3 wood distance

At tour speed

The anchor row for the 3 wood is the published tour average: 107 mph of club head speed, 158 mph of ball speed, a smash factor of 1.48 and 243 yards of carry, which rolls to about 258 yards on a fairway landing. Carry is ball speed multiplied by 1.54 yards per mile per hour, the club’s own ratio from that row, and ball speed is club head speed multiplied by smash factor.

By swing speed

Slower swings strike the ball a little less cleanly, so the model eases smash factor by 0.01 for every 5 mph below the tour speed, floored at 90 percent of the tour value. The table runs the 3 wood from 65 mph to 110 mph; each row has its own page with the rest of the bag at the same speed.

3 wood carry by club head speed

By handicap

The handicap model ties driver speed to handicap (106 mph for scratch, less 0.95 mph per stroke) and swings every club at the same fraction of its tour speed. The last column prices the yards behind scratch on the published fairway table: every approach played from that much further back than a 150 yard reference.

3 wood carry by handicap

By age

The age model peaks club head speed in the twenties and eases it by decade, anchored to a 15 handicap at 30. A 3 wood at 20 carries 188 yards on the model; at 60 it carries 168 yards, 21 yards shorter.

3 wood carry by age

The clubs either side

For a 15 handicap the driver carries 217 yards and the 5 wood 182 yards, so the 3 wood owns the band from about 187 yards to 204 yards: a gap of 25 yards above it and 10 yards below. That is a wide band for one club, which is why launch monitor gapping matters more here than anywhere in the bag.

On a 400 yard par 4 a 3 wood of 203 yards leaves 197 yards, which the published fairway table prices at 3.17 strokes to hole out; ten more yards would leave 187 yards and 3.12, a difference of 0.06 before the approach is struck.

Every page for this club

The 3 wood at each handicap, each swing speed and each age, each with the whole bag at the same setting.

• 3 wood, scratch
• 3 wood, 5 handicap
• 3 wood, 10 handicap
• 3 wood, 15 handicap
• 3 wood, 20 handicap
• 3 wood, 25 handicap
• 3 wood, 30 handicap
• 3 wood at 75 mph
• 3 wood at 80 mph
• 3 wood at 85 mph
• 3 wood at 90 mph
• 3 wood at 95 mph
• 3 wood at 100 mph
• 3 wood at 105 mph
• 3 wood at age 20
• 3 wood at age 30
• 3 wood at age 40
• 3 wood at age 50
• 3 wood at age 60
• 3 wood at age 70

In PinFlag

Import a launch monitor session and PinFlag turns your 3 wood into a pattern of your own carries, labeled Measured, that stands behind every target you price on the course. Shot Cloud draws the real shots around the spot you are considering, on the hole in front of you, so the share of your drives that reaches the water or the rough is a picture of your own game.

Every shot you log with the 3 wood on the course records the target and the result, so the pattern keeps growing from real rounds, and Insights shows the club’s proximity, the shots it cost and the shots it won across a season.

Related

• Driver distance
• 5 wood 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: The 3 wood figures are the published tour ball speed and carry anchor scaled by club head speed, with the handicap and age models stated on the page; your own launch monitor session replaces them in the app.