How far a 7 iron goes

By swing speed

The 7 iron is the club golfers compare on, so it is worth knowing what the number depends on. Carry is ball speed times the yards a 7 iron gets per mile per hour of ball speed, and ball speed is club head speed times smash factor, which sits lower for an iron than a driver because loft takes some of the strike.

7 iron carry by club head speed

By handicap

The handicap model ties club head speed to handicap and runs the same arithmetic. The spread is real but smaller than golfers assume: what separates a 5 and a 20 is far more the pattern around the number than the number itself.

7 iron carry by handicap

Why one number misleads

Your 7 iron is a pattern, not a number. Twenty shots with the same club spread long and short and left and right, and the average of that spread is the carry to plan with, not the one flushed shot you remember. From 150 yards a 7 iron that finishes 25 feet from the hole is worth 0.01 against the published baseline, and one that finishes 40 feet away is worth -0.11; the pattern decides which you get more often.

Gapping matters as much as the number: if the 7 iron carries 150 and the 6 iron carries 170, every 160 yard shot is a shot you have never practised. A launch monitor session shows the gap at once, and the free launch monitor analyzer on this site prices it in strokes.

Every page for this club

The 7 iron at each handicap, each swing speed and each age, each with the whole bag at the same setting.

• 7 iron, scratch
• 7 iron, 5 handicap
• 7 iron, 10 handicap
• 7 iron, 15 handicap
• 7 iron, 20 handicap
• 7 iron, 25 handicap
• 7 iron, 30 handicap
• 7 iron at 60 mph
• 7 iron at 65 mph
• 7 iron at 70 mph
• 7 iron at 75 mph
• 7 iron at 80 mph
• 7 iron at 85 mph
• 7 iron at 90 mph
• 7 iron at age 20
• 7 iron at age 30
• 7 iron at age 40
• 7 iron at age 50
• 7 iron at age 60
• 7 iron at age 70

In PinFlag

Import a launch monitor session and PinFlag turns your 7 iron into a per club pattern labeled Measured. On the course that pattern prices every target you consider from 7 iron range, and Shot Cloud draws the shots around the flag so a tucked pin over a bunker is compared with the middle of the green on your real spread, not a single yardage.

Related

• 6 iron distance
• 8 iron distance
• Club distances by handicap
• Club distance calculator
• Launch monitor analyzer
• Every club, priced

Sources

• PGA TOUR statistics
• Golf simulator and launch monitor, Wikipedia
• How PinFlag calculates strokes gained

Every figure on this page is computed from the published baselines, the same ones PinFlag prices your shots with. The scope of the figures: Carry figures are the published tour ball speed and carry anchor for a 7 iron scaled by club head speed; the spread around the carry, which the page argues matters more, comes from your own shots.