If some of the more experienced, low handicap posters can enlighten us with their experiences, i would be very grateful.

what is the % difference btw yardages(carry yds for all clubs) attained at "range" conditions(i.e. ball, turf conditions, etc.) versus "in round" conditions.

for example: "range yardages are 10% less than course."

Ive heard the golf ball can deteriorate 15% or more of performance just sitting out in the sun for a few days. some ranges have balls that look 10yrs old. some private courses have balls that look fairly new.

i practice at a public range with decent condition range balls and grass turf and play a prov1 during rounds. trying to work on some stock yardages for each club to lower score.

There is too much variance in different kinds of range balls to come up with a standard percentage. You just have to find out your actual distances on the course. If you can try to get out by yourself when the course is empty on a day with no wind and hit multiple shots to try to dial in your yardages.

At the course I play the newer balls actually go about the normal distance, at least on my wedges. When warming up I'll laser some of the targets in wedge range to get a feel for how far my ball is going on that day. With the older range balls I don't worry about how far they go. I play a lot of early morning golf and the ball goes shorter for the first few holes and then longer as the temperature (and I) warm up. So this gives me a feel for what to expect on the first few holes. But beyond a certain distance at my range you can't really see where the ball lands relative to the target poles so I use the longer ones for direction only versus distance.

The other thing you need to learn to do is adjust yardages on the course. Not only for temperature, but wind and uphill/downhill. I think I'm pretty good at this nowadays but it took me a lot longer to figure out than it should have.

no chance of ever being by myself at my local course. also no access to resources like trackman or other shot trackers.

i agree less impact on distance with wedges(mostly spin). However it is the longer clubs i need to gap properly.

also agree no need to discuss older range balls.

i am also aware of the temp influence and continue to work on my wind and elevation adjustments in round.

only play 2-3 rds/mth. 1 range session/week at most. no offical hcp but consistently shoot in mid-high 70s. wanna try hard for once and crack 70. strengths are from putter on up.

feel like best chance with limited playing time is to work on properly gapped yardages for all clubs with tight dispersion and go flag hunting.(score more birdies=best chance to crack 70)

It's comparing apples and oranges, you just can't do it accurately. Balls at range A might go 100%, balls at range B might go 85%, half of the balls at range C might go 100% while the other half go 80%. It's a crapshoot, and it's frustrating.

I practice at 2 places, one is the highest end public facility ($200/round) in the DFW area with brand new range balls, the other is a no-frills country club with funky yellow range balls. And the brand new range balls at the high end course seem to go 80-85% while the yellow pills go 100%. Go figure.

The only way to truly know how far you hit it is to do so on the course with multiple shots into multiple holes with all your clubs. Nothing else will suffice.

both responses i think got it right... it really depends even with balls at same range.

then the distance you hit it at course depend on alot of things. i will disregard those that don't differ from local range like air temp/humidity and altitude.

two things that matter at course,

ball u play

roll conditions.

i guess though that maybe you can compare carry distances. but i have found for non-elite players that roll is really important. PGA players seem to hit their longest drives by hitting it high but i've found rec player longer drives are often line drives.. note i don't play with young, low handicap players.

one question for the experts: how do really old beaten down range balls with few dimples fly? badly? or quite well but no control
fwiw, i hit ball further at course than range......... unless range has hard bare ground...but again, it's comparing carry yardage that is probably relevent

This. On the range just worry about contact, direction and shot shape.

Also, try getting the last twilight time by yourself at your cheapest local course. Once you are out of sight, hit 2 , 3 or 4 shots every hole and log distances.

If the marshall tries to move you along let him know you are quitting at hole 12 or 13 anyway. All he'll care about is that your cart is in on time and that you are not holding anyone up. If you have the last tee time, you cant hold anyone up, so you wont be rushed from behind.

And, nobody wants the last twilight time....

^^ what he said.

If you practice at one place it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out if the balls there are flying the same distance as your ProV does on the course. The range I use has pretty good balls with very few older ones mixed in and they are close to 100% distance wise, but I agree if you are trying to dial in and lock down your true distances for each club you will need to average them out on the course. Find a course where you can get out alone and hit 2 or 3 extra balls with each club when you have a chance with a range finder.

...and if your near the end of your round and tired. I see people coming up short all the time and looking baffled when it is clear they have lost some club speed.

other than wedges i would think you can figure out yardages on the course pretty easily without playing that much.

ranges, as mentioned, i wouldn't take too seriously regardless of how far your ball seems to go. and i mean that for good or bad.

i'm a big curiousity guy myself so i like checking this stuff... but other than wedges, i think yardages are simple to figure and fairly obvious... i apologize if this isn't what you asked.

kool replies. thx guys.

i have always had a general idea of my yardages, and i dont spend much time, if any picking a club while over the ball. however, i have never properly gapped my irons.(especially mid to long)

in the past, my approach shot routine consisted of:1) acquire the pin yardage, 2) pick club with closest matching yardage, 3) aim at either middle of green or at the flag and 4) fire.

lately i have changed my routine to consist of 1)acquire front or back edge of green yardage as well as pin yardage, 2)use pin location relative to front edge or back edge of green to pick club, 3)aim at front half or back half of green.(i.e. if flag is in front, pick club with front edge carry yardage in mind. if flag is in back, pick club with yardage short of back edge.) 4)fire.

I was not aware that some range balls can come close to anything near 100% of top tier balls. good to know.

due to the very limited amount of time i have available for golf, finding perfect hours to go out on the course and practice multiple shots is not ideal. although its starting to look like this is one of the very few options i have.

shorter club yardages are probably fairly accurate, but the longer clubs were my main concern. (i.e. i have no idea what my real gap btw 4 and 5 iron is. is it too small? do i need to bend my 4i an extra degree stronger?, etc.)

i mean, idk if this is even possible w/o getting on a launch monitor or something similar. just trying to figure out what the poor man's solution to the op is.

on a side note, does anyone know the proper way to go about calculating elevation adjustments. ive always just gave it the ole eye ball test of "uphill, better club up!"

again because of my limited "golf time," my single range session has to be very efficient. also my bad back limits the amount of balls i can hit effectively.(~100 balls/full swings, ~100 balls/pitching and <100yds wedge shots) therefore i do a lot of simulated rounds. so knowing the real carry yardages at practice helps me get that much more dialed in for my next round.

perhaps i need to use my range session time slot to play twilight rounds and get yardages dialed in. seems like no other way around it. thx

hate asking this...but if you don't play that much - assuming i read that correctly - do you need to sweat your 4i vs. 5i yardage?

for me, it's pretty close to the same and don't really hit the 4i high enough to really make good use of it anyway. prefer 5w or even 7w myself but i digress. repetitive comment but if i hit 4i farther than 5i a fair amount of it is roll which doesn't matter that much.

i think wedges are where you need to dial in distances....

not sure about this but does golftec rent golf simulator time? or some other merchant?

no worries. yea, i might not play much these days, but i have played golf on and off most of my life.

i use my 4i for 195-200 yd shots and 5i for 180-185 yard shots(optimum conditions). has worked okay for me thus far, but since i never dialed in my yardages, i am not certain if my dispersion pattern is closer to 190 or 195 (carry yds) for my 4i and so forth.

imho, what it takes to get from low 80's to mid 70's is completely different than what it takes to go from mid 70's to low 70's with occasional sub 70.

things like course management and attention to detail play a bigger role. you are trying to save 1 or 2 strokes here or there. its not like your gonna find a major swing flaw that shaves off 5-6 strokes.

i agree wedge game is important, but i am already very confident in my wedge yardages.(full shots at least)

im not aware of renting a launch monitor but i def. couldn't see myself camping out at a golfsmith simulator, trying to dial in my club yardages.lol

You could find a trackman near you and go do a session to map out your yardages: http://mytrackman.com/public/locator

tyvm! i will chk it out. hopefully a session doesnt cost more than a round of golf.

i remember looking for trackman options a while back. since it was fairly new, there was only one or two around the whole city i could access, but it required signing up for lessons. several $100's. i guess it is much more common now. thx for heads up.

Get a Launch monitor and nail down your carry distances, then adjust them according to course conditions while playing.