Check Your Distances!

Over the last few months I've been hitting some shorter shots and they have been going long!

Today, I was playing the Priors course and on the third hole (a par five for those of you who know the course) I was in the semi-rough to the left of the fairway.  When I arrived at my golf ball I checked my SkyCaddie and it told me I was 90 yards from the flag.  It was slightly uphill so I decided to hit my 53 degree gap wedge.  The 53 degree gap wedge is normally 85 yards for a full swing.  The ball landed on the green and ended up about 15 feet from the flag.

Now I thought about how far I'd hit my golf ball and thinking back over past rounds I decided to test my gap wegde. 

There was nobody behind me so I moved onto the fairway and found the 100 yards to the flag area.  Dropped two golf balls here and made two smooth full swings.  Both balls carried to the green (SkyCaddie was showing 93 yards to the green), one stayed on the green and the other hit the down slope part of the green and ran off the back.

So I'd found out that my gap wedge was going further than I had thought! 

It makes me wonder how much longer I was hitting my other scoring clubs, so I tried a smooth, full swing with my 60 degree lob wedge and that carried 70 yards, again a full ten yards longer than I'd been aware off.

So when was the last time you check your distances?

Russ

"I just need to set aside time now to work on my 3 x 4s Yardages and get them noted down, but to do that I need to work out what a 7:30, 9:00 and 10:30 swing feels like."

I presume you mean am and not pm Chris or are you floodlite over there ? 

I changed my irons from wilson fatshaft IV to deep reds in the middle of winter and distances were all over the place. Cold air. rock hard cold ball, soft fairways etc Just getting back on track now its warming up. it the best shot I didn,t mean last week. 145yds out blocked by 60ft trees. Couldn,t get the height with an 8 iron so took a pitching wedge to lay 15yd shot and right. Creamed it to the middle of the green. Then went and 3 putted. So hope I can go down a club now the warm weather is here.

Dave CAC handed Geordie

Yardages will surely be differrent most days - take into account wind, weather conditions, ground conditions and just the fact you're swing will rarely be the same from one day to the next?

Russ,

Like Dennis says what time of year did you take your last lot of yardage measurements?

I was taking my distances from last summer.

Lob wedge was 60 yards with a full swing and my gap wedge was 85 yards with a full swing.

The main thing about the change in distances is that I try and lay up to 100 yards from the flag.  This distance always meant me taking a pitching wedge with a three quarter swing.

Now I know that my gap wedge will go 100 yards with a full swing it means I can hit a higher shot into the green and hopefully this will mean the ball stopping on these hard greens more often.

Russ