Gap wedge distance

At tour speed

The anchor row for the gap wedge is the published tour average: 81 mph of club head speed, 95 mph of ball speed, a smash factor of 1.17 and 124 yards of carry, which rolls to about 126 yards on a fairway landing. Carry is ball speed multiplied by 1.31 yards per mile per hour, the club’s own ratio from that row, and ball speed is club head speed multiplied by smash factor. The gap wedge row is modeled by continuing the pitching wedge trend, and is labeled that way wherever it appears.

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 gap wedge from 40 mph to 85 mph; each row has its own page with the rest of the bag at the same speed.

Gap wedge 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.

Gap wedge 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 gap wedge at 20 carries 96 yards on the model; at 60 it carries 86 yards, 11 yards shorter.

Gap wedge carry by age

The clubs either side

For a 15 handicap the pitching wedge carries 108 yards, 10 yards more than the gap wedge. Below the gap wedge the bag runs into the wedges you carry, so the gap at the bottom is yours to set.

From 98 yards in the fairway the tour average needs 2.80 strokes to hole out and 3.01 from the rough, so a gap wedge approach that finishes 25 feet from the hole is worth -0.14 against the tour average for a 15 handicap, and one that finishes 40 feet away -0.26.

Every page for this club

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

• Gap wedge, scratch
• Gap wedge, 5 handicap
• Gap wedge, 10 handicap
• Gap wedge, 15 handicap
• Gap wedge, 20 handicap
• Gap wedge, 25 handicap
• Gap wedge, 30 handicap
• Gap wedge at 50 mph
• Gap wedge at 55 mph
• Gap wedge at 60 mph
• Gap wedge at 65 mph
• Gap wedge at 70 mph
• Gap wedge at 75 mph
• Gap wedge at 80 mph
• Gap wedge at age 20
• Gap wedge at age 30
• Gap wedge at age 40
• Gap wedge at age 50
• Gap wedge at age 60
• Gap wedge at age 70

In PinFlag

Import a launch monitor session and PinFlag turns your gap wedge 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 a tucked pin is compared with the middle of the green on your real spread, not a single yardage.

Every shot you log with the gap wedge 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

• Pitching wedge 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 gap wedge 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.