There is a lot of truth to that.

I have used ARCOS. But truly the best metric is a good launch monitor with good golf balls. Fortunately I belong to a club that uses PROV1 golf balls, and has a teaching pro with access to a Trackman.

But even with all this, you need to develop a range of distances. Lie, slope, etc. should determine your club selection. Golf...called this because all the other four letter words were taken.

Learning how far you hit it on flat surface and no wind is important, but a small part of estimating how far you hit it on an actual course.

I use a Mevo on the range (Pro V1 practice balls).

There is some variance between readings, but hit 20 balls and the mean is going to be a solid indicator.

Then it is practice on the course -- understanding how wind/uphill/downhill affect distance.

A good drill is playing a 6 club bag to practice different shots -- choking up to affect distance, etc.

Same idea as Arcos... I wear the Garmin Approach S20. This requires 1 touch of a button to select the club and it does the rest (as opposed to Arcos, which uses an RF ID to identify the club for you).

You can also use various apps such as The Grint, but that requires more interacting with your phone. I believe you can use an apple watch to make this easier.

Point being, over time you will build a valid data set and know your distance based on GPS locations, on an actual course. What these methods don't give you is flight distance, only total distance.

I also use the Garmin Approach S20. It provides all of the information automatically every time you play on a real course under real conditions.
You do just get an average distance for each club, which is not a perfect number, but my swing isn't perfect either.

If you're getting your distance outdoors, remember every 10 degree F affects your distance by one yard.

Our temp can be 50's in AM and 110 in the afternoon...so this matters.

Also, you have to be mindful of the wind and altitude.

So, getting your baseline distance at Sea Level at 72 degrees with no wind is a good starting point in my opinion.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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If you're getting your distance outdoors, remember every 10 degree F affects your distance by one yard.

Our temp can be 50's in AM and 110 in the afternoon...so this matters.

Also, you have to be mindful of the wind and altitude.

So, getting your baseline distance at Sea Level at 72 degrees with no wind is a good starting point in my opinion.

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Couple quick questions on distance. The way I calculate my distances are:

For every 10 degrees below 72 you lose 1 yard per 100 yards, i.e in 62 degree weather your 200 yard club goes 198.

for every 10 mph headwinds you lose 1 yard per 100 yards.

for every 10 mph tail wind you gain 0.5 yards per 100 yards.

Hitting to an uphill or downhill landing zone, I hear for every 10 yards delta, adjust 1 club but I have not seen the math to support or deny this claim.

I have not looked into actual sea level vs mountain as I mainly play near sea level currently (+500 max)

Does anyone have any better formula's for these situations?

For me, if the temperature is in 50's, I over club by one. That's it.

I feel environmental factors are better at decreasing the distance than adding. I feel you're on the right track but I take the wind differently.

Every mph of headwind = 1% reduction. So 10 mph wind and if I have 150 yards, I hit 165 (150 + 10%). So 200 yards, I will hit 220. I'm going to validate this on Skytrak.

Down wind, 0.5% addition. Downwind 10 mph and 150 yards, I'm hitting 142 yards.

Altitude, it's a big deal as I play at 20 to 50 ft above sea level but travel to 3,000 to 4,000 ft areas. There's a calculation but if I'm visiting Denver at 6,000 ft, it will be one club less for me.

i meant for every 1 mph +/- per 100 not every 10mph.

I found this while going down a rabbit hole on distances..

Quote:

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The basic rule of thumb for elevation is for downhill: (yardage to pin)-(elevation change/3), and for uphill it's (yardage to pin)+(elevation change/3). Sometimes these won't be perfect, but it's a good starting rule to use. From there you can start dialing in differences in clubs, lofting, and wind with it.

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