Welcome to MythBusters, a Golf Digest+ series where we explore answers to some of golf’s most common questions through a series of tests with real golfers. While our findings might fall short of definitive, they still aim to shed new light on topics that have consumed golfers for years.
Amateur golfers often come up short of greens for a simple reason: they don’t take enough club. By judging our carry distances by only our best shots, we fail to account for the times we miss the center of the face, which in many cases, is closer to reality.
The solution, coaches and statisticians say, is to take more club, even if that means making a smoother swing. By taking one or two extra clubs, you provide yourself margin for error on your mishits and better account for your actual carry distance. But does this strategy really help? We tested it.
Our test
To learn more about how taking more club affects our performance into greens, two Golf Digest staffers—Drew Powell (+2.4 Handicap Index) and Sam Weinman (11.2 Handicap Index)—hit a series of shots with two different clubs at Manhattan Woods Golf Club in West Nyack, NY.
The shots were hit off a flat lie from 130 yards away. Powell and Weinman hit 10 shots each with the typical club they would hit from this distance (gap wedge for Powell, 9-iron for Weinman), as well as 10 shots each with two clubs more (9-iron for Powell, 7-iron for Weinman).
We alternated between the two clubs after each shot to account for finding a groove with one club or another. With each shot, we measured carry distance and dispersion from the hole. When analyzing the data, we took out the strongest outlier from each club group.
What we found Powell gap wedge
Avg. carry: 125.6 yardsAvg. proximity: 22’ 8”Greens hit: 9/9
Powell 9-iron
Avg. carry: 128.1 yardsAvg. proximity: 28’ 6”Greens hit: 7/9
Weinman 9-iron
Avg. carry: 116.1 yardsAvg. proximity: 47’ 1”Greens hit: 5/9
Weinman 7-iron
Avg. carry: 128.9 yardsAvg. proximity: 43’ 2”Greens hit: 5/9
What it means
There are several interesting takeaways from the data. First, Powell performed slightly worse with the 9-iron compared to the gap wedge in terms of proximity to the hole, while Weinman was slightly better with two extra clubs compared to his normal club from 130.
Powell’s distance control was much more consistent with the gap wedge compared to the 9-iron. Nearly every shot hit with the gap wedge flew between 123-127 yards, before spinning back slightly underneath the hole. With the 9-iron, however, some shots carried 120 yards, while others carried over 130.
Whereas Powell made a full swing with the gap wedge, when he took more club, there was much more feel involved, requiring proper tempo and swing length. This created more inconsistency in distance control. Sometimes he took too much off, other times he hit it much too hard.
One clear benefit he noticed with the 9-iron over the gap wedge, though, was spin control. Every shot hit with the gap wedge hit and spun back on the green, often farther away from the hole. With the 9-iron, balls hit and stopped, allowing him to have better control when the ball landed.
As a result, his best shots with the 9-iron (four feet and nine feet), ended up closer to the hole than his best shots with the gap wedge (nine feet and 15 feet), even if his consistency was better with the gap wedge.
Weinman noticed a similar trend in distance control. With the 9-iron—the typical club he uses from 130 yards—he was very consistent with his distance control, but he was often short of the hole, averaging 116 yards on the 130-yard shot. As a result, his overall proximity to the hole was worse with his 9-iron because most shots never made it pin high.
When he took more club with the 7-iron, Weinman says making center-face contact felt much easier. But like Powell, he noticed that it was challenging to judge the length and speed of the swing when he took more club. Even so, his average proximity to the hole was better with the 7-iron because his average carry distance of 129 was much closer to the distance he needed. Whereas nine of the 10 shots he hit with the 9-iron finished short of the hole, only two with the 7-iron finished short.
Where does all of this leave us? For higher-speed low-handicaps, hitting your standard club might be the easiest way to hit the ball a consistent distance every time. However, if you’re looking to have better spin control, taking more club and swinging easy is a great option.
For mid-handicaps, taking more club might help you find the center of the face more often, like it did for Weinman. And if you’re constantly missing short with your standard club, this extra club will make it easier for you to get pin-high. However, judging the exact distance properly with an extra club might be tricky, as you need a bit of feel. And if there is trouble long of the green, Weinman’s results show us that taking extra club could be quite penalizing, as nearly all of his shots that missed the green were long, not short.
What it doesn’t mean
Of course, we recognize that our test is limited by using two golfers. Other golfers of varying abilities or technique might find different results when taking more club. For Weinman, who tends to be a little steep in the downswing, taking more club allowed him to have a smoother transition, which shallowed out his downswing and created better control. Others may have different tendencies that were either worsened or improved by taking more club.
false Private Manhattan Woods Golf Club West Nyack, NY 4.3 3 Panelists
- Best In State
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For low-handicap players, taking significantly more club may make distance control difficult by requiring more feel than simply taking your normal club. However, since taking more club decreases spin, these players may notice better ball control when they hit the green with an extra club.
For mid-handicap players, taking more club may help you make center-face contact more consistently and get the ball hole-high more often. Similarly, taking more club requires more finesse to properly judge the distance, which is one potential downside. However, for players who struggle with contact on iron shots, taking more club and making a smooth swing could be a great solution.
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
