When inside 100 yds

[The Recreational Golfer]

For pacing off yardage, I pace off about halfway to the flag, and then multiply distance by two. Also adjust for uphill or downhill shot.

When the sprinkler head markers run out, I do this, too, if it won't hold up play. Dave Pelz mentioned this method in a magazine tip several years ago. He pointed out that while we aren't very good judges of distance, we do have a pretty accurate sense for when we're halfway between two objects (the ball and the pin, in this case).

[lumpuckeroo]

Personally, I don't walk yardages. I find it to be kind of instinctive, like throwing a ball, if I were standing 40 yards away from a target with a baseball in my hand, I wouldn't walk it off, same goes for my pithcing.

[Valleygolfer]

GPS, I am terrible with guessing yardages or judging how far my ball did or did not go. I played all year with one and when the battery petered out I was like a fish out of water. I have to be sure I have to know when I am over 80 yards and over 100. I hinge and hold my wedges so they are break points. They it is all feel and a lot of practice to get it.

[thecanadiana]

Inside 100 yards I'm visualizing where I want my ball to land and how it's going to bounce and roll and just hope it I hit it nice.

When I was a teenager I practiced my short game on my parents lawn. I'd hit balls across the yard, over the road and onto my neighbor's lawn. To this day I gauge all my shots inside 50 yards by visualizing those shots (50 yards is over road and the sidewalk, 45 yards is on the sidewalk, 40 yards on the curb, 35 yards is in the middle of the road etc..). It works really well for me.

[TN94z]

I always have my skycaddie so I use it to get it more precise.

If the battery is dead or something, I go by feel. I very rarely walk off a yardage.

[sean_miller]

Personally, I don't walk yardages. I find it to be kind of instinctive, like throwing a ball, if I were standing 40 yards away from a target with a baseball in my hand, I wouldn't walk it off, same goes for my pithcing.

That instinct comes from a lot of practice throwing things various distances. We learn about distance control while learning how to make a strong throw, therefore it seems instinctive. Some people are better at it than others, but that might be because they have better eyesight coupled with an efficient/consistent throwing motion.

OT - when I have a pitch shot with room for error I estimate the distance in 10s. I've paced yardage enough that I can see ~10 yards on the ground. I scan from the ball to the hole and estimate the distance in 10 yard increments. Often this is done before I've even reached the ball, so it might look like I'm pulling a club at random when I set down the bag.

[jamo]

Personally, I don't walk yardages. I find it to be kind of instinctive, like throwing a ball, if I were standing 40 yards away from a target with a baseball in my hand, I wouldn't walk it off, same goes for my pithcing.

I do that sometimes too, especially if I can see two yardage markers.

[Chicago Lefty]

Rangefinder and then decide what type of shot to play. My SGX generally gives me an idea of how many yards from front of green to pin I'm working with, or any room behind the pin.

[Fourputt]

NO

Don't get this at all. From 100 to 60 or so is the time that my laser is MOST useful. I learned the game by using my eye, then when my course added 150 yard markers I estimated from them, then they marked the sprinklers and I used them. A few years ago the Men's Club has some money left over at the end of the season so they bought fairway yardage plaques for the course, and they were installed using a professional laser. These are very accurate but they stop at 100 yards, so from that point you have only your eye or pacing. The farther you pace from a known point, the more your accuracy suffers.

I use the laser most often for those wedge distances because I know from 40 years of experience that my eye can be fooled.

I think pacing off a yardage in a fairway is pretty odd. The only time I EVER pace off anything is on the tee box of a par 3. other than that,

Um... I guarantee you that I can take a sighting with my laser faster than you can work a geometry problem in your head... and I can do it more accurately too. 5-10 second max and I

know the distance... I'm not just guesstimating. If you have to wait while someone sights a target with a laser then either he has far more problems than just the laser or you are too impatient. Nobody waits on me for that. 99% of the time, I'm doing all of that while I'm waiting on the guys in front of me to work out their math problems.

[mdl]

I'm not hacker, but with Google earth you can measure distances on the earth... it is pretty handy sometimes,a nd it can be pretty close.

I don't use Google Earth for my courses much, as I've played all my regular ones enough to know what clubs to hit from various places, but I did use it to check the marks at my range. The tool to mark out a line and have it tell you how many feet/yards/miles long that line is is super easy, and I found that the giant fence at the end of the range which is marked as 240 is more like 230. Of course, with beat up range balls how far I think my driver goes in relation to the 240 sign turns out to be about how far it actually goes on the course. But it's good to know...

[sean_miller]

Math and common sense are helpful.

So is modern technology. That's also covered in the common sense portion of your equation.

[mdl]

I don't totally dominate these shots or anything, but I feel I do well inside 100 yards given my handicap. I use sort of a combination of feel and walking/estimating distance. I know that a back swing with my hands just below my shoulder goes about 85 yards with my 54˚, and just above waist high goes about 50 yards, but that can obviously be adjusted with strength of swing. I use the markers to estimate generally the range I'm in (ie, am I 40-something yards away, 60-something?), and then rely on feel and visualization, much like the throwing of a ball mentioned above. I know if I'm in the 45-55 yard range approximately how big my back swing should be, but from there I'm picking a spot to land, adjusting strength up a bit if I'm in the rough, and then just trying to get it to land where I want with feel.

[Stretch]

I do that sometimes too, especially if I can see two yardage markers.

Played on Tuesday at a friend's home course and there was one hole with a 100 marker plaque in the fairway and then a 99 on a sprinkler head about 12 paces further down. That's a long yard (well, meter in this case, but same difference)!

[saevel25]

well trust the stone not the sprinkler because they could have just replaced a broken sprinkler with out taking off the yardage mark.

[Chris G]

rangefinder till around 60 then in from that I feel.

[Mac62]

I'll pace it from the 100-yard fairway marker if it's close, or go by sprinkler heads. If the sprinkler heads aren't there, I'll guesstimate it from the 100-yard marker. I can estimate it within ~10 yards, and my shots aren't exact enough for anything less to make much of a difference at this point.

[jamo]

Played on Tuesday at a friend's home course and there was one hole with a 100 marker plaque in the fairway and then a 99 on a sprinkler head about 12 paces further down. That's a long yard (well, meter in this case, but same difference)!

See. It's a great way to narrow it down!

One of the courses near me has 200, 150, and 100 stakes in the rough, and between 200 and 100 yards I don't even have to pace it off. I just sort of do the math. Under 100 is a guessing game at a lot of places though, and it really makes me wish that I had a rangfinder. If the course doesn't have yardages on their sprinklers it's a total guess.

[Leftygolfer]

See. It's a great way to narrow it down!

You got to get one. I think the feed back of KNOWING that I just hit it exactly 73 yards is invaluable. That feedback has really helped my wedge game become a big strength of mine. I'm not good at much else in golf and I think the feedback over the years has been huge. I've had mine for practice before they became legal.