Why 4° gaps don't mean equal yardage gaps between your irons


Hi Reader,

🏌️‍♂️ The carry number that matters for the scoring end of your bag

Quick question - how far do you actually carry your pitching wedge?

Your number that you can reliably hit more than 80% of the time.

A lot of golfers can't say with confidence. And it quietly wrecks the scoring end of the bag.


And what got my thinking about this was last week’s episode of Golf.com’s Fully Equipped with Arccos' CEO Sal Syed..

For roughly 400 years, iron gapping has been linear. Same loft gap between clubs, so you’d assume the same distance gap.

Ping’s data says no and shows that assumption breaks down for the mid-handicap player.

A steady four-degree loft gap doesn't produce a steady distance gap out on the course.

So Ping built a non-linear gapping algorithm off real-world Arccos shots.

The takeaway?

The neat 10-yard ladder you picture between your irons? It may not exist.

So what should you do when it comes for your own carry numbers and gaps between irons?

For one stop trusting the number stamped on your irons. Start with one real number.

Anchor everything off your pitching wedge’s true carry distance and loft.

Then map your gaps up and down from there.

That’s how you find the crucial black holes that make a real impact out on the course. Two clubs that go the same distance. Or a gap that’s really 15 yards, not 10.

And when you add wedges, the thing that matters most isn’t the brand on the sole.

It’s keeping the shaft weight consistent, so your full-swing wedges feel like an extension of your short irons

We broke the whole thing down, length and lie angle included, right here.

From Us

For years I bought the big name gloves because that's what top golfers did. Now I simply buy the best price quality glove I can find.

A GX glove that cost me almost 50% less than the traditional 'main' brand gloves on the market, and I genuinely cannot tell the difference.

Grab a pair here and get 10% off with code THEGOLFINGFOCUS

And finally and most importantly we hope you are enjoying your golf!

Play well 👍

Graeme Hay

Founder, GolfingFocus.com

Golfing Focus Limited, 73 Maple Road, London, KT6 4AG
Unsubscribe · Preferences

Golfing Focus

Golf isn’t easy and life is busy. So at GolfingFocus.com our focus is simple. We spend the time you don’t have researching the game and the gear to leave you free to simply enjoy playing and improving your golf! Whether you are a beginner just taking up the game or have been playing for a long time there’s something at Golfing Focus for you! So a big welcome and please do subscribe. It helps us help more regular golfers like you enjoy their golf more and hopefully get better at the same time!

Read more from Golfing Focus
Justin Thomas' mixed iron set

Fully Focused On YOUR Golf Hi Reader, The second way an iron fails your bag audit Last week I asked you to check whether any of your 14 clubs are doing nothing by measuring the yardage gaps between them. But that is only the first test. Your 5-iron might sit exactly where it should between your 4 and 6. But if you can’t produce that distance reliably, the gap exists only on paper. That is what MyGolfSpy examined this week. Their normal score when testing an iron set combines results from a...

How far should you hit your irons

Fully Focused On YOUR Golf Hi Reader, Which of your 14 clubs are doing nothing? A few weeks ago we told you the neat 10-yard ladder between your irons probably doesn't exist. This week someone put a number on it. Golf Digest went to Cobra, whose Connect sensors feed into Arccos, and asked how common the problem really is. And they found ... 42% of golfers have one gapping problem. Two clubs sitting within two yards of each other. 19% have two. 38% have three, four or five. Now look at how far...

2-Piece vs 3-Piece vs 4-Piece vs 5-Piece Golf Balls

Fully Focused On YOUR Golf Hi Reader, The ball that suits you can be the hardest to build If your swing is under 85mph, we’ve told you a soft 2-piece ball is probably right for you. This week MyGolfSpy put the best-selling one under the microscope. The Callaway Supersoft. Grade C. Not Recommended. Weight and diameter, fine. Compression, not fine. Across 36 balls the spread ran 40.3 to 53.8 — 13.5 points against a 9.7 average. Here’s the bit that's most noticeable, and it’s their line, not...