- 15/06/2025
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 handicappers 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
01:41used to seeing tour pros at their seven irons 180 plus yards and therefore think low handicap golfers do
01:47the same this shows they don't that seven iron averaging that median distance of 154 i think
01:53quite a lot of people might hit that who aren't in that and who aren't in that handicap index so it's
01:57an interesting stat and one to look out for as we work through handicap indexes okay so i'm stood 147
02:03yards away from the pin behind me and that incidentally is the exact median carry distance a
02:09five to ten handicap index golfer hits their seven iron so i'll bring up the graph now show you the rest of
02:15the distances for this handicap index so uh five to ten index their four iron will carry 175.9 yards
02:21five iron 163.9 uh six iron 157 exactly seven iron 147.3 so not quite 147 like i just said
02:30uh eight iron 139.2 nine iron 128.4 and finally that pitching wedge goes 113.7 yards now remember these
02:38are average distances so i know you might think they're a little bit smaller but you know that is
02:43taking everything into account from a huge set of golfers by the way um interestingly biggest gap in
02:49the bag for the five to ten index is the other side of the bag from the zero to five so the biggest
02:55gap is between nine iron and pitching wedge which is 14.7 yards which is a little bit more than a club
03:00you'd say and it's an interesting one i think a lot of golfers who sit in this range might want to
03:04figure out because these are scoring clubs having a big gap between your nine and your pitching wedge
03:09might cost you a couple of greens hit across a round want to know and want to make a note of as
03:13you go through the rest of the indexes uh now i fall into this category range i'm a 6.5 index
03:18so if i bring up my arcos app now i'll show you a little screen recording of my distances
03:23i'm actually a little bit above the average and i'm not just showing off there i just thought i'd bring
03:27it up uh but my seven iron average is 156 now i've used this app for three years now logged all my
03:33shots since i've been using it so this is really accurate for how far i hit all my clubs
03:37obviously very useful and you can also see that my gap between my pitching wedge and nine iron
03:41corresponds as well that's actually 16 yards so a little bit more than the average but one i need
03:46to work on and whether that's changing lofts or working on striking my pitching wedge better i don't
03:51know what it is uh but this all computes as well from my arcos data as well as the generic data for
03:56five to ten indexes right next up i'm stood 141 yards away from that pin behind me which is the
04:01average median carry distance for a seven iron for 10 to 15 index golfers let's get the graph up
04:07now and look at the rest of those stats this index golfers four iron goes 167.1 yards five iron 156.5
04:15six iron 150.5 seven iron 141.4 to be precise uh eight iron 134.3 nine iron 124 exactly and pitching
04:25wedge uh 108.2 yards and again like the uh five to ten index golfer that biggest gap in the bag of all
04:35the irons is between the pitching wedge and the nine iron this time it's 15.8 yards which again is
04:40like a club and a half sort of distance here uh which is really an interesting thing that came up
04:44as we did this research uh alongside arcos and compared to a zero to five index golfer uh these
04:5110 to 15 are pretty much a club shorter in terms of distance so i guess if you sit in this range and
04:57you play with a low single figure golfer when they pull out an eight iron you'll be pulling out a seven
05:01iron on average to compete with that distance right i've moved up the hole again we're now 135 yards
05:07away from that pin which is the average carry distance for a seven iron for 15 to 20 index
05:13golfer now considering the average handicap i think at least in the uk is 17 this should be relevant to
05:18most of you watching now just bring up the data again for you to visualize and look at the rest of
05:22the clubs so four iron carry 156.6 five iron 148.1 six iron 143.9 there's that seven iron 135 exactly
05:34on average uh eight iron 129 nine iron 118.6 and pitching wedge 101.6 now again the eagle-eyed amongst
05:43you will see the biggest gapping in there is again for these 15 20 index golfers uh between the pitching
05:50wedge and the nine iron and it's gone even further this time it's now 17 yards between those two clubs
05:54uh i don't know why that is let me know down in the comments why you think the gapping there
05:58is so much larger but when you go further up the bag and you see the gap in between like five iron and
06:03four iron for example at 156 and 148 is like eight yards and then all of a sudden there's a 17 yard gap
06:10between the bottom of the bag something's going on there let me know in the comments what you think
06:14that is uh but those are the average distances for what i would consider at least to be the average
06:19golfer okay last handicap index we look at in this video 2025 golfers i've come to 128 yards out and
06:26that is the average distance those golfers are hitting their seven iron uh let's look at the
06:30rest of the data again i'll bring up all this pretty imagery for you uh their four iron will go 146.9
06:37yards on average five iron 140.5 six iron 137.5 seven iron 128.9 eight iron 123.8 nine iron 113.1 and
06:49lastly the pitching wedge 94.6 yards and shock horror again it's a trend we've seen but the biggest gap
06:57in the bag for 20 to 25 index golfers is that nine to pitching wedge and this time it's eked out even
07:02further 18.5 yards uh again let me know why you think that's the case i think realistically
07:08obviously the ball becomes harder to strike the less loft there is on the irons right so you can
07:13see that four iron five iron six iron all going a very similar distance but that starts to spread out
07:18as there's a bit more loft on the club and and they strike start to strike the ball a little better
07:22that's my theory anyway but as we've seen for each index as it gets a little you know higher that gap
07:28between the wedge and the nine iron gets bigger and those top end clubs just kind of squeeze into one
07:32similar ish number uh but really interesting no doubt and lastly on on these index golfers uh that
07:38zero to five handicap golf we saw averaging their eight iron of 144 that's about four iron for this
07:44kind of golfers there's a four club difference between that zero to five index golfer and that 20
07:49to 25 index 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 okay so to round this video off i've come
07:59to the greens chat about green and regulation percentage by handicap by distance as well so
08:05our customers put this data together for us to see how often you should be hitting a green from what
08:09distance depending on your handicap right also very complex it isn't i'm going to bring up a graph now
08:14uh take a look at it pause if you need to to digest it a little bit more but i want to look at two
08:19specific parts of this which was uh the 100 to 124 yards and the percentages so a zero handicap
08:25scratch golfer from that distance will hit the green just a little under 70 percent of the time
08:30bear in mind they're probably hitting what a pitching wedge or a gap wedge in from here
08:33that's obviously impressive but they also miss three and 10 from that range uh so food for thought when
08:38you get a bit angry about yourself for missing a green from not that far away the best golfers they do
08:43it as well uh for you 20 handicap golfer so just a little bit above what the average handicap is
08:4740 percent of the time so again not a lot but that's probably because they're coming in with
08:52as we saw uh more uh yeah more often than like an eight or a seven iron for their average distance
08:57right so it's a little bit harder to control uh so food for thought there about sort of how often
09:03you're hitting a green from what doesn't feel like a long way out if you go to the other end of
09:07this graph and look at 200 plus yards again never kick yourself for missing a green from that far
09:12away it doesn't happen very often look at the zero index golfer hitting it less than 20 percent of the
09:16time and that 20 handicapper sort of doing it occasionally a couple of percent i wouldn't
09:21worry about it too much but again from all the distances there from that brilliant graph you can
09:25get a really good idea of how often you should be hitting the green from what distance so we spoke
09:30about distance early and how far you should be in each club but obviously proximity to this thing the
09:34flag and the hole is very important as well and just having a knowledge of that i think can feed
09:39good information to the mind when you're out on the golf course right so thanks again for arcos
09:44putting our brilliant data together and let me know down in the comments where do you sit within
09:48your handicap index uh are you a little bit above it like i am which i'm very excited about obviously
09:52because distance is cool uh are you about average you a little bit below let me know where you sit
09:56and if you were surprised by any of the numbers because i certainly was and let me know about that
10:00nine iron pitching wedge gap thing i don't know what's going on there if you've got any ideas let me
10:04know i'd love to hear about it but for now i hope you enjoyed this video thank you for
10:08watching i'll see you next time
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