How Far Do You Hit Your Irons?

The key to scoring in golf is hitting the green with your iron from the fairway. To get on the green, though, the ball has to get to the green. Too many golfers overestimate the distance they hit their irons, leaving their approaches short. To get the ball pin-high you have to know how far you hit each club. Here's how to find out.

Go out to the course early, before there’s much traffic on the fairways. On a hole that has a level fairway, find the 200-yard marker. On most golf courses that's a blue cement circle laid into the ground. Walk from it to the 150-yard marker, counting your steps. Now turn around and take half that number of steps back toward the 200-yard marker. You’re exactly 175 yards from the green.

Drop a few balls and hit them with what you think is your 175-yard club. They need to hit the center of the green. Front portion doesn't count. You want the center. If they land short of that, try one more club. When you hit the center of the green on the fly, or maybe a little beyond, that is your 175-yard club.

Do the same thing on another hole from the 150-yard marker, and again on a third hole from 125 yards. You'll end up with three distances from which you know which club to use. The important thing is to do this experiment on the course, under playing conditions and with the ball you play with. You can't figure this out at the range with perfect lies, do-overs, and range balls.

You have eight irons (3-PW), though, so why am I recommending you hit from only three distances? First of all, you found each distance in a precise way, so you know they're right. Second, these three distances give you all the information you need.

When I tried this, the irons I came up with were 4, 6, and 9. The 4 and 6 were about five yards long, but the 9 was just right. So I determined these three iron/distance combinations by experiment: 4/180, 6/155, 9/125. The remaining clubs can be easily interpolated into that sequence.

Note: If you have hybrid irons in your bag, check them out individually. The intervals between them could be larger than between your traditional irons.

Once you really know how far you hit your irons, under playing conditions, you can account for in-between yardages, wind, the lie, elevation changes, and other factors that affect playing distance so that you can start hitting pin-high irons. It will change the way you play the game.