# Working out distance for which club



## Enter Sandman (Apr 30, 2007)

Hi i need help in working out how far i can hit each club in my bag based on a normal full swing.

At the local range we have coloured distance marker flags but it is hard judging where the ball stops after rolling etc.

How can i learn how far i can hit each iron, wood etc so as to know which club to use, should i go to a better range and start again and make notes of how far i can hit with each club ??

Thanks in advance


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## Golfbum (Oct 14, 2006)

It is tough to figure out your exact yardage on most ranges.
Your best bet would be to go to your local course when it is not busy. Find a par 4 and start at the 200 yard marker. Try to hit your irons one at a time as you move closer to the green. Let's say you hit your 3 iron from the 200 yard mark. Move towards the green 10 yards and try hitting your 4 iron. Do the same thing for each iron in your bag, move forward 10 yards and drop down another iron until you get to your wedges.
Of course you need to do this when the course is not busy! 
Once you find out those yardages you can then vary it slightly with a harder or easier swing. Generally you are better off taking one club more than you think you need and hit it with a controlled swing.
Try this, and do it using the same ball for each shot and soon you will nail down your yardages for every iron in your bag.


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## Foster4 (May 2, 2007)

go to a similator


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## 373 (Jun 9, 2006)

Foster4 said:


> go to a similator


Probably not a bad idea considering how much you can learn with electronic technology these days. It will let you learn a lot in a very short time, at which point you can take your notes to the course and see how much of it translates into reality playing off grass.

Something a buddy of mine did when he got his lob wedge and gap wedge was pretty interesting. There's no reason you couldn't do it for longer hitting clubs, within reason...

He took a 200 yard spool of string and wrapped most of it around the tips of a yardstick, just looping it around and around. I think he used about 120 loops, or roughly 120 yards, within a few inches. Once he laid it out on the school playground near his house, he tagged certain distances with tape, 50 yards and up.

Finally, he started hitting balls and watched for the average distance where most balls stayed. Since he felt they were bouncing in inconsistant ways, (the school field is certainly not as smooth as a golf course), he called me to watch at the 70 yard position to see where his lob wedges actually landed, regardless of where they finished. We concluded he could hit his lob wedge consistantly to 65 yards.

Basically, we did the same thing with his gap wedge and sand wedge to finish the exercises and he went to the course the next week with more confidence when he needed to hit a wedge shot.

So, is there a reasonable field near you and do you have a spool of string, a yardstick and some tape?


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## BuddyLuv (Sep 2, 2007)

generally speaking-there should be a 10-25 yd difference
between clubs-find the club you hit well and go from
there!!


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## 65nlovenit (Dec 8, 2006)

Go to Wal-Mart and pick up a couple sets of sports cones (miniature traffic cones - $6:00 a set of 3). Get a golfing buddy and find an empty school yard. Walk off 25/50/75/100/125/150 yards, putting a cone down at each position. Have your buddy stand off to the side with a pad of paper, Use your 8/9/pw/gw/sw/lw and hit a dozen or so balls with each club, having your buddy mark down the yardage (in air yardages, not land and roll yardages which are too inconsistent). Its a good idea to buy a cheap mat and hit off that, saves chewing up the ball field and getting in the grounds keepers bad books.


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## 373 (Jun 9, 2006)

65nlovenit said:


> Go to Wal-Mart and pick up a couple sets of sports cones (miniature traffic cones - $6:00 a set of 3)


Even though the string and yardstick would be cheaper, I even like the idea of the cones better.

One thing to consider is that we often can't step an accurate yard. Even at 6' 7" tall, my stride is only 32", not a full yard, (old Boy Scout here), so using your normal step, go across something like the length of your driveway and measure the distance those steps took you. You can do simple math to figure out how many steps any distance should be, even if there are more steps than yards in the end.

Like the cone idea... gotta get some of those...


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## Foster4 (May 2, 2007)

go to a similater


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## Golfbum (Oct 14, 2006)

Foster4 said:


> go to a similater


Do you know that simulator is dead on for yardage? 
You are not hitting off real turf. 
Golf is played outdoors, you need to know what the ball does outdoors, not inside. 
Tempature comes into play outdoors, light wind, the amount of bounce and roll of the ball. 
Those are the all important issues he needs to know how to deal with if he wants to improve his scores.
I have never checked yardages at a simulator. In fact I have only used one of those things once over the years I have golfed.
Outdoors is the proper place to be checking yardages IMO.


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## marto97 (Mar 29, 2007)

I use my sky caddie to track the distance of my drives. It's a stat I like to keep. But the sky caddie has many more uses, you can track every shot you take and in no time at all you will know exactly how far you hit each club in your bag. Tracking changes to equipment is also possible, like changing the shaft of your driver, or using different golf balls. Its a valuable tool to me. I used it in my clubs amateur open this past weekend and its legal. Golf GPS System


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## 65nlovenit (Dec 8, 2006)

Just a quick question Marto.... when you use the Sky Caddie to figure out your shot yardage, you first have to know what the distance is from a given tee box to the flag. Then you hit your shot, walk up to where the ball is, take another reading, and subtract the remaining yardage from the starting yardage. Is that how its done? If so.....I would have some reservations with that procedure. Its only one shot. You could have got away a good/medium/lousy shot. Normally when your compiling yardages its done on an average of multiple shots. It definitely would be the most accurate by far, but I think to be really affective you'd need to be able to hit a bucket of balls then do your measurements.


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## marto97 (Mar 29, 2007)

65nlovenit said:


> Just a quick question Marto.... when you use the Sky Caddie to figure out your shot yardage, you first have to know what the distance is from a given tee box to the flag. Then you hit your shot, walk up to where the ball is, take another reading, and subtract the remaining yardage from the starting yardage. Is that how its done? If so.....I would have some reservations with that procedure. Its only one shot. You could have got away a good/medium/lousy shot. Normally when your compiling yardages its done on an average of multiple shots. It definitely would be the most accurate by far, but I think to be really affective you'd need to be able to hit a bucket of balls then do your measurements.


OK you know it's a GPS, and the course has to be mapped first before you can use it to check any yardages. They are either professionally mapped, which thousands of courses are in the US, and Canada, or you can map it out yourself which is very easy to do, but doing it yourself will only give you 3 measurements. They are the front, center and back of the green. I use it to track my driving distance. From there you could mark again for your next shot. Here is what I do: On the tee box I take a mark, the unit tells me when the ball is marked, (takes a couple seconds) then hit my drive go to my ball and take another mark. The unit gives me my distance and I can quickly mark again for my next shot. I always carry a Golfers Handbook where I keep my stats. This is where I record everything. In a few rounds you will have enough data to know exactly how far you hit each club with what ever kind of swing you put on it. Whether it's a good swing or mediocre swing, half swing etc.. 
How's that I hope I shed some light on it for you and didn't confuse you with my babel.


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## 300Yards (Jan 23, 2007)

I originally got my distacnes with a Sky Caddie. I will buy another one some day. My yardages have changed since then, but from hitting at the range, various simulators, and playing n the course, I know what my own capabilities are, and how far I hit each club. In reality, simulators, and GPS isn't really necessary, but they are useful tools.


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## 65nlovenit (Dec 8, 2006)

Thanks very much for the info marto97, I kind of figured it was something along that line. I guess a GPS unit is going to have to be my next golf investment. Again thanks for the info....

Del


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## Foster4 (May 2, 2007)

yes i know similaters don't add in all the wind and how hot it is and cold it is...those are things you add when your in the fairway trying to hit it close to the pin...The similater takes away all the variables (wind, rain, heat, cold how hard the earth is etc) that is why you use a similater. Its to make it simple...you want to know exact carry of your irons...then when your on the course and its fairly hot and windy or w/e the circumstances thats when you calculate the differences into what iron you hit...Unless you have about 10 ppl and a precise grid drawn up with yardages and then let the ppl see where your ball lands and mark it ...but to me thats a lil inconveinant wouldn't you say? And you still have to deal with the variables. say you hit an 8 iron 150 on the range but didn't notice any wind helping it, Then you go to the course try to hit it 150 and BAM short in the hazard wouldn't that suck. And i know on practice ranges you just can't hit a ball and go find it...others hitting and too many balls out there so time comsuming...gps or similater is way to go...although gps still has too many variables to deal with wind heat cold all that...

and about the turf thing...to my knowledge you hit the ball before the grass and the turf ...divots are always infront of your ball ...so it doesn't throw off the balls direction and yardage to some drastically different yardage or direction...maybe 1-2yards but nothing like 10


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## Enter Sandman (Apr 30, 2007)

Where can you get these simulators from, any ideas which models etc ?


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## Daniel (Sep 9, 2007)

65nlovenit said:


> Go to Wal-Mart and pick up a couple sets of sports cones (miniature traffic cones - $6:00 a set of 3). Get a golfing buddy and find an empty school yard. Walk off 25/50/75/100/125/150 yards, putting a cone down at each position. Have your buddy stand off to the side with a pad of paper, Use your 8/9/pw/gw/sw/lw and hit a dozen or so balls with each club, having your buddy mark down the yardage (in air yardages, not land and roll yardages which are too inconsistent). Its a good idea to buy a cheap mat and hit off that, saves chewing up the ball field and getting in the grounds keepers bad books.



Pardon me, but what is a gap wedge and what do you use it for.

and also, even though this isn't really relavant, it isn't easy to find a golfing buddy when you're a freshman in highschool (like me) and my friends don't like golf because they think it's an "old person's sport" and I'm not gonna walk around asking people if they golf. So how do I do this. Sorta hard.

and about the cheap mat thing, you don't even have to buy one, most cars have those foot mats in the back seat. you just make a hole to slip a tee into if you want to use a driver. I use a car mat when I'm hitting air balls in my backyard, and when I'm practicing chipping in my backyard. If you don't use a mat you end up divoting up your yard.

thanks

Daniel


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## 373 (Jun 9, 2006)

Daniel said:


> Pardon me, but what is a gap wedge and what do you use it for.


A gap wedge, which is called different things by different manufacturers, (attack, approach, mid, gap), is a wedge with loft inbetween the pitching wedge and sand wedge. Generally, there will be nearly a 10 degree difference between your PW and your SW, something like 46 and 56 degrees. The gap wedge will be around 51 degrees so you can hit simple shots to accomplish the distances it would fill. It lets you avoid having to be too talented judging distances over a wide territory with your other wedges.


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## marto97 (Mar 29, 2007)

Daniel said:


> Pardon me, but what is a gap wedge and what do you use it for.
> 
> and also, even though this isn't really relavant, it isn't easy to find a golfing buddy when you're a freshman in highschool (like me) and my friends don't like golf because they think it's an "old person's sport" and I'm not gonna walk around asking people if they golf. So how do I do this. Sorta hard.
> 
> ...


Hey Daniel, I see where it could be a problem for a young lad trying to find playing partners, especially if you don't have friends that play. When I first move out to the Okanagan here I'd didn't have any playing partners either, but I never had trouble finding a game. I would go to my club as a single and within a 1/2 hour or so they would fit me in with someone. Even if you don't belong to a club you could do the same thing. You get stuck with all kinds of golfers so you really have to play your own game. Give it a try, good luck.


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