PGA Tour players carry a 7-iron 176 yards at 92 mph of club speed, and LPGA Tour players carry it 143 yards at 78 mph, in TrackMan's 2023 tour averages. Your own golf club distances follow your club speed and your strike, so use the chart below to place yourself, then measure the median carry of every club you play.
Expect your real numbers to come in shorter than the ones in your head. In Arccos on-course data, scratch golfers expected 170 yards from a 7-iron and hit a median of 159, and bogey golfers expected 162 and hit 140. Plan with the number you hit most often.
See the tour chart by club and speed
TrackMan published these averages in May 2024 from 2023 data (TrackMan Tour Averages). The men's numbers come from 40+ events and 200+ players, mostly on the PGA Tour with some DP World Tour events. The women's numbers come from 30+ events and 150+ players, mostly LPGA with some LET. Both mix competition and range shots.
| Club | PGA Tour club speed (mph) | PGA Tour carry (yd) | LPGA Tour club speed (mph) | LPGA Tour carry (yd) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Driver | 115 | 282 | 96 | 223 |
| 3-wood | 110 | 249 | 92 | 200 |
| 5-wood | 106 | 236 | 90 | 189 |
| Hybrid | 102 | 231 | 87 | 178 |
| 3-iron | 100 | 218 | n/a | n/a |
| 4-iron | 98 | 209 | 82 | 175 |
| 5-iron | 96 | 199 | 81 | 166 |
| 6-iron | 94 | 188 | 80 | 155 |
| 7-iron | 92 | 176 | 78 | 143 |
| 8-iron | 89 | 164 | 76 | 133 |
| 9-iron | 87 | 152 | 74 | 123 |
| Pitching wedge | 84 | 142 | 72 | 111 |
Read the speed columns first. If you swing your driver around 96 mph, the LPGA column shows what tour-quality contact carries at your speed. The gap between that number and yours is carry you can still find with better contact and launch.
Compare yourself with amateurs by handicap
Arccos tracks shots in real rounds. In April 2020, Arccos compared what its golfers expected from each club, which it calls the mean start distance, with the median they actually hit (Arccos club data):
| Club | Handicap | Expected (yd) | Median hit (yd) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5-iron | Scratch | 194 | 176 |
| 5-iron | 20 | 187 | 152 |
| 7-iron | Scratch | 170 | 159 |
| 7-iron | 10 | 165 | 148 |
| 7-iron | 20 | 162 | 140 |
| Pitching wedge | Scratch | 126 | 122 |
| Pitching wedge | 10 | 119 | 114 |
| Pitching wedge | 20 | 112 | 104 |
The longer the club, the bigger the gap between belief and result. Scratch golfers expect 4 yards too much from a pitching wedge and 18 too much from a 5-iron. Golfers at 20 expect 8 yards too much from the wedge and 35 too much from the 5-iron.
Arccos records where each ball ends up, so these distances include roll (Arccos on gapping). Off the tee, its 0 to 5 handicaps averaged 243 yards and its 16 to 20 handicaps averaged 209. So if you play to 18 and wonder how far you should hit your driver, 209 yards matches your band. Not sure of your number? Calculate your handicap index first.
Separate carry from total distance
Carry is the distance the ball flies. TrackMan measures it in a straight line from where the ball starts to the point where its flight drops back to the height it started from (TrackMan on carry). Total distance adds the bounce and roll.
The roll grows as loft drops. Arccos notes that lower-lofted clubs launch lower and roll farther, and the land angles in TrackMan's table show why: on the PGA Tour, the driver comes down at 39 degrees and the pitching wedge at 52. TrackMan ties extra release to a flatter landing.
Pick approach clubs by carry, because a bunker or a front pin asks how far the ball flies. Pick tee clubs with total in mind, because a fairway bunker or the end of the fairway asks where the ball stops.
Plan with your median carry
Line up ten carries with one club from shortest to longest. The middle of that list is your median: half your shots fly shorter and half fly longer. One flushed shot or one chunk barely moves it, so it gives you a steadier planning number than your best.
Here's a made-up set of ten 7-iron carries: 128, 131, 135, 138, 140, 141, 143, 145, 147 and 158. Your longest is 158, and your median sits at 140.5, halfway between 140 and 141. Take that 7-iron to a flag 158 yards away and 9 of those 10 swings come up short.
Amateurs already miss short far more than long. In an Arccos study of more than six million shots, 40 percent of approaches landed short of the green, eight times the share that landed past it.
Put the median to work on every approach:
- Read your distance to the middle of the green. Stand on each green once in Scratchmaxx, and from your next round on you know how far you sit from its center wherever you stand.
- Pick the club whose median carry covers that number.
- When two clubs both fit, take the longer one. Your misses already lean short.
Check your gaps and overlaps
Arccos gives a rule of thumb: 4 to 5 degrees of loft between clubs works out to about 10 yards between them. Tour short irons fit it. On the PGA Tour table, the 7-iron, 8-iron, 9-iron and pitching wedge carry 176, 164, 152 and 142, so they sit 12, 12 and 10 yards apart. At the long end, the spacing shrinks: the LPGA hybrid carries 178 and the 4-iron 175, only 3 yards apart, and the PGA 5-wood and hybrid sit 5 yards apart.
Check your own bag in five steps:
- Write your median carry for every club in one column, longest at the top.
- Subtract each number from the one above it.
- Circle any difference of a few yards. Two clubs doing one job make an overlap.
- Circle any difference near double your usual spacing. A yardage with no full swing for it makes a gap.
- Fix an overlap by swapping one of the two clubs for a loft that fills a gap. Cover a gap with a shorter swing on the longer club: narrow your stance, choke up on the grip and swing at your normal pace, the way Arccos suggests.
Find your own carry numbers
On a range with a launch monitor:
- Warm up, then hit 10 balls with one club at your normal swing.
- Hit the ball you play on the course. TrackMan's normalization assumes a premium ball and converts data from other balls first, which tells you range balls fly differently.
- Write down each carry and take the median.
- Repeat with every club and note the conditions. TrackMan's normalization defaults to 77°F at sea level, so you can compare a cold session with a warm one on equal terms (TrackMan on normalization).
On the course, you face the real conditions. Arccos points out that range numbers come from best-case conditions: flat ground, no pressure and repeated swings. In Scratchmaxx, you tag every shot on the course with the club you hit, and you read the median carry of each club in your bag straight off those shots.
Know what changes your distances
Club speed. Compare the two tours. LPGA players swing the driver 19 mph slower than PGA Tour players (96 against 115) and carry it 59 yards shorter (223 against 282). With a 7-iron, 14 mph less speed comes with 33 yards less carry.
Strike. Arccos found skill a far greater predictor of driving distance than age, with a 63-yard gap between men from scratch to 4.9 and players at 30-plus, and it credits that gap to ball-striking efficiency (Arccos 2026 driving report). Catch an iron fat and you lose carry, so fix your fat shots first. In our test clips, tour pros and a skilled amateur shifted their hips 3.8 to 8.2 in toward the target at impact. If yours move less than 1.5 in, you're hanging back. Record a face-on swing and you see your own hip shift at impact, in inches.
Measure your swing with Scratchmaxx.
Altitude. The same Arccos report found a 10-handicap gains an average of 19.2 yards off the tee, an 8.3 percent increase, at 5,000 feet or more compared with sea level.
Wind. In a constant 20 mph wind, a headwind hurts almost twice as much as a tailwind helps, per TrackMan. Add more club into the wind than you take off with it.
