Ideal distance gapping?

[Thin2win]

I wanted to tap into the collective knowledge of some of you club fitters out there. 

I recently played a round of golf (shocking) where I needed to walk and didn't have my trust push cart. So to lighten the load I took out every other club in my bag. I played great, shockingly good actually. At no point did I miss having the between clubs, which really got me thinking about gaps. 

Kids sets only have a few clubs because the clubhead speed(or lack thereof) doesn't make them needed. So as you swing faster you should add clubs to make the gaps manageable. But I don't swing as fast as a tour player, why do I have all the same gaped irons? Instead of have a spread of clubs between 16-56 @ 4* intervals, should I have 6*intervals and fewer clubs?

 

Is 15y between clubs kinda ideal? Does this question even make sense? Trying to write while entertaining a 1 year old is also a challenge. 

 

Thanks all. 

[null]

Depends. The faster you swing the larger your gaps are going to be. 

The key is knowing your game, knowing how good you are at hitting partial shots and determining where your weaknesses are. 

Generally 10-15 yards is the rule of them for scouring clubs but those gaps could get slightly bigger the more you move towards the driver. 

For example, I'm right around 12-14 yards from my 4 iron down through my sand wedge. I'm about 17 yards from my 4 iron to 3 hybrid and about 20 yards of the carrying from my 3h to my 3w. 

[NRJyzr]

Everyone is going to be different when it comes to gaps.  Going to be dependent on your swing.  Generally speaking, the faster you swing, the larger your gaps, and the slower you swing, the tighter the gaps will be at the long iron end of the bag.

The latter is something really made obvious with single length irons. 

Unrelated comment...  if at all possible, I'm wondering if an edit of the thread title might be a good thing <rest of comment edited, LOL>

Edited January 20, 2020 by NRJyzr

[Thin2win]

4 hours ago, NRJyzr said:

Unrelated comment...  if at all possible, I'm wondering if an edit of the thread title might be a good thing.  It's really "gapping" instead of "gaping."  The latter word opens up a NSFW world...

Can't have that.. Opps. Fixed

[NRJyzr]

@Thin2win

I went and edited my comment to erase the tracks.

I guess having a grandchild gives one a different perspective on such things. 

[revkev]

It really depends upon your game - 15 yards through the bag is about the top end of ideal gaping - you'd probably prefer 10-12.  But again it depends on the player.  I've noted in several threads that a review of my numbers from the first half of last season plus a long game fitting as a part of a MGS test caused me to altar my bag.  I jettison the wedge for every yardage idea because I discovered I wasn't really using the middle two wedges that often and I was not effective when them when I was.  I took out a wedge and added a 3 wood.  As the courses have started to dry out I could actually jettison the 3 wood or the 5 wood (I hit them about the same distance) and play with 13 clubs.  

We had a fun contest as a part of the Cobra connect challenge last year where we had to use four clubs plus putter and our partner did the same - I was a guest for that contest.  From what I saw most of us shot about the same scores we normally would.  To be honest I hand picked the course and tees that I played so that it "fit" my club selections - I would not want to play every round with just those five clubs (counting putter) but it was fun to play a few - I had a gap between 7 wood and 8 iron to fill - that's 45 yards -

I would say you could easily play with 10-12 clubs and be fine if you are a moderate swing speed player or a faster swing speed player who alters his lofts to even the gaps to around 15 through the bag.  The faster your swing speed the greater the need for more clubs in the bag.

 

 

[SmoothG]

I don't think larger gaps are a big deal... not for the regular guy or the pro.  Pro's can hit the ball a certain distance with more than one club.  Many of us weekend guys are more used to hitting the ball 140ish rather than 138 on the dot.  

[Thin2win]

I guess, my line of thought is that I'm going to try and get 15 yard gaps in my set. Right now I'm about 10. And for me, I think that is not needed. 

I think 15 is about right. I guess where I'll run into challenges, is the half clubs. Basically, I want Pw, 9 1/2, 7, 6 1/2, and a 4 iron. It is the 9 1/2 and the 6 1/2 that I'm curious how to fit best. 

 

Any ideas is how to pull that off with a set? Do I bend the 8 weak, or the 9 strong. And should I use an 8i or 9i length shaft, or split the difference? 

 

I'm sure Bryson had worked all that out in his life, maybe he keeps an eye on these forums and will let me know.

[Mr. 82]

Here's my bag with expected (max) distances of each club.  You can fill in the blanks however you want...

• Driver - 240
• 3 Wood - 225
• 3 Hybrid - 205
• 4 Crossover (PING) - 195
• 5 iron - 185
• 6 iron - 175
• 7 iron - 165
• 8 iron - 155
• 9 iron - 135
• PW - 125
• GW - 115
• SW - 100
• LW - 90

[GB13]

6 hours ago, Thin2win said:

I guess, my line of thought is that I'm going to try and get 15 yard gaps in my set. Right now I'm about 10. And for me, I think that is not needed. 

I think 15 is about right. I guess where I'll run into challenges, is the half clubs. Basically, I want Pw, 9 1/2, 7, 6 1/2, and a 4 iron. It is the 9 1/2 and the 6 1/2 that I'm curious how to fit best. 

 

Any ideas is how to pull that off with a set? Do I bend the 8 weak, or the 9 strong. And should I use an 8i or 9i length shaft, or split the difference? 

 

I'm sure Bryson had worked all that out in his life, maybe he keeps an eye on these forums and will let me know.

This is a really interesting game plan. I could see how all the extra clubs could do more harm than good. I think the difference in shaft length between an 8 or 9 iron would be negligible, but I’d probably try to split the difference. As far as whether to bend an 8 weak or a 9 strong, for me, it would be determined by the bounce. Bending weak will increase the bounce whereas bending strong will decrease. Otherwise it should produce the exact same effect by bending weak or strong. The main variable is the bounce.