Determining carry distance

[ryanf]

I'm very interested on what others do to solve this issue.  People talk about the importance of knowing your carry distance for each club.  There isn't a range I've been to that has anything to assist with accurately determining carry distance for different clubs.  Pro's get shot link and fun tools like that.  What can the average Joe do?

[David in FL]

Hit ball. Watch where it lands. Repeat many, many times. Btw......pros learned how far they hit their clubs long before they became pros.....or they never would have become pros! :-)

[boogielicious]

I find par 3s the best tool.  If you have and par 3 course near you, go there and work on distance.  Ranges don't have your ball or nearly correct distance markers.  If you need to, you can use a laser to see if the range distance markers are OK, but there is still the difference in the ball.

On the par 3s, either tee the ball very low or not at all.  I laser the flag then walk off the distance when I get to the green and find my ball mark.  You don't need to do all clubs because you can interpolate between clubs.

For example, PW 120, 8 iron 140, 6 iron 160, tells me off far my 9, 7 will be.  And I can extrapolate for the 5.  You will have a spread around the average distance, but you should be able to tell the low and high for each club this way.

Remember temperature, wind and humidity can affect distance, so take that into consideration.

[saevel25]

Best way is just play golf, if you want keep a small note book with you.

I know most don't want to pull out GPS or Rangefinder, but they are the best tools. I know some courses are really off on yardage markers. In the fairway are pretty close, you can pace off those, then double check with google maps to see if they are 100 or 150 to the center of the green.

What i like to do is, measure each hole to the back of the tee boxes, then i just pace off that and get a yardage to the hole, especially on par 3's. Sometimes i find par 3's to be more off than fairway markers.

Speaking of pacing, just get a tape measure, mark 50', then walk it at an even pace. Do this a few times to get use to the pace you want. mine is a slightly longer step than my normal step, this takes out any times i might short step myself, or overstep my normal step. I find my pace is about 1 yard per step. Of course errant shots are tougher, because the whole geometry thing, but unless its like 20 yards off line, then i can just guestimate a few yards here or there.