How Far Should You Hit Your Golf Clubs? (By Handicap)

There is a big misconception that scratch golfers hit it much further than the rest of club golfers, but is this the reality?

In this video, I use ShotScope statistics to run through the average distances scratch, mid-handicap and high-handicap golfers hit their golf clubs so you can see how your yardages stack up.

This video was filmed at Pula Golf Club in Mallorca ➡ bit.ly/49jwDiY

Hannah is wearing Duca Del Cosma Golf Shoes ➡ bit.ly/3PBTwqQ

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Hi, I’m Hannah Holden; welcome to my channel!

I am a +2 golfer from Leeds

This YouTube channel aims to help you improve your golf by offering up-to-date reviews on the latest golf equipment, stats on how scratch golfers shoot low scores, and course vlogs to help improve your course management.

I also partner with PGA Golf Professionals such as @jrbackhousegolf to bring you tips to improve your golf game.

If that wasn’t enough I’ll make sure you’re on top of the latest rules of golf!

How far should you hit your golf clubs we’ve dug out the shot scope data to see how far you should hit every Club in your bag based on your handicap how far you hit the golf ball is a really interesting topic cuz people really get their egos into it and they love to

Think they hit it a lot further than they actually do and actually I think in general people probably think that on a whole golfers hit it further than they do I think this is especially true of people looking at the better player say the scratch golfer and just presume

Everyone hits it over 300 yards and like that’s why they’re not scratch golf cuz they don’t hit it far Enough but actually if we look at the shot scope stats scratch golf has only drive at 259 yards on average which is a lot further from that 300 yard tall Mark than we might think I also think that 259 yard Mark also feels a lot more like

Reasonable in terms of you could train yourself to get that distance it doesn’t feel as Out Of Reach as some of the stuff we see from ran TV now distance is interesting one of the biggest things that correlates to scoring so we see it drop off quite significantly as we move down the

Handicap ranges now short scope track this in terms of five handicap increments so we go from scratch to 5 10 15 Etc and the biggest jump is actually from scratch to five handicap so we drop off from that 259 Mark to 231 10 handicaps then average 227 yards then

Interestingly both the 15 and the 20 handicap category average 204 then when we get up to 25 this is when we see this drop under the 200 yard Mark and we end up in the 190s now it’s quite interesting that we see such a big jump

Here if you look at the 25s both the scratch golfers and there’s nearly 70 yards difference there which obviously is going to make a huge difference not just in terms of how far the hole you get but what club you then have to hit for your second shot so I think in terms

Of distance you have to think of it as a cumulative effect cuz if you can suddenly learn to hit your driver 10 yards further you’re then hitting two clubs less into the hle cuz you’re 10 yards nearer and you can hit your eye at an extra 10 yards too so in terms of

Adding a little bit of distance just getting like 5 10 yards actually kind of gives you 20 extra yards on a hole so it’s really advantageous now obviously these are just averages so you will get golf in each handicap category that hit it further and also shorter than those

Averages you have to think if you’re hitting shorter than those averages you’re giving up a lot there and you need to be better at your game in other areas maybe it’s the short game maybe it’s your accuracy and actually getting that driver distance up is a really like

Low hanging fruit in terms of improving your handicap and playing better also if you hit it further than your handicap category you need to think about where you’re losing shots to mean you’re not in the category above because actually you’re better than you should be so where else are you

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Button I’d really appreciate it I feel like as well as driver 79 is a big talking point for carry distance like how far you carry 7 iron is like a benchmark almost for how good a golfer you are now it’s interesting in terms of scratch golfers the Mark here is 15 157

Yards which again I think is probably a little bit shorter than people would expect obviously this is an average so it takes in you good and your pad shots out on the golf course but I think that’s an important thing to know when you’re looking at carry distances and

Learning how far your clubs go you shouldn’t only include the shots that you flush perfectly because that’s not a representation of what happens out on the golf course and actually having kind of a front to back dispersion and maybe thinking well I hit my 79 between 148

And 158 is really good for thinking here when we’ve got water actually maybe I do need to go up a club because if I don’t quite catch this perfectly I’m going to end up in the lake got my carry distance perfect then it’s like I use shot scope to measure

How far my clubs go now in terms of drop off of seven iron distance as we move through the handicaps again the biggest jump is from scratch to five handicaps so here we drop down to 138 yards for a five handicap interestingly a 10 handicap’s really similar it’s only 134

And then from there we see about a 10 yard loss as we move through the handicap range now what’s super interesting for me here is if we combine that driver and 7on distance so if I as a scratch golfer I’m playing a hole and I hit driver and 7on how much yardage am

I gaining on say a 25 handicapper who’s also hitting driver and 79 and actually for a scratch golfer and a 25 handicap be to play the same hole and both hit driver and 79 the hole would have to be 125 yards shorter for that 25 handicap

Player so that shows you just how much yardage you’re giving up and also just makes you think about if you are that player who is a lot shorter you have got a lot of ground to get on that scratch golfer and you your putting and your chipping and your pitching and your

Accuracy has to be really good if you want to get down to scratch but you don’t hit it as far as a typical scratch golfer now the reason it’s advantageous to hit it further is cuz every yard you can hit your driver further you have a

Shorter Club in the into the hole and there’s loads of advantages to that one you have a shorter shaft so you’re more lik to hit the middle of the club face when you’re hitting your shots the other one is going to have more Loft get more

Height on your shots and also get more spin which which all means more control when you’re coming into the greens now we see this in tournaments such as the Scandinavian mix where the men and the women are playing together and sometimes it’s a lot of speculation about different tees but actually the women

Have to be able to drive it past the men to be using a similar Club to get the similar land angle into the green and the similar spin so it’s really interesting when you see mixed tournaments at your club and you think oh this isn’t fair the women are teing

Off further forward they driving it past me actually you need to simmer down about that it’s all down to the stats it’s all down to the facts people need to be that bit further ahead so they get the similar control spin as you so it’s not unfair it’s actually equal now in

Terms of how far you hit your golf clubs there’s a few things I would recommend if you want to improve your golf the first is actually knowing how far you carry the ball because it sounds so simple but no one really knows how far the clubs go and they’re very happy to

Stand on a par three and try to step on the shortest Club in the bag that they possibly think could get there because they flushed it that distance once that’s not really how golf works and it’s not going to help your scores so what you really need to do is either go

To a driveing range with technology and see how far your clubs fly or ideally get a shot scope get the tags in your club and over time it will build up and give you really accurate data on how far you’re hitting your golf clubs actually out on the golf course which is really

Valuable information because it forces you to include those not so perfect shots and you might be surprised at the distance information it gives you at the end of the day now this is really interesting because you have something called a p average and an average so it

Will pull out real anomalies if it’s really downwind and you should only hit a driver 50 yards further it will kind of highlight and show you well done you’ve hit your best Drive ever but actually it probably shouldn’t be in the main average cuz it’s a little bit of a

Fluke this also likewise would happen if you say hit a shank with a 79 it wouldn’t include it in your average data I think another key thing to notice the difference between your carry distance and your turtle so how far does the ball pitch with your club and then how far

Does it run out because if you’ve got an instance like this where you really do need to carry it over the water you don’t want to be relying on a total diff distance because you can’t run it up through the water onto the green now once you’ve got this set and you know

What you’re doing then’s the time to work on building speed and there’s a few different ways you can do this I think the convention is you have to be in the gym and lifting really heavy to kind of gain distance but I don’t really think

That’s the TR yes it will help in terms of having more strength but there’s loads of other ways you can gain distance that aren’t quite as strenuous for example things such as box jumps which you can do anywhere kind of just onto a high surface which is just going

To get you a little bit more powerful and give you more power in your swing another big thing to do is get speed sticks and just do reps swinging and object faster than you would to try and train to over speed if you really don’t want to buy those things you can even

Just try flipping your drive around it won’t feel as heavy and you can swing it a little bit faster try and get that wash as fast as you can and over time it’s just going to build up give you more confidence to hit the ball further

Hit it swing it faster and hit it harder now remember when you’re practicing this on the Range hit some shots where you just try to hit it as hard as possible but don’t expect the ball to go straight at all it’s all about learning how to use the speed and then getting your

Strag back at that speed now obviously there’s all things you can do that aren’t technical but actually if you do want to get more speed it could be a technical issue in your swing so there I would always recommend going to your PGA Pro they might also be able to get your

Strike efficiency a little bit better off the club fist which will give you more ball speed and more distance if you do want some more tips on your swing we have loads of instruction videos up on the channel head to the homepage go to the instruction playlist and you can see

Loads of tips there right hopefully these tips have made you think a a little bit more about your carry distances and that sometimes knowing them is a little bit more important than just how far they go some of this stuff is just what scratch golfers do automatically knowing their distances

Knowing the difference between carry and turtle and swing training to get faster but the things that a lot of mid and high handicappers could really bring into their game to make themselves better I think that was was better than the scratch average