Certifying a Yardage Sheet
A morning of launch data is not a yardage card. Turning one into the other means deciding what to average, what to discard, and what to write in the header before any of it means anything.
Read the note
What this is
Written for the Player Holding a Sheet
Everything here started as something we found ourselves explaining twice a week in the bay, usually while a client stared at a printout wondering why the figures did not match what a shop had told them two years earlier.
The recurring theme, which will become obvious quickly, is that a measurement without stated conditions cannot be checked, and a number that cannot be checked is not evidence about your golf. Everything else on this page is a consequence of that.
- Notes published
- 6
- Written by
- The three people in the bays
- Product reviews
- None, deliberately
- Figures quoted
- From our own file
Total Distance Is a Borrowed Number
Roll is a property of the golf course, not of the club. Reporting it inside a distance figure attributes to your equipment something it did not do.
Read the noteDesert Air Is a Multiplier
Elevation, heat and single-digit humidity all make a ball fly further here. The mistake is assuming they simply add up, and the mistake is worth about nine yards.
Read the noteJuly Numbers, January Numbers
The same swing, the same club and the same valley, six months apart. What the file shows when a player is measured twice a year for a decade.
Read the noteSpacing That Survives a Road Trip
A set laddered perfectly in thin valley air does not stay laddered at sea level, because the gaps compress unevenly. How to build one that holds up in both.
Read the noteWhen Two Clubs Report the Same Distance
Doubling up is the most common thing we find and the least often noticed. Four causes, in the order we check them, and which are bench work rather than a purchase.
Read the note
Three things you will not find here
What the Notebook Deliberately Avoids
Never
Reviews of this year's releases
We buy every test component outright and have no early access to anything, so a review here would arrive months late and be based on a smaller sample than a magazine's. More to the point, the question of which head is best has no general answer, and pretending otherwise is the habit these notes exist to argue against.
Never
Distances quoted without conditions
Every figure in every note states where and under what conditions it was recorded. Where a figure is modelled rather than measured, it says so in the same sentence. This gets tedious to read and we are not going to stop.
Never
Advice to buy something
Several of these notes end by explaining how to solve a problem at a bench for a few dollars. That is not modesty; it is what the file actually shows about which interventions change scorecards.
Or come and get your own numbers
Everything discussed here is easier to follow with your own sheet in front of you.