Every distance chart on the internet tells you a 15-handicapper hits a 7-iron 150 yards. Almost none of them say who measured it or how. This one does, and then it stops pretending to know your game: type in the clubs you have actually measured, and it fills in the rest from tour gapping, clearly marked as estimates, on a card you can print.
The chart
Tour averages (carry, yards)
| Club | Club speed (mph) | Carry (yards) | Landing angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Driver | 115 | 282 | 39° |
| 3‑wood | 110 | 249 | 44° |
| 5‑wood | 106 | 236 | 48° |
| Hybrid | 102 | 231 | 49° |
| 3‑iron | 100 | 218 | 48° |
| 4‑iron | 98 | 209 | 49° |
| 5‑iron | 96 | 199 | 50° |
| 6‑iron | 94 | 188 | 50° |
| 7‑iron | 92 | 176 | 51° |
| 8‑iron | 89 | 164 | 51° |
| 9‑iron | 87 | 152 | 52° |
| PW | 84 | 142 | 52° |
| Club | Club speed (mph) | Carry (yards) | Landing angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Driver | 96 | 223 | 36° |
| 3‑wood | 92 | 200 | 38° |
| 5‑wood | 90 | 189 | 43° |
| Hybrid | 87 | 178 | 45° |
| 4‑iron | 82 | 175 | 43° |
| 5‑iron | 81 | 166 | 45° |
| 6‑iron | 80 | 155 | 46° |
| 7‑iron | 78 | 143 | 47° |
| 8‑iron | 76 | 133 | 47° |
| 9‑iron | 74 | 123 | 48° |
| PW | 72 | 111 | 48° |
Source: TrackMan, "New PGA & LPGA Tour Averages" (May 2024), 2023 season; men from 40+ events and 200+ players, women from 30+ events and 150+ players. Carry only, no roll.
Build your own chart
Type the carries you know from a launch monitor or a good GPS session. The clubs you leave blank are estimated by scaling the tour table to your known clubs, and marked with ≈. The more clubs you fill in, the less it guesses.
Amateur benchmarks (sourced)
| Golfers | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| All Arccos users, 2025 average | 224.1 | 175.7 |
| Scratch to 4.9 handicap | 244 | 220 |
| 30+ handicap | 181 | 145 |
| Teens / 70s (men) | 240 / 190 | — |
Arccos: roughly 10 million driver tee shots from 5 million rounds played in 2025, measured by GPS on the course. Shot Scope's user database puts the average amateur 7-iron at 144 yards (performance average, outliers removed). Tour figures above are carry; these are total.
Where the numbers come from
The two reference tables are TrackMan's published tour averages for the 2023 season, released in May 2024. TrackMan's radar units sit behind the tee at tour events, and the men's table covers more than 200 players at 40-plus events; the women's, 150-plus players at 30-plus events. The figures are carry, the distance the ball flies before it touches down, along with club speed and landing angle. A PGA Tour driver: 115 mph of club speed, 282 yards of carry. A PGA Tour 7-iron: 92 mph, 176 yards, coming down at 51 degrees. On the LPGA Tour the same clubs carry 223 and 143.
Those are the best players in the world hitting stock shots. They are on the page because they are the cleanest public measurement of how a bag gaps from driver to wedge, roughly ten to twelve yards between irons, not because you should compare yourself to them.
For amateurs we use two sources that measure on the course rather than in a studio. Arccos, whose sensors sit in grip ends, analyzed about 10 million driver tee shots from 5 million rounds played in 2025. Men averaged 224.1 yards of total distance, within a yard of where they were in 2018; women averaged 175.7. Skill matters more than anything else: men with a handicap between scratch and 4.9 averaged 244 yards, men at 30 and above 181, a gap of 63 yards. Age matters too: male teens averaged 240 and men in their 70s 190. Those are total distances, carry plus roll, so do not set them beside the tour carries.
Shot Scope, the other big on-course dataset, reports its distances as a performance average that drops the best and worst 10 percent of shots, which is a fair definition of "the number I can count on." Its published guide puts the average amateur 7-iron at 144 yards. If your 7-iron carries 144 you are, by that measure, average, which on a par 3 of 160 with a bunker short means you want more club than you think.
Why averages mislead
An average distance is the middle of a spread, and the spread is the problem. The same golfer who "hits a 7-iron 150" carries it 158 when it comes off the middle and 138 when it comes off the toe, and that second number is the one that finds the water. That is the argument for using a trimmed average like Shot Scope's or a launch monitor session with the mishits left in. It is also the argument for aiming at the middle of the green, where a ten-yard miss either way is still a putt. Carry versus total distance covers which number to use when, and know your distances is the longer piece on measuring your own.
How to build your own chart
You need at least one measured club, and a 7-iron is the best one to start with because it is the club most launch monitors and most fitting bays hand you first. Type its carry into the form. The tool computes how your number compares with the tour's for the same club, then applies that ratio to every other club, marked with a wavy equals sign so nobody mistakes an estimate for a measurement. Add a driver and a wedge and the estimates tighten, because the ratio is now averaged over three clubs instead of one. Add all twelve and there are no estimates at all, just your card.
The gap column is the useful part. Tour players gap irons ten to twelve yards apart. If your card shows a four-yard gap between two clubs and an eighteen-yard gap between the next two, that is a fitting conversation, not a swing problem. The driver-speed option is for golfers who know their club speed from a fitting but have never measured carries; it scales the tour table by speed and assumes tour-quality strike, so it will run generous for most of us.
Print the card. It fits on one page, it goes in the yardage-book pocket, and it is more useful than the numbers you think you remember. What it does not do is decide the club for you on the course. For the common case, what club for 150 yards works the decision through with real gapping.
From the chart to the course
A distance chart is half of an approach shot. The other half is the distance to the green, and that is the half the Yardage app does: one number, to the center of the green, updated as you walk, on the phone in your pocket. It does not suggest a club or adjust for wind. It gives you the number so you can look at your card and choose.
If driving distance is the part of your game you are curious about, how far the average golfer drives it goes deeper into the Arccos and USGA figures by handicap and age. And the reason to aim at the middle in the first place is on the home page, in about a hundred words.
Frequently asked questions
How far does the average golfer hit a 7-iron?
Shot Scope's user data puts the average amateur 7-iron at 144 yards, using its performance average, which trims the best and worst 10 percent of shots. PGA Tour players carry a 7-iron 176 yards on TrackMan's 2023 averages, LPGA Tour players 143.
How far does the average golfer drive the ball?
Arccos measured roughly 10 million driver tee shots in 2025 and found men averaged 224.1 yards of total distance and women 175.7. Men with a handicap under five averaged 244; men with a 30-plus handicap averaged 181.
Carry or total?
The tour tables and your own card are carry: the distance the ball flies before it lands. The Arccos driver figures are total, carry plus roll. For approach shots carry is the number that matters, because it decides whether you clear the bunker.
How accurate are the estimated clubs?
They are a scaled copy of the tour gapping, so they assume your gaps between clubs resemble a tour player's. Real gaps vary with loft, shaft and how well you strike long irons. Treat estimates as a starting point and replace them with measured numbers as you get them.
Does the Yardage app tell me which club to hit?
No. It shows the distance from where you stand to the center of the green, in yards, and nothing else. Which club covers that distance is your call, and this chart is for making it before you get there.