Pitching wedge distance

At tour speed

The anchor row for the pitching wedge is the published tour average: 83 mph of club head speed, 102 mph of ball speed, a smash factor of 1.23 and 136 yards of carry, which rolls to about 139 yards on a fairway landing. Carry is ball speed multiplied by 1.33 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 pitching wedge from 45 mph to 90 mph; each row has its own page with the rest of the bag at the same speed.

Pitching 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.

Pitching 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 pitching wedge at 20 carries 106 yards on the model; at 60 it carries 94 yards, 12 yards shorter.

Pitching wedge carry by age

The clubs either side

For a 15 handicap the 9 iron carries 117 yards and the gap wedge 98 yards, so the pitching wedge owns the band from about 103 yards to 112 yards: a gap of 10 yards above it and 10 yards below. Gaps near ten yards are what a well built bag looks like; a gap over 20 is the one to fix.

From 108 yards in the fairway the tour average needs 2.82 strokes to hole out and 3.04 from the rough, so a pitching wedge approach that finishes 25 feet from the hole is worth -0.11 against the tour average for a 15 handicap, and one that finishes 40 feet away -0.24.

Every page for this club

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

• Pitching wedge, scratch
• Pitching wedge, 5 handicap
• Pitching wedge, 10 handicap
• Pitching wedge, 15 handicap
• Pitching wedge, 20 handicap
• Pitching wedge, 25 handicap
• Pitching wedge, 30 handicap
• Pitching wedge at 55 mph
• Pitching wedge at 60 mph
• Pitching wedge at 65 mph
• Pitching wedge at 70 mph
• Pitching wedge at 75 mph
• Pitching wedge at 80 mph
• Pitching wedge at 85 mph
• Pitching wedge at age 20
• Pitching wedge at age 30
• Pitching wedge at age 40
• Pitching wedge at age 50
• Pitching wedge at age 60
• Pitching wedge at age 70

In PinFlag

Import a launch monitor session and PinFlag turns your pitching 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 pitching 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

• 9 iron distance
• Gap 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 pitching 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.