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
00:49which i think i think some people might think is a little short for a zero to five index handicap and
00:55we're going to get a lot of that as this video goes on i think the numbers are smaller than what
00:58we thought uh eight iron 144.6 99 133.6 and finally the pitching wedge uh 119.2 now uh as we go through
01:11each index 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 that comes between
01:21the four and the five iron uh with a 14.1 yard difference that's the biggest which to me at least
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
01:42to 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 from
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 163.9
02:23six iron 157 exactly seven iron 147.3 so not quite 147 like i just said uh eight iron 139.2
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 between nine
02:55iron and pitching wedge which is 14.7 yards which is a little bit more than a club you'd say and 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 a round want to know and want to make a note of as you go through the
03:14rest of the indexes uh now i fall into this category range i'm a 6.5 index so if i bring up my
03:19arcos app now show a little screen recording of my distances i'm actually a little bit above the
03:24average and i'm not just showing off there i just thought i'd bring it up uh but my seven iron average
03:29is 156 now i'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 uh but this all computes
03:53as well from my arcos data as well as the generic data for five to ten indexes right next up i'm stood
03:58141 yards away 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 this index
04:09golfers four iron goes 167.1 yards five iron 156.5 six iron 150.5 seven iron 141.4 to be precise
04:20eight iron 134.3 nine iron 124 exactly and pitching wedge 108.2 yards and again like the uh five to ten
04:32index golfer that biggest gap in the bag of all the irons is between the pitching wedge and the nine
04:38iron this time it's 15.8 yards which again is like a club and a half sort of distance here uh which is
04:43really an interesting thing that came up as we did this research uh alongside arcos and compared to a
04:48zero to five index golfer uh these 10 to 15 are pretty much a club shorter in terms of distance so i
04:55guess if you sit in this range and you play with a low single figure golfer when they pull out an eight
05:00iron you'll be putting out a seven iron uh on average to compete with that distance right i've
05:05moved up the hole again we're now 135 yards away from that pin which is the average carry distance
05:09for a seven iron for 15 to 20 index golfer now considering the average handicap i think at least
05:15in the uk is 17 this should be relevant to most of you watching now just bring up the data again for
05:20you to visualize and look at the rest of the clubs so four iron carry 156.6 five iron 148.1
05:28six iron 143.9 there's that seven iron 135 exactly on average uh eight iron 129 nine iron 118.6
05:39and pitching wedge 101.6 now again the eagle-eyed amongst you will see the biggest gapping in there
05:45is again for these 15 20 index golfers uh between the pitching wedge and the nine iron and it's gone
05:51even further this time it's now 17 yards between those two clubs uh i don't know why that is let me
05:56know down in the comments why you think the gapping there is so much larger but when you go further
06:01up the bag and you see the gap in between like five iron and four iron for example at 156 and 148
06:07is like eight yards and then also there's a 17 yard gap between the bottom of the bag something's going
06:12on there let me know in the comments what you think that is uh but those are the average distances for
06:17what i would consider at least to be the average golfer okay last the handicap index we'll look at in
06:22this video 2025 golfers i've come to 128 yards out and that is the average distance those golfers
06:28are hitting their seven iron uh let's look at the rest of the data again i'll bring up uh all this
06:32pretty imagery for you uh their four iron will go 146.9 yards on average five iron 140.5 six iron 137.5
06:42seven iron 128.9 eight iron 123.8 nine iron 113.1 and lastly the pitching wedge 94.6 yards and shock
06:54horror again it's a trend we've seen but the biggest gap in the bag for 20 to 25 index golfers is that
07:00nine to pitching wedge and this time it's eked out even further 18.5 yards uh again let me know why you
07:06think that's the case i think realistically obviously the ball becomes harder to strike
07:11the less loft there is on the irons right so you can see that four iron five iron six iron all going
07:16a very 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 gets
07:29bigger and those top end clubs just kind of squeeze into one similar-ish number but really
07:34interesting no doubt and lastly on on these index golfers uh that zero to five handicap golf we saw
07:40averaging their eight iron of 144 that's about four iron for this kind of golfers there's a four
07:45club difference between that zero to five index golfer and that 20 to 25 index golfer now before
07:51we wrap this video i'm going to head to the green i'm going to briefly talk about green and regulation
07:55percentages fun stuff okay so to round this video off i've come to the greens chat about green and
08:01regulation percentage by handicap by distance as well so i can just 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 going to bring up a graph now uh take a look at it pause if you need
08:16to to digest it a little bit more but i want to look at two specific parts of this which was
08:21uh the 100 to 124 yards and the percentages so a zero handicap scratch golfer from that distance will
08:27hit 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 miss
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 uh for you 20 handicapped
08:45golfer so just a little bit above what the average handicap is 40 of the time so again not a lot but
08:50that's probably because they're coming in with as we saw uh more yeah more loft in their hand like an
08:56eight or a seven iron for their average distance right so it's a little bit harder to control
08:59uh 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 plus yards
09:09again never kick yourself for missing a green from that far away it doesn't happen very often
09:13look at the zero index golfer hitting it less than 20 percent of the time and that 20 handicapper
09:18sort of doing it occasionally a couple of percent i wouldn't worry about it too much but
09:22again from all the distances there from that brilliant graph you can get a really good idea of
09:27how often you should be hitting the green from what distance so we spoke about distance early
09:31and how far you should be in each club but obviously proximity to this thing the flag and the hole
09:35is very important as well and just having a knowledge of that i think can feed good information
09:40to the mind when you're out on the golf course right so thanks again for our cost put our brilliant data
09:45together and let me know down in the comments where do you sit within your handicap index uh are you a
09:49little bit above it like i am which i'm very excited about obviously because distance is cool
09:53uh you're about averaging 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
10:01thing i don't know what's going on there if you've got any ideas let me know i'd love to hear about it
10:05but for now i hope you enjoyed this video thank you for watching i'll see you next time