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
00:07got all the data to analyze how far you should be hitting each iron. In this video, we can
00:11take a look at how far each handicap index hits each iron in their bag on average. This
00:16is a median carry distance. This data has come from ARCOS. It's nearly a billion real-life
00:21shots from real golfers on real golf courses. This should give you a really good idea of
00:26where you stack up in your handicap index. Let's start with 0-5 handicaps. The median
00:33distance for each iron in the bag for 0-5 index handicappers looks a little something
00:37like this. We'll start with the 4-iron, and that average carry is 187 yards. 5-iron, 172.9,
00:456-iron, 163.9, 7-iron, 154, which I think some people might think is a little short
00:52for a 0-5 index handicapper. We're going to get a lot of that as this video goes on.
00:57The numbers are smaller than what we thought. 8-iron, 144.6, 9-iron, 133.6, and finally,
01:05the pitching wedge, 119.2. As we go through each index, I'm going to talk about the biggest
01:13gap in the bag for each index from this median data from ARCOS. Interestingly, for a 0-5
01:19handicapper, that biggest gap becomes between the 4- and the 5-iron with a 14.1-yard difference.
01:24That's the biggest, which to me at least shows really consistent gapping through the bag.
01:30That 14-yard gap is the biggest one. It's probably why they're a 0-5 index handicapper.
01:35That strike is consistent, and that gapping is therefore consistent as well. That's something
01:39interesting to look at. Again, I think we're used to seeing tour pros
01:42hit their 7-irons 180-plus yards and therefore think low-handicap golfers do the same. This
01:48shows they don't. That 7-iron averaging, that median distance of 154, I think quite a lot
01:53of people might hit that who aren't in the handicap index. It's an interesting stat,
01:58and one to look out for as we work through the handicap indexes.
02:02I'm stood 147 yards away from the pin behind me. That incidentally is the exact median carry
02:08distance a 5-10 handicap index golfer hits their 7-iron. I'll bring up the graph now,
02:14show you the rest of the distances for this handicap index. 5-10 index, their 4-iron will
02:19carry 175.9 yards, 5-iron 163.9, 6-iron 157 exactly, 7-iron 147.3, so not quite 147 like
02:29I just said, 8-iron 139.2, 9-iron 128.4, and finally, that pitching wedge goes 113.7 yards.
02:37Now, remember these are average distances, so I know you might think they're a little bit smaller,
02:42but that is taking everything into account from a huge set of golfers, by the way. Interestingly,
02:48biggest gap in the bag for the 5-10 index is at the other side of the bag from the 0-5. The
02:54biggest gap is between 9-iron and pitching wedge, which is 14.7 yards, which is a little bit more
03:00than a club, you'd say, and it's an interesting one. I think a lot of golfers who sit in this
03:03range might want to figure out because these are scoring clubs. Having a big gap between your 9-iron
03:07and your pitching wedge might cost you a couple of greens hit across a round. One to note and one
03:13to make a note of as you go through the rest of the indexes. Now, I fall into this category range.
03:17I'm a 6.5 index. If I bring up my Arcos app now, I'll show a little screen recording of my
03:22distances. I'm actually a little bit above the average, and I'm not just showing off there,
03:26I just thought I'd bring it up. My 7-iron averages 156. Now, I've used this app for
03:32three years now. I've logged all my shots since I've been using it. This is really accurate for
03:36how far I hit all my clubs, obviously very useful. You can also see that my gap in between my
03:40pitching wedge and 9-iron corresponds as well. That's actually 16 yards, so a little bit more
03:45than the average, but one I need to work on and whether that's changing lofts or working
03:49on striking my pitching wedge better, I don't know what it is. This all computes as well from
03:53my Arcos data as well as the generic data for 5-10 indexes. Next up, I'm stood 141 yards away
04:00from that pin behind me, which is the average median carry distance for a 7-iron for 10 to 15
04:06index golfers. Let's get the graph up now and look at the rest of those stats. This index golfers
04:094-iron goes 167.1 yards, 5-iron 156.5, 6-iron 150.5, 7-iron 141.4 to be precise, 8-iron 134.3,
04:229-iron 124 exactly, and pitching wedge 108.2 yards. Again, like the 5-10 index golfer,
04:33that biggest gap in the bag of all the irons is between the pitching wedge and the 9-iron. This
04:38time it's 15.8 yards, which again is like a club and a half distance here, which is a really
04:43interesting thing that came up as we did this research alongside Arcos. Compared to a 0-5
04:49index golfer, these 10-15 are pretty much a club shorter in terms of distance. I guess if you sit
04:56in this range and you play with a low single-finger golfer, when they pull out an 8-iron,
05:00you'll be pulling out a 7-iron on average to compete with that distance. I've moved up the
05:05hole again. We're now 135 yards away from that pin, which is the average carry distance for a
05:107-iron for a 15-20 index golfer. Now, considering the average handicap, I think at least in the UK
05:15is 17. This should be relevant to most of you watching now. Let's bring up the data again for
05:20you to visualize and look at the rest of the clubs. 4-iron carry 156.6, 5-iron 148.1, 6-iron
05:29143.9. There's that 7-iron, 135 exactly on average, 8-iron 129, 9-iron 118.6, and pitching wedge 101.6.
05:42Now, again, the eagle-eyed amongst you will see the biggest gapping in there is, again,
05:46for these 15-20 index golfers between the pitching wedge and the 9-iron. It's gone even further this
05:52time. It's now 17 yards between those two clubs. I don't know why that is. Let me know down in the
05:57comments why you think the gapping there is so much larger. When you go further up the bag and
06:02you see the gap in between 5-iron and 4-iron, for example, at 156 and 148, it's like 8 yards.
06:08Then also, there's a 17-yard gap between the bottom of the bag. Something's going on there.
06:13Let me know in the comments what you think that is. Those are the average distances for what I
06:17would consider at least to be the average golfer. Last handicap index we're going to look at in
06:22this video, 20-25 golfers. I've come to 128 yards out, and that is the average distance those golfers
06:28are hitting their 7-iron. Let's look at the rest of the data again. I'll bring up all this pretty
06:33imagery for you. Their 4-iron will go 146.9 yards on average, 5-iron 140.5, 6-iron 137.5, 7-iron
06:43128.9, 8-iron 123.8, 9-iron 113.1, and lastly, the pitching wedge, 94.6 yards. Shock horror,
06:54again, it's a trend we've seen, but the biggest gap in the bag for 20-25 index golfers is that
07:009-to-pitching wedge. This time, it's eked out even further, 18.5 yards. Again, let me know what you
07:06think that's the case. I think realistically, obviously, the ball becomes harder to strike
07:12the less loft there is on the irons. You can see that 4-iron, 5-iron, 6-iron all going a very similar
07:16distance, but that starts to spread out as there's a bit more loft on the club and they start to
07:21strike the ball a little better. That's my theory anyway. As we've seen for each index, as it gets a
07:26little higher, that gap between the wedge and the 9-iron gets bigger, and those top-end clubs just
07:31squeeze into one similar-ish number, but really interesting, no doubt. Lastly, on these index
07:37golfers, that 0-to-5 handicap golfer we saw averaging that 8-iron of 144, that's about 4-iron
07:44for this kind of golfer. There's a 4-club difference between that 0-to-5 index golfer and that 20-to-25
07:49index golfer. Now, before we wrap this video, I'm going to head to the green. I'm going to briefly
07:53talk about green and regulation percentages, fun stuff. To round this video off, I've come to the
07:59green to chat about green and regulation percentage by handicap, by distance as well. Our
08:05customers put this data together for us to see how often you should be hitting a green, from what
08:09distance, depending on your handicap. All sounds very complex, it isn't. I'm going to bring up a
08:13graph now, take a look at it, pause if you need to, to digest it a little bit more. I want to look
08:18at two specific parts of this, which was the 100-124 yards and the percentages. A 0-handicap
08:25scratch golfer from that distance will hit the green just a little under 70% of the time. Bear
08:30in mind, they're probably hitting a pitching wedge or a gap wedge in from here. That's obviously
08:34impressive, but they also miss 3-10 from that range. Food for thought when you get a bit angry
08:39about yourself for missing a green from not that far away, the best golfers, they do it as well.
08:44For you 20-handicap golfer, so just a little bit above what the average handicap is,
08:4840% of the time. Again, not a lot, but that's probably because they're coming in with, as we
08:52saw, more often they have an eight or a seven iron for their average distance. It's a little
08:58bit harder to control. Food for thought there about how often you're hitting a green, from
09:04doesn't feel like a long way out. If you go to the other end of this graph and look at 200-plus
09:08yards, again, never kick yourself for missing a green from that far away. It doesn't happen very
09:13often. Look at the zero-index golfer hitting it less than 20% of the time, and that 20-handicapper
09:19doing it occasionally, a couple of percent. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Again,
09:23from all the distances there, from that brilliant graph, you can get a really good idea of how often
09:27you should be hitting the green from what distance. We spoke about distance earlier,
09:31how far you should be hitting each club, but obviously, proximity to this thing, the flag,
09:35and the hole is very important as well. Just having a knowledge of that, I think,
09:39can feed good information to the mind when you're out on the golf course.
09:43Thanks again for our course, put our brilliant data together. Let me know down in the comments,
09:47where do you sit within your handicap index? Are you a little bit above it, like I am,
09:51which I'm very excited about, obviously, because distance is cool. Are you about average,
09:54or are you a little bit below? Let me know where you sit. If you were surprised by any of the
09:58numbers, because I certainly was, 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
10:05about it. For now, I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next time.