Yardages That Matter: Key Distances To Improve Your Game

Do you reach for your 7-iron every time you hit the range? Is it your most-used club during a round?

As golfers track more stats and data, they pay closer attention to the yardages they hit from most often. Those are the ones worth practicing. If you don’t track your game but want to practice more effectively, this Shot Scope data can help you focus on the distances that will have the biggest impact on your score.

A look at the numbers

The graph below shows the number of shots hit from different yardages per round. The data excludes tee shots because all golfers will need to hit those. In addition, it’s worth noting that we have excluded putts for the shots in the 25 yards and less category.

From the plotted lines, you can see that regardless of your handicap, the majority of shots you will hit in any given round are those less than 50 yards from the hole. When practicing longer shots, the 200-plus yardage is another area to work on for those longer par-4a and approaches on a par-5.

If you need yet another reason to convince yourself that the short game is truly the most important part of the game, this chart should do it.

The average golfer’s shot distribution

Let’s take a 15-handicap as an example. This is a player who typically shoots in the 86-90 range. The table below shows the average number of shots per round from each distance. The putts make up 42 percent of the 15-handicap golfers shots per round.

Yardage (yds)	Average % of Shots per Round
25 and less	13
50 – 26	7
101-125	4
126-150	4
201+	8
Putts	42

*Average is calculated excluding the number of tee shots, and putting is only putts on the green

The trends in the percentage of shots taken from these yardages is generally the same for all handicaps.

For a 15-handicap golfer, shots under 50 yards (including putts) make up nearly 65 percent of the total shots in a round of golf. The next time you hear you should spend more time practicing your short game, it would be smart to listen.

What shots should you practice?

Based on this data, the shots that will help your score the most are those less than 50 yards, especially putting. That’s the short answer. However, to get a little deeper into this, you should start tracking your game and see where your weaknesses lie.

Collecting Strokes Gained data using CONNEX, Arrcos or manually inputting it into an app can show you what areas of your game are weakest compared to the benchmark.

Still, the 50-yard shot is one to practice along with the 40-, 30- and 20-yard shots. If you want some great advice on how to get good from 50 yards, check out this video by Tiger Woods and Fred Couples. One of Tiger’s most important statements is, “this is all feel and it’s millions upon millions of reps.”

Final thoughts

While the average golfer may not have time to spend hitting millions of reps the way Tiger does, it’s smart to capitalize on the practice time you do have. Track some data to learn the weaknesses in your game or start practicing shots from 50 yards and in.