Finding your Yardages!

[Piersberrington]

just wondering on how you guys find your yardages just need to know different ways on how to do it

thanks

[MiniBlueDragon]

There are various ways:

- Buy a GPS.

- Buy a range finder.

- Use a phone app which has GPS built in while playing a casual round.

- Buy a yardage book for your local course and estimate based on the yardages in the book.

- Use the yardage markers at a local range (usually wrong!)

- Use Google Maps "measure" tool to plot between two distances.

[saevel25]

for me it first started with just using the yardage markers at the golf course. All i had for a while. But i agree with above.

GPS is great, you can actually hit the shot function and it will actually measure the distance for you.

Google map works, if your near a marker you can see from the image, like if your next to a tree or bunker. Then you can just measure from that. Just make sure you remember the club you used.

But really the best way is GPS or rangefinder, and you can get pretty good accuracy. For me i know my 9 iron (some clubs that might be an 8 iron, new taylormade burner irons run a club stronger) goes 161 average, and i know my gaps are about 13 yards spacing. So i can usually do some quick math to get close. Thoughi know my 6 iron also goes 200 yards (it might be a 5 iron for some). So using two clubs i can easily get the other clubs just using the gap yardages. Its quicker that way for me. Though there's nothing wrong in making a laminated card to carry around with your yardages on it.

[lsu70510]

I agree with using a GPS/Skycaddie or an iPhone app.  Golfshot is a great app!

[JetFan1983]

Another vote here for the range finder.

[MiniBlueDragon]

Just to clarify with my Google Maps suggestion above, there's a hidden little feature (which I forgot was hidden as it's constantly on for me now) called Distance Measurement Tool which you can enable from http://maps.google.com/maps?showlabs=1&ftr;=misc.distance - It allows you to plot a path between two points on Google Maps and then display the distance between them in many different measurements.

I frequently use it for a straight point to point measurement, however you can continue adding points to plot complex shapes if needed.

[The Recreational Golfer]

Do you mean, how far away something is on the course, or how far you hit a particular club?

[sean_miller]

I figured out which club I was reliably hitting 150 yards (whether that was a "hit and stick" or "hit and release" depended on the course and the day) and went ~ 10 - 12 paces on either side for each club (now it's 12-15). Pretty soon you can look at a 150 marker and visualize 1-club increments. Like visually estimating whether you've made a 1st down while playing football in the park.

[Zeph]

The range finder is invaluable to me on the course. I could of course walk it off, but it takes more time an is more inaccurate. Once I got the range finder, all I had to do was to use it and take notice of how far I hit each club. From there, it's all about perfecting it and noticing subtle differences in each shot and how far they go.

[SAGolfLuvr]

All the tools mentioned above help. However, for those of us who can't afford, not willing to pay for, or who haven't trusted distances provided by those tools or the battery dies on your device :-) ----

A scratch golfer told me this and it has helped me score very consistently in the 80's. I have been scaring the '70s but I have "2 bad holes disease".

He told me that most frequent golfers know their approximate distances with their 6 through PW from a good lie with very little breeze.

1. Master the short chips (5 yards and in, including sand and flopshots) to "gaurantee" one putts if you miss the green. This gives you big confidence on your approach shots to the green. Now if you guess the distance wrong, it's not a big problem.

2. FEEL the distance with your practice swings. Step up, Set up, breath in, breath out, then immediately duplicate the practice swing. Don't stand over the ball for more than a second.

You will be AMAZED how accurate your body is at guessing the distance with your practice swings. Your practice swings are relaxed and are not under pressure so hit the ball the same way and don't allow time for pressure or tension to build up. If you miss,... that's why you practiced and mastered your very short, game.

Practice this routine at the driving range with a small bucket of balls to solidify your confidence. Practice the 5 yards and in first, including Putts. Then ALWAYS hit to a target on the range. Good Luck!

P.S. MiniBlueDragon is correct about driving range markers. So instead of saying that target should be 150, think "It feels like an 8 iron." go through your routine and then adjust your feel at the driving range.

[jpalermo]

Quote:

I figured out which club I was reliably hitting 150 yards (whether that was a "hit and stick" or "hit and release" depended on the course and the day) and went ~ 10 - 12 paces on either side for each club (now it's 12-15). Pretty soon you can look at a 150 marker and visualize 1-club increments. Like visually estimating whether you've made a 1st down while playing football in the park.

+1 (simple and esay)

[bunkerputt]

For a layman, in order of decreasing quality of information you get, I'd say get setup with a pro that has a launch monitor to give you a feel for nominal carry yardage per club irrespective of wind, elevation, and how hard fairways are running.  Beyond that, get a laser range finder with a slope adjustment feature and just laser some shots.  You have to do the wind and temperature adjustments yourself and also account for differences in elevation above sea level.  GPS (non-phone) is the next best thing.  Most have a walk-off feature where you can mark your shot and then measure the straight-line distance to wherever.  For determining approach shots, this is one of the best ways because you can usually find the pitch mark where your ball carried to when you hit a green.  For measuring driver carry+roll usually can't find the ball mark, so you get carry+roll at best with this method.  That's usually fine because you don't care so much about driver carry distance to the yard like you do with irons, except with forced carries.  Phone-based GPS are notoriously flaky and depend completely on the density of cell towers in the area.  Most golf courses are in rural areas with a somewhat limited number of towers to triangulate.

Personally, I use a Callaway uPro with the "Mark" feature for my irons.  For driver, I usually test at a launch monitor.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by Zeph

The range finder is invaluable to me on the course. I could of course walk it off, but it takes more time an is more inaccurate.

Once I got the range finder, all I had to do was to use it and take notice of how far I hit each club. From there, it's all about perfecting it and noticing subtle differences in each shot and how far they go.

Maybe you walk funny, but when I walk past the 200, 150, or 100 mark to my ball, it takes exactly the same anount of time to pace it off as just aimlessly walk without counting. It's accurate within a couple yards per 50 yards paced. In other words, well within the accuracy of the average golfer's iron shots.

[boogielicious]

I find that Par 3 holes are a great way to know your club distances.  If you have a local Par 3 course, you can get your iron distances down pretty well.  This gives you the perfect lie carry distance and roll.  I do use a rangefinder, but really got the distances with par 3s.  The driving range is not that good because you are not using your ball.

[lumpuckeroo]

I actually used a range finder.  I had a really good situation, my Dad is a member at a very small 9 hole course that see very little action.  I used my range finder to get a distance, like 150 yards, from the center of the green.  I would hit 6 irons, 7 irons, 8 irons, and got a basic calculation of the distance of those clubs.  I did find that I have about a 10 yard gap between clubs except for the 7 to 8 iron with is about 15 yards.

[tristanhilton85]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

I figured out which club I was reliably hitting 150 yards (whether that was a "hit and stick" or "hit and release" depended on the course and the day) and went ~ 10 - 12 paces on either side for each club (now it's 12-15). Pretty soon you can look at a 150 marker and visualize 1-club increments. Like visually estimating whether you've made a 1st down while playing football in the park.

This is pretty much what I've done... I've identified my 150 yard club and base most my distances off of that... it's about a 10 yard gap between clubs for me.

[imtomtomim]

I played without accurate distances for 2 years until this year when I got a Android smartphone.  Instantly, my first apps were free gps golf apps as I had been wanting a laser rangefinder since I started, but this would get me pretty close results as well.

I had a rough idea of my carry yardages but I solidified those numbers using the free apps.  For one, you can use it to measure the distance between shots, but the way I definitely know is if when I'm hitting into a green.  The benefit of that is that I can see exactly where the first impact of the ball was as well as where it ends up so I could get accurate carry numbers.  Every time I hit an approach, I measure the distance and write down the club, distance hit, any elevation, wind, or lie variations, etc.  I compiled 5 rounds and I also plugged some numbers into a distance calculator.

http://www.csgnetwork.com/golfclubdistancecalce.html

My irons were spot on, all the way from 4i to my 52* which they call a SW.  I guess they were calculating for the standard gaps in between clubs.  It's nice because they provide short and long figures which work  to determine misses, or give some kind of an idea or a bracket of where a higher or lower shot would go.  I have just written it all down on a pad and I'm planning to carry it around with me.

I will probably go out in a field or something and try getting my partial wedge numbers.  I'm trying to compile that information during rounds as well, but there are so many variations that I don't get to try or test out for sure so I gotta do it on the side.  I should figure out a winter set as well, or at least how much variation there is.

If you're always pin high, you're never far off.

[inthehole]

I have a Bushnell V2 lazer rangefinder on my left hip (belt) - it's out of the way & at hands reach for yardages - I can get access the tool, get a yardage & put it back in it's holster in less than 10 seconds, probably closer to 5 seconds.

To compare similar clubs - say a 4h vs 4i, I go to the practice field with 2 colored balls - I'll hit 20 white balls with the 4h & 20 yellow balls with the 4i & when I gather them up,  I'll get a very good comparison which I hit further & more importantly, more consistently.