Iron Accuracy by Distance & Handicap

Have you ever wondered how your iron accuracy compares to those who have similar handicaps, or how the different distances affect your game? Today, we’ll cover those two questions by analyzing millions of rounds of all handicap levels.

We hope that after reading this, not only you’ll have a solid base to compare your performance against your handicaps but also know what you should be aiming towards. We’d like to point out that if you upgrade to our PRO membership you’ll get tons of more robust insights specific to YOUR game.

Back to the data! We defined accuracy as % of shots that land on the green, or GIR%. For this exercise, we looked at Par 3 shots in the following distance ranges: <125yds, 126-150yds, 151-175yds, 176-200yds, 201-225yds, and +225yds that we showed in colored lines.

We included the handicaps on the bottom, so to read the data you just have to position yourself within your handicap and follow the vertical line that crosses the distance categories to see what’s your accuracy % in each of those distance ranges.

Let’s dig in!

There are some interesting finds for sure.

Take a look at the <125yds range where lower handicap players are not outperforming the rest. Why? Our guess is that lower handicap players tend to tee it up from the back boxes. Therefore, when the golf course architect gives them a short par 3, those typically come with tough conditions like water hazards or greenside bunkers.

Also, we can see that in shots between 201-225yds and +225yds, there’s a slight increase in the accuracy of high handicappers. This can be caused by the use of rescue clubs or hybrids, which can give some golfers more control over their shots.

Obviously, these are mere interpretations of the data. What is your favorite insight or takeaway? Comment below!

Enjoy your golf!

Author avatar
Luis
Golfer, Writer, and Grinter for life.

5 comments

  1. Ed Foley

    I see that 10% of 10 handicaps did something on par 3’s of >225. But what did they do? Hit the green? Make par?

    • Luis

      Hi Ed! They hit the green. We included a note on how we measured accuracy and its by % of greens hits on Par 3. Thanks for your comment!

  2. Kelly

    Without a definition of what constitutes “accuracy”, this graph is meaningless. How is accuracy defined??

    • Luis

      Hi Kelly! We did a small rewrite to include it! For this case, we used GIR% or greens in regulation % for Par 3’s. Hope this clears things up a bit!

  3. rob

    the scratchers are trying to take the sw or gw and see it won’t work…writing for a friend

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