iron 120 – 150 Yards 33° – 35 °
8 iron 110 – 140 Yards 36° – 38 °
9 iron 90 – 130 Yards 40° – 42 °

Wedges

The wedges are the clubs with the most loft so are designed for approach play to the green.

Traditionally, wedges were the pitching wedge and the sand wedge were included in the iron set, now, it’s more common for golfers to have their irons and then buy wedges separately, perhaps even a different brand.