You’re standing over a 68-yard shot and know exactly what to do. Not because you’ve played for 30 years or because you have a swing coach on speed dial but because you’ve done the work to know your own numbers.
Most golfers haven’t. And it’s costing them strokes they don’t even realize they’re giving away. I love playing golf based around feel and what seems natural but that comes after you’ve learned what yardages you’re capable of.
Feel is real—but it needs a foundation
Ask most golfers how they decide what to hit from inside 100 yards and you’ll get some version of the same answer: feel. The best wedge players in the world talk about feel constantly.
But here’s the thing about feel: it only works when it’s calibrated to something real.
When a tour player says they “felt” a 72-yard shot perfectly, they’re working from years of verified data in their body. They’ve hit that shot hundreds of times with a known result. Their feel has a reference point.
Most amateur golfers are working from feel with no reference point at all. Creating your wedge distance chart or matrix fixes that.
What you need to know before you start
A wedge distance chart (sometimes called a wedge matrix) maps your carry distances across every wedge in your bag at three different swing lengths. With three swings per club and three to four clubs in most bags, you’ll have between nine and 12 distinct carry distances covering the entire scoring zone.
A few things to have sorted before you hit your first shot:
Swing like you’re on the course. The whole point is to measure the swing you have, not your best range swing.
You need a launch monitor or simulator. A rangefinder gives you total distance. A launch monitor gives you carry.
Bring every wedge in your bag. Most golfers carry three or four: pitching wedge, gap wedge, sand wedge and sometimes a lob wedge.
The three swings
You’re going to use three swing lengths for every club.
Waist-high: Club goes back to hip height, follows through to hip height on the other side. Backswing and follow-through match in length. This swing sometimes feels uncomfortably short when you first try it. That’s fine, stick with it.
Three-quarter: Lead arm swings back to roughly 9 o’clock—level with the ground, across your chest. It’s the hardest of the three to find consistently which is actually a good reason to practice it deliberately.
Full swing: Your normal full swing, not your hardest swing. There’s a Ben Hogan quote that gets passed around that’s relevant here. He’d love to play the guy who hits his wedges full out for money. Tempo wins here. A controlled full swing with a wedge will give you tighter distance windows than a full-send swing.
Recording the distances
Work through one club at a time. Start with your highest-lofted wedge and work up to your pitching wedge.
For each swing length, hit three shots. Average the carry distances and write it down. That’s your number.
A few honest notes on the process:
If you chunk one or skull one, throw it out. A complete mishit doesn’t represent your real carry distance any more than a perfect one does.
If you hit one that goes 22 yards and one that goes 31 yards and one that goes 26 yards, the average is 26. That’s your number. Don’t round up or chase clean numbers.
What to do with the data
Once you’ve filled in your numbers, lay them out from lowest to highest and look for two things: gaps and overlaps.
- Gaps are dead zones: distances you’re regularly faced with but don’t have a rehearsed answer for. A cluster between 55–60 yards with nothing until 85 is a scoring problem.
- Overlaps mean two clubs or swing lengths are competing for the same distance. That’s either a tempo issue (swinging too hard with one, too soft with another) or a loft gap problem.
- Outliers are worth a second look, too. If one number doesn’t fit the pattern around it, that’s usually a technique issue worth taking to the range.
How to use this on the course
Once you have completed your chart, start using it on the course. Some players write the three distances for each wedge on a sticky note and put it on that club shaft. It could also be a note on your phone that you look at before you tee off.
When you get used to incorporating this into your routine, your feel will get better. Instead of standing over a 68-yard shot with a vague sense of unease, you’re standing over it knowing you’ve hit this exact shot before. Your body has a reference. Your feel has something to calibrate against.
Final thoughts
As your swing changes, your numbers will shift. Take some time at the range to update your wedge distance chart once or twice a year or whenever you make a swing change.
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