Okay, so I’ve been trying to dial in my distances with my clubs, you know, really get a feel for how far each one actually goes. I heard about this “Brian Harman stock yardages” thing and figured, why not give it a shot? It seemed like a good, structured way to figure this stuff out.
First thing I did was head to the driving range. I didn’t want any wind messing with my numbers, so an indoor range would have been ideal, but, hey, you work with what you’ve got. I brought my full bag, my launch monitor (a cheap one, nothing fancy), and a notebook.
Getting Started
I started with my wedges. I mean, you gotta start somewhere, right? I warmed up a bit, just hitting some easy shots to loosen up. Then, I picked my pitching wedge and started hitting shots. The key here, I figured, was to hit a bunch of shots with what felt like my “stock” swing – not trying to kill the ball, not trying to take anything off, just a normal, comfortable swing.
- Pitching Wedge: I hit about 20 balls. My launch monitor was spitting out numbers, and I was jotting them all down in my notebook. I ignored the really bad shots, the ones I knew I completely mishit.
After I had a good sample size, I moved on to my next club, the gap wedge, and did the same thing. 20 shots, normal swing, record the numbers, toss out the outliers.
Working Through the Bag
I just kept going like this, club by club. Gap wedge, sand wedge, lob wedge… then onto my irons. 9-iron, 8-iron, 7-iron, all the way up to my longest iron. It took a while, and honestly, my arms were starting to get a little tired by the end of it.
- Important Note: I made sure to take breaks between clubs. I didn’t want fatigue to mess with my swing and give me bad data. A few minutes of rest, a sip of water, and then back to it.
My numbers.
9-iron,150,
8-iron,160,
7-iron,170
The Hard Part (For Me)
Now came the part I’m not so good at… the math! I took all those numbers I’d written down and started calculating the average distance for each club. Again, I threw out any numbers that were way off – the shanks, the ones I topped, you know, the ugly ones. I was just looking for the average of my good shots.
It took some time, and more than a little scribbling in my notebook, but I finally had a list of my average distances for each club.
So, that’s my attempt at figuring out my stock yardages. It wasn’t perfect, and I’m sure there’s room for improvement, but it gave me a much better idea of what to expect from each club on the course. Now, instead of just guessing, I have some actual data to work with. Next step: taking these numbers to the course and seeing how they translate to real-world play!
