Aiming for Single Digits: Putting My Golf Data to Work

I’ve been chasing a single-digit handicap for years and guessing at where my game leaks strokes. A bad drive into the trees? Obviously costing me. But how often, and which clubs? I had no real idea.

The swing speed kept going up. The scorecard didn’t always agree. So I pulled the last 100 shots with every club out of my Arccos data and read the numbers. Here’s what I found. The plan for what to do about it is its own post.

What I’m Reading

Most of golf is feel. I hit 8-iron 145 because I hit an 8-iron 145 once and the number stuck. That works on the right day. The rest of the time it’s a guess.

The Arccos data is two things side by side. Club statistics tell me how each club performs — distance and accuracy on each shot, consistency across the last 100. Dispersion tells me where the misses go, short or long, left or right.

The point is to stop guessing where strokes are leaking. If 38% of my hybrids finish short of the green, that’s not a feel, that’s a number. And if I know it, I can practice against it.

A note on scope: the 3-wood and 5-wood are out of this analysis. I just replaced both, along with my irons and putter, and they need their own write-up. What’s below is the last 100 shots with the clubs I’ve been hitting most — driver, 4-hybrid, irons 5 through 9, and the four wedges.

Driver (TaylorMade SIM2 Max)

This is what tees up the round. I’ve been chasing swing speed for years, and the distance is fine. The fairway percentage is not.

Average distance: 261 yards (high: 276)
Fairway hit: 32%
Misses: 26% left, 42% right
Dispersion: −80 to +100 yards across the last 100

Thirty-two percent fairways is the disaster line. Distance isn’t the issue. The right side is. Forty-two percent of drives end up right of the fairway, often well right, and that’s lost balls and recovery shots before I’ve even hit my second.

4-Hybrid (PING G425)

I added the G425 in May 2023 as a 4-iron replacement. It lives at long par 3s and second shots on par 5s.

Average distance: 207 yards (199–215 window)
Greens hit: 28%
Average miss to pin: 37 yards
Misses: 38% short, 9% left, 17% right, 8% long

Arccos last-100-shots 4-hybrid approach dispersion — PING G425, 207 yard average, 28% greens hit, 38% short, 9% left, 17% right, 8% long, 37 yard average to pin 4-hybrid dispersion. The cluster is tight enough; the misses skew short.

Better numbers than the 5-iron, which I’ll get to. The recurring pattern is already visible: 38% of approaches finish short of the green. That’s a distance problem, not an aim problem.

Irons (5 through 9)

Iron play is where scoring happens. Less margin than the driver, more than the wedges.

Arccos last-100-shots iron summary table — 5-iron through 9-iron, with distance, green hit percentage, miss tendency (short, left, right), and average yards to pin per club Iron stats, last 100 shots per club.

Two stories here:

Long irons (5i, 6i). 45%+ of shots come up short. The 5-iron leaves me 43 yards from the pin on average. That’s chip-and-pray territory, not a scoring iron.
Short irons (8i, 9i). 40% greens hit and 21–24 yards to pin. Still short, still slightly left, but this is the part of the bag I’m actually scoring with.
The 4-hybrid is winning the long-iron argument. 28% greens hit at 207 yards beats the 5-iron’s 18% at 186. The hybrid is doing the 5-iron’s job better than the 5-iron is.

Wedges (PW, 50°, 54°, 58°)

Wedges are the rescue. Spray a drive or miss a green, and inside 135 yards there’s still a shot at making par with two putts.

Arccos last-100-shots wedge summary table — pitching wedge through 58 degree, with distance, green hit percentage, miss tendency (short, left, right), and average yards to pin per club; 58 degree leads at 68 percent greens hit and 13 yards to pin Wedge stats, last 100 shots per club.

58°. 68% greens hit, 13 yards average to the pin. Easily the best club in the bag. The one shot a round it gets used on is usually a good one.
PW, 50°, 54°. All in the 46–49% greens-hit range, which is fine. The miss is short on every one of them, and the 54° comes up short 37% of the time. Distance control inside 110 yards is the project.

What I’m Doing About It

Four things stand out from the data:

Off the tee. 32% fairways is the disaster line. Distance is fine. Aim is the project. 50% fairways would be a real change; 40% keeps me in play.
Long approaches. The 4-hybrid is winning the long-iron argument. The 5-iron probably comes out of the bag.
Short irons. This is the part of the bag that’s working. Keep doing what I’m doing and let the trend extend.
Short, short, short. Every section of the bag is missing short. One more club on most approaches is the easy fix. The harder one is figuring out how much of this is fear of going long.

The driver needs reining in. The long irons are losing their job to the hybrid. The wedges, especially the 58°, are where I’m scoring.

Goal is breaking 80 more often, then nudging the handicap from there. The plan that comes out of this is its own post.