I found a video on youtube of a golfer presenting and comparing his trackman data for the above 3 clubs:
The clubs all have the same loft and are a 3 iron, a 3 hybrid and a 7 wood. He hits them 230, 237, and 251. (He's long!).
Now, i'm sure most of us know that the distances with equivalent loft would be iron<hybrid<wood. Nothing new there, so bear with me. The hybrid was half a club longer than the iron. I expected this. However, the 7 wood for him was a club longer than the hybrid. Now this made me think. Extrapolating this, presumably his 5 wood would be about 2 clubs longer than the 3 hybrid, and 2.5 clubs longer than the 3 iron.
This has certainly made me think about distance gaps. I have a 23 hybrid and instead of going to a 5W from there i guess i may need to go to a 7W (and from there a 4W).
But there is another variable - swing speed. This guy clearly has a very high swing speed. Am i right in thinking that for lower and more average swing speeds the gaps between longer clubs are greatly reduced?
Check out this link for average distances on the PGA and LPGA tour:
http://www.andrewricegolf.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2009-Tour-Averages.jpg
Apparently the ladies only hit their 7W half a club longer than their 4 iron and their 5W 15 yards past their 4 iron. This would suggest going from 4H to 5W gives about the right gap.
Anyway, i found this interesting and i thought i'd share as i know the make up of the longer end of the bag is something lots of us wrestle with.
















