If you own a launch monitor, there’s a good chance you’ve used it to answer one question more than any other: How far do I hit my driver?
Shot Scope shared some data from golfers using its LM1 and the driver accounts for 19 percent of all shots hit during a session, more than any other club. The 7-iron is next at 14 percent.
I get it. Ball speed is fun. So is seeing how far you hit a really good drive. But when I look at how I use my own LM1, I’m almost doing the opposite.
Instead of using it primarily to find out how far I can hit the ball, I’ve found it especially useful for learning how far I hit it when I’m trying to take distance off.
The LM1 is the only launch monitor I own right now. At $199.99, it’s a relatively simple unit that gives you five basic metrics: clubhead speed, ball speed, smash factor, carry distance and total distance. For the type of practice I’m talking about here, that’s enough.
When I practice, I want to know what happens when I make a three-quarter 9-iron swing instead of a full one. Or a half 7-iron. Here’s how I’ve taken a basic launch monitor and used it to dial in my game well beyond knowing how far the driver goes.
A 3/4 swing does not go 3/4 of the distance
If your full 9-iron carries 140 yards, your three-quarter 9-iron does not automatically carry 105. Golf math isn’t that simple and this is the gap that has been the most useful for me when incorporating the LM1 into my practice.
When you shorten your swing, you’re changing more than backswing length. Clubhead speed changes. Your strike can change. Launch can change. Even the way you deliver the club into the ball can be a little different.
The same thing applies to a half swing. Half the swing does not mean half the distance.
I also wouldn’t get too caught up in making a swing that is precisely 50 or 75 percent of your full motion. Those are useful labels but you have to find something you can repeat and is recognizable to you.
Maybe your three-quarter swing feels like your hands stop around shoulder height and your half swing may feel like it’s waist high to waist high. Regardless of what it feels like to you, if you are doing it consistently, it should fly around the same distance each time.
Why guessing at these shots becomes a problem
Shot Scope’s on-course data helps show why this matters.
From 75 to 100 yards, 24 percent of 10 handicaps miss the green short. That climbs to 37 percent for 20 handicaps and 46 percent for 25 handicaps.
Proximity gets worse as well. A 10 handicap averages 44 feet from 75 to 100 yards. A 20 handicap averages 56 feet from 75 to 100 yards.
Distance control isn’t the only reason for those numbers but it’s hard to control distance when you don’t know what your swing is going to produce.
Think about an 83-yard approach where you decide to hit “a little 3/4 wedge.” If you’ve never measured that swing, what does 3/4 mean? Does it carry 76 yards? Eighty-three? Ninety? Now you’ve left yourself a 50-foot putt when you were only 80 yards from the hole to begin with.
This is not just a wedge issue. You’ll see it throughout the scoring irons as well.
How I use the LM1 to learn a partial swing
You don’t need to turn your entire range session into a distance gapping test. In fact, I think this works better if you focus on one or two shots you want to add and work through a simple process.
Start with the full swing
Hit a few normal shots with the club first. Don’t worry about maxing out your distance; get a realistic idea of what a stock solid swing looks like and how far it carries.
Create a repeatable shorter swing
Next, decide whether you are working on a half or three-quarter motion and give yourself a physical checkpoint.
I prefer this to thinking about swinging at 50 or 75 percent effort. Trying to “swing easier” can mean something different from one swing to the next. A shorter backswing with a clear checkpoint gives you something much more tangible to repeat. Depending on the club I have in my hand, I might also take a narrow stance and choke down a bit. Make the adjustments you need to make.
Hit enough shots to see a pattern
Now I’ll hit several balls while watching carry distance.
If my three-quarter 9-iron carries 119, 121, 118, 120 and 121 yards, I’m learning something useful. That swing is starting to look like a 120-yard shot.
If the carries are 106, 124, 115, 127 and 111, knowing the average doesn’t help nearly as much. I don’t own that shot yet. To make this work, you want to look at consistency and whatever swing size or motion it takes to develop that consistency.
Don’t force the result you expected
One of the things I had to train myself to do was stop forcing the numbers into a clean box. At first, I was looking for a 100-yard shot or a 115-yard shot. Then I realized that wasn’t the most useful way to approach it.
The key was finding a repeatable motion first and then working with whatever number that swing produced. If it carries 92 yards or 103 yards, that’s fine. What matters is knowing the number and being able to reproduce it.
Leave the shot and come back to it
Once I feel like I’ve found the swing and the number, I don’t want to stand there and hit 20 more identical shots.
I’ll switch clubs, hit some full swings and change targets. Later in the session, I’ll come back and try the partial shot again. When I feel like I have something reliable, I’ll take it to the course. It’s a much different feeling on the course to know I have this shot instead of trying to “take a little off.”
Don’t limit this to your wedges
I’ve already written about building a wedge distance matrix and I still think that’s valuable. This is a little different.
I’m talking about developing partial shots throughout the bag. I’ve gone through this process for my 6-iron and it’s helped just as much, especially if I need to keep a shot lower and punch out. I still want some idea of how far it’s going to carry. Once you have carry distance down, pay attention to trajectory, too, and give yourself options for different trajectories.
Make this part of your normal practice
Shot Scope says LM1 users average 60 shots and 5.8 different clubs per range session. You don’t need to dedicate an entire bucket to learning partial swings. Work on the clubs you normally practice, mix in a few half and three-quarter swings and then come back to those shots later in the session to see if you can reproduce the numbers.
Seeing how far you hit your best drive is fun. Knowing how far the shots you’ve been guessing at carry may end up being a lot more useful.
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