Calculating Your Correct Yardage On The Golf Course (Video) - by Pete Styles
Calculating Your Correct Yardage On The Golf Course (Video) - by Pete Styles

So if we are now starting to understand how important the incline or the decline of the golf shot might be in terms of how far the ball goes. We need to try and workout what adjustments we can then make as a golfer to produce the correct club decision to therefore produce the correct shot. Now technology can help you out a little bit here, you might have seen those laser rangefinders where you can zap the distance and tell you how far it is. Some more modern versions of those actually have a slope rating on them. So we can actually shoot the distance and if we are angling it up or down the machine will actually calculate, how much the incline or the decline of your tilt will affect the distance that golf ball goes.

But the provider with that is a lot of those machines aren’t legal for certain competition, so you really need to check the local rules of the governing body who are running the competition or the club committee to work out whether they the machine itself is legal for the competition or actually the slope index function is legal, because some of them say, you almost have that turned off. So if that is turned off we have to do it skill-based, we have to do it by eye, we have to do it maybe a little calculations to workout, how the up or the down slope are going to affect the distance of where we are hitting the shot. Now there is a very rough calculation that I would like to think about next time you are out in the golf course particularly hilly golf course on trying to select the right club. And it works on the idea that for every 15 feet, the ball has to go higher or lower than a flat lie, you can add or subtracts 10 yards. So if we are hitting uphill by 15 feet it’s going to play 10 yards longer than normal and if its 15-feet down it’s 10 yards lesser than normal. So that 10 yards is effectively one club, so for every 15-feet of incline you need to be a club more, 15-feet of descending, you need to be a club less. So 15-feet is effectively 2.5 flags, most golf flags are around about 6 foot tall about my sort of height. So if you are standing there looking out onto the green and you think, what does 15 feet look like out there. Two flags is going to be 12, another 3 feet on top of that to be 15 so 2.5 flags on an upslope is one club up. And 2.5 flags on a down slope is going to be one club down. Now hopefully by employing a little bit of simple math like that, you can be closer to making the correct decision. Therefore when you do pull the relevant club off of the bag, you can stand over the ball with a descent degree of confidence and then make a nice, smooth committed swing rather than the hit and hope method of just thinking, well it’s up, I’ll hit it harder; if it’s downhill, I’ll hit a bit softer. So remember, every 15 feet of incline or decline, are going to be 10 yards further, one club more or one club less. 2016-10-17

So if we are now starting to understand how important the incline or the decline of the golf shot might be in terms of how far the ball goes. We need to try and workout what adjustments we can then make as a golfer to produce the correct club decision to therefore produce the correct shot. Now technology can help you out a little bit here, you might have seen those laser rangefinders where you can zap the distance and tell you how far it is. Some more modern versions of those actually have a slope rating on them. So we can actually shoot the distance and if we are angling it up or down the machine will actually calculate, how much the incline or the decline of your tilt will affect the distance that golf ball goes.

But the provider with that is a lot of those machines aren’t legal for certain competition, so you really need to check the local rules of the governing body who are running the competition or the club committee to work out whether they the machine itself is legal for the competition or actually the slope index function is legal, because some of them say, you almost have that turned off. So if that is turned off we have to do it skill-based, we have to do it by eye, we have to do it maybe a little calculations to workout, how the up or the down slope are going to affect the distance of where we are hitting the shot.

Now there is a very rough calculation that I would like to think about next time you are out in the golf course particularly hilly golf course on trying to select the right club. And it works on the idea that for every 15 feet, the ball has to go higher or lower than a flat lie, you can add or subtracts 10 yards. So if we are hitting uphill by 15 feet it’s going to play 10 yards longer than normal and if its 15-feet down it’s 10 yards lesser than normal. So that 10 yards is effectively one club, so for every 15-feet of incline you need to be a club more, 15-feet of descending, you need to be a club less.

So 15-feet is effectively 2.5 flags, most golf flags are around about 6 foot tall about my sort of height. So if you are standing there looking out onto the green and you think, what does 15 feet look like out there. Two flags is going to be 12, another 3 feet on top of that to be 15 so 2.5 flags on an upslope is one club up. And 2.5 flags on a down slope is going to be one club down. Now hopefully by employing a little bit of simple math like that, you can be closer to making the correct decision. Therefore when you do pull the relevant club off of the bag, you can stand over the ball with a descent degree of confidence and then make a nice, smooth committed swing rather than the hit and hope method of just thinking, well it’s up, I’ll hit it harder; if it’s downhill, I’ll hit a bit softer. So remember, every 15 feet of incline or decline, are going to be 10 yards further, one club more or one club less.