This calculator builds a personalized carry distance chart for every club in your bag. Use it two ways:
From swing speed. Move the slider to your driver swing speed and get an instant estimate for your full bag, based on data from millions of real golf shots.
Calibrate from known carries (recommended). Enter two to four carry distances you trust — from a launch monitor session, a simulator, or your on course GPS averages — and the calculator fits your entire bag to your actual game using a least-squares model. It will even estimate your swing speed for you.
The primary distance shown is carry — how far the ball flies before it lands. That’s the number that matters when you’re deciding whether you can clear the bunker.
How the calculator works
The model starts from a validated relationship between driver swing speed and carry distance, anchored to TrackMan measurements: LPGA Tour players average 220 yards of carry at 94 mph, and PGA Tour players average 275 yards at 113 mph. Efficiency rises with speed, and the model accounts for that.
From your driver carry, every other club is estimated using carry ratios derived from aggregated amateur data — millions of shots tracked by Shot Scope and Arccos across every handicap level — cross-checked against TrackMan tour averages. Amateur ratios differ from tour ratios in measurable ways, and this calculator uses the amateur numbers.
When you calibrate with your own carries, the calculator fits a personal scaling factor across your whole bag and reports how well your entries agree. A large deviation usually means one of your entries is optimistic — which is worth knowing in itself.
Adjustable lofts
Modern iron lofts vary enormously. A game-improvement 7-iron can be 28°, while a tour players’ 7-iron might be 34° — that’s more than a full club of difference with the same number stamped on the sole. Click any loft in the results table, enter your actual specs, and the carries adjust about 1.6% per degree.
Gap analysis
The table flags two problems automatically: tight gaps (under 8 yards between adjacent clubs — you’re carrying redundant clubs) and wide gaps (over 18 yards — you have a distance hole, often between the wedges or at the top of the bag, where a 7-wood, 9-wood, or extra hybrid can help).
What this calculator can’t do
No formula replaces a launch monitor. Strike quality, temperature, altitude, and turf conditions all move real-world numbers. Treat these results as well-calibrated planning estimates, then verify your most important yardages on a launch monitor when you can. If you want to measure your own carries, a personal launch monitor is the most direct route.
Data sources: TrackMan PGA & LPGA Tour Averages; Shot Scope Performance Insights; Arccos Caddie distance reports; USGA/R&A Annual Driving Distance Reports.