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Calculating Elevations to Greens

• Archaic 10 Posts

  Sun, Apr 11 2010 7:05 AM

  I haven't seen anything on this subject... maybe haven't looked in the right place.

   

  I am just curious if anyone has been able to calculate distance of elevations.

  For example... If say you are 150 yards to flag on a green that is  50 ft below your  current elevation, or 50 ft above current elevation.   How would I calculate which club to use or how much distance I would gain or lose from a particular club?

  Thanks in advance for any helpful tips.

• borntobesting 9,625 Posts

  Sun, Apr 11 2010 9:59 AM

  Archaic:

  I haven't seen anything on this subject... maybe haven't looked in the right place.

   

  I am just curious if anyone has been able to calculate distance of elevations.

  For example... If say you are 150 yards to flag on a green that is  50 ft below your  current elevation, or 50 ft above current elevation.   How would I calculate which club to use or how much distance I would gain or lose from a particular club?

  Thanks in advance for any helpful tips.

  Most of us just sort of guess. But you can roughly estimate 1 yard for every 3 feet uphill. and I estimate 1 yard for every 4 feet downhill. Sometimes this is spot on and other times it's not. So with that in mind,150 and 50 ft above would be around 166 to 167. 150 with 50 ft downhill would be 138 or so,

• Archaic 10 Posts

  Sat, Apr 17 2010 3:10 PM

  So if I understand correctly:

  On the 150 yrds to flag that is 50 ft above elevation, I would want to try and hit at a distance of approximately 166 - 167 yrds away....  ?

  On the 150 to flag and 50 ft below elevation, I would want to try and hit to a distance of approximately 138 yrds away....  ?

   

  Is this right?  Makes sense if it is!  Thanks!

• borntobesting 9,625 Posts

  Sat, Apr 17 2010 3:49 PM

  Yes that's right at least that's how I do it. 

   

• 464 Posts

  Sat, Apr 17 2010 4:38 PM

  Archaic:

  So if I understand correctly:

  On the 150 yrds to flag that is 50 ft above elevation, I would want to try and hit at a distance of approximately 166 - 167 yrds away....  ?

  On the 150 to flag and 50 ft below elevation, I would want to try and hit to a distance of approximately 138 yrds away....  ?

   

  Is this right?  Makes sense if it is!  Thanks!

  There are many factors in play here.. the biggest one (in my opinion) is the loft and trajectory of the club that you're using.

  This is something that you just have to work out in the game.

  As a general rule (IMHO) when going uphill you want to use as much loft/trajectory as you can. This helps the ball carry instead of blasting a lower lofted club into the side of a hill.