My go-to club is my 7 iron. It is the club (along with my driver) that I have the most confidence hitting in all situations. I practice with it often. With all the usage, I understand how to produce the ball flight I need in any situation. Having said that, the only drawback of my 7-iron is distance. I generally hit it comfortably between 150 and 160 yards. Not very far, but my consistency outweighs its shortish distance. Having said that I posed the distance question on X (Twitter) and I was surprised by the dichotomy of responses.

My question was very straight forward. And the 1600+ responses showed that this club is a key component of many players game. I enjoyed reading all the responses, well 98% of them anyway. Here is what the results looked like:

How far do you comfortably hit your 7-iron? #golfchat

— The Grateful Golfer (@TheGratefulGolf) November 16, 2023

Not surprisingly, the 140 to 179 yards was the leading answer by a 3 to 1 margin. That is the distances I fall into, but I top out at 160 yards as I stated earlier. Some of the players were close to the 200 yard distance and for me that is an amazing stat. However, on reoccurring answer had to deal with the loft of the 7-iron used. Because of the differences in manufacturing specifications, some 7-irons would be considered strong (lower loft).

I use Mizuno MP20s and the loft of my 7-iron is 34°. Surprisingly, this is pretty high compared to other manufacturers. Today’s Golfer recently published an article on this very topic. The gist of the article is summed up like this:

“Quite a lot, actually. Back in the 1990s a 7-iron typically had a 35° loft. The average 7-iron from the 26 sets of forged irons we tested last month was 32°, so 3° less. But if we hone in on the strongest-lofted 7-irons from Ping, TaylorMade and Cobra in 2018 we’d be looking at an average of 29° – that’s a full club-and-a-half stronger than back in the 1990s. Unbelievably, though, they’re not the strongest.“

“Callaway’s Rogue X (the strongest widely available 7-iron in 2018) incredibly has a 27° loft – the equivalent of a 5-iron back in the ’90s!” (https://www.todays-golfer.com/features/equipment-features/2018/november/the-truth-about-strong-lofted-irons/)

The changes in loft definitely change the distances hit with a modern 7-iron. The comments suggesting that the loft impacted the results was spot on. I can easily see why many experienced players suggested that this factor needed to be addressed. Personally, I found the conversation very enlightening and loved the interaction between respondents.

If you are wondering why I as only 98% satisfied with all the comments; well, it is because I found a few responses that do not fit into my view of open and respectful interaction between participants in my poll. Those who decided to be disagreeable for the sake of being disagreeable should just move on without responding in the future.

Regardless of how far you hit your 7-iron, the results you achieve are uniquely yours. It is an important club in my game and I hope it works well for yours. The great part about this entire exercise is that 1600+ golfers know the distances of their clubs. This is always a good thing.

I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!