Why Getting Closer to the Hole Beats Your Favorite Yardage

Every golfer has a comfort number. Ask someone on the course where they want to lay up, and you will hear the same answers over and over: “Give me 100 yards.” “I love my 56-degree from 80.” “I hit my gap wedge great from 90.”

It sounds logical. Why not put yourself at the distance you feel most confident from? The problem is that what feels right and what produces the best outcomes are two different things. And when you look at the actual data — from Mark Broadie’s research, PGA Tour ShotLink data, and amateur shot-tracking platforms like golfity — the answer is unambiguous.

Closer is better. Always.

The favorite yardage illusion

The idea of a “favorite yardage” is built on a misunderstanding of how accuracy actually works in golf. Golfers believe that at their preferred distance, they suddenly become much more accurate. They picture a tight cluster of shots around the pin.

The data tells a different story.

For a 15-handicap golfer, the average proximity to the hole from 80 yards is roughly 38 feet. From 60 yards, it drops to about 30 feet. From 40 yards, it is around 24 feet. The improvement is not dramatic at any single step, but it is consistent and cumulative — and it compounds when you factor in green-hit rates and up-and-down percentages.

Here is what Broadie’s research found across amateur skill levels:

Every 20 yards closer saves roughly 0.10 strokes. That does not sound like much until you consider that most golfers face this decision multiple times per round — on par 5 lay-ups, on tee shots for short par 4s, and on any hole where a hazard forces a strategic decision.

Over 18 holes, choosing to stop at 100 yards instead of advancing to 60 yards could cost you half a stroke or more. Over a season, that is 8-12 strokes lost — enough to drop a full handicap level — from a single strategic error repeated unconsciously.

Why your wedge game is not as consistent as you think

Part of the favorite yardage myth comes from selective memory. You remember the time you stuck a lob wedge from 80 yards to three feet. You do not remember the five times you hit it 35 feet right of the pin, or the time you chunked it and left yourself 40 yards still to go.

Shot-tracking data from golfity and similar platforms reveals a pattern that surprises most golfers: their dispersion from “favorite” distances is much wider than they imagine.

A typical 15-handicapper hitting from 80 yards does not produce a neat circle around the pin. The actual pattern looks more like an oval stretching 15-20 yards long and 25-30 yards wide, with a center point that is usually short and right of the target (for a right-handed golfer).

Compare that with the dispersion from 40 yards — the oval shrinks in every dimension. You are not just closer on average, you are more predictable. Fewer catastrophic misses, fewer chips from the wrong side of the green, fewer three-putts from 50 feet.

The strokes gained approach metric captures this perfectly. It does not care how a shot felt or whether you were at your favorite distance. It measures the outcome relative to the expected outcome from that position. And the numbers consistently show that shots from closer to the green produce better results.

The math behind lay-up decisions

Let us walk through a concrete example that comes up multiple times per round for most golfers.

Scenario: Par 5, second shot

You are 240 yards from the green after a solid drive. You cannot reach the green, but you have options:

• Option A: Hit a comfortable 7-iron that you know will go 150 yards, leaving you 90 yards out — right at your “sweet spot”
• Option B: Hit a 5-iron or hybrid that advances 200 yards, leaving you 40 yards from the green
• Option C: Hit a full 3-wood that gets you 220 yards, leaving you 20 yards from the edge of the green

Most mid-handicappers instinctively choose Option A. It feels safe, controlled, responsible. But look at the expected strokes:

Option A (90 yards out): Expected strokes to hole out = 2.90 Option B (40 yards out): Expected strokes to hole out = 2.63 Option C (20 yards from edge): Expected strokes to hole out = 2.55

Option B saves 0.27 strokes over Option A. Option C saves 0.35 strokes. Even if you account for the risk of a worse lie with the longer club — say a 15% chance of ending up in light rough — the expected strokes from 40 yards in the rough (approximately 2.75) is still better than 90 yards from the fairway.

The conclusion is clear: you should advance the ball as far toward the green as you reasonably can, even if it means using a club you are less comfortable with, even if it means leaving an awkward distance.

What about the risk of going long?

This is the objection most golfers raise. “If I hit a 3-wood and catch it thin, I might end up in a bunker behind the green. At least from 90 yards I’m safe.”

The problem with this reasoning is that it overweights the worst case of the aggressive option while ignoring the average case of the conservative option.

Yes, your 3-wood might occasionally produce a bad result. But your wedge from 90 yards is not guaranteed to produce a good one. When you average out all the outcomes — the good shots, the average shots, and the misses — advancing the ball wins.

Broadie quantified this precisely. For amateur golfers, the strokes gained value of being closer to the hole is roughly linear until you get inside 30 yards. There is no magic distance where accuracy suddenly spikes. Every yard closer is a tiny advantage that accumulates.

The exception is when going longer creates a genuine penalty situation — water, out of bounds, or a hazard you cannot recover from. In those cases, the expected strokes calculation changes dramatically because a penalty stroke costs you a full shot plus distance. But short of an actual penalty, the data is clear: advance the ball.

How to apply this on the course

Changing your lay-up strategy does not require complex math during a round. Use these practical guidelines:

1. Default to the longest club you can hit solidly

On par 5 second shots and any other lay-up scenario, reach for the longest club that you can make solid contact with at least 70% of the time. The key word is “solidly” — you do not need perfect contact, just contact that advances the ball roughly the intended distance.

2. Stop thinking about target yardages

Instead of “I want to be at 90,” think “I want to be as close as possible.” Your lay-up target should be a zone — “inside 50 yards” — not a specific number. This subtle mental shift changes your club selection and your outcomes.

3. Factor in the green complex, not just distance

The one place where laying back can make genuine sense is when going closer creates a dramatically harder short-game shot — for example, leaving yourself a downhill lie to a tight pin over a bunker, versus a flat lie from farther back. But these situations are rarer than most golfers think, and the distance savings usually outweighs the lie disadvantage.

4. Track your results to confirm the data

Use golfity’s shot tracking to record your actual outcomes from different distances. After 10-15 rounds, look at your strokes gained data by approach distance. You will almost certainly find that your “favorite” yardage does not produce meaningfully better results than shots from closer distances — and the closer shots will show lower average scores.

The strokes gained calculator can help you see this in real time: plug in your proximity numbers from different distances and compare the expected outcomes.

The PGA Tour confirms the pattern

If the amateur data is not convincing enough, look at what the best players in the world do. PGA Tour pros have favorite yardages too — but when given a choice, they always advance the ball.

Tour players’ proximity to the hole from 50 yards averages about 12 feet. From 100 yards, it jumps to roughly 18 feet. Even for professionals who practice wedge shots for hours every day, closer is better. The dispersion gets tighter, the probability of hitting the green goes up, and the expected number of putts goes down.

On par 5s, the trend is even more pronounced. Tour players hit the green in two whenever possible, even when the risk-reward is marginal, because the data shows that eagle and birdie opportunities from the green outperform even the best wedge approaches from the fairway.

When world-class players who practice 40-yard pitch shots more than you practice any single shot still prefer to be closer — that should tell you something about the math.

What this means for your course management

The favorite yardage myth is really a symptom of a broader strategic error: managing the course based on feelings instead of outcomes. Golfers choose the comfortable option because it feels responsible. But data-driven course management means asking a different question: what decision gives me the lowest expected score on this hole?

The answer, in almost every lay-up scenario, is the same: get the ball as close to the green as you can without bringing a penalty into play.

This does not mean being reckless. It means being rational. The data does not reward comfort — it rewards proximity.

Your action plan

1. This week: On every par 5 second shot, grab one more club than you normally would. If you usually hit 8-iron, hit 7-iron. If you usually hit 7-iron, hit a hybrid.
2. Over the next month: Track your proximity-to-hole numbers in golfity and compare your scoring from different approach distances. Build your own evidence.
3. Long-term: Let go of the concept of a favorite yardage entirely. Replace it with a simple rule: closer is better, unless a penalty hazard says otherwise.

Your wedge game is not as special as you think — but that is actually good news. It means you do not need a magic number to score well. You just need to get closer to the hole.

Start tracking your approach distances with golfity and see the pattern in your own data. Once you see the numbers, you will never voluntarily lay up to 90 yards again.