Range recap — 2026-05-25

Today's ball speed progression -- 9-iron 99, 8-iron 106, 7-iron 113, 6-iron 116, 5-hybrid 118, 4-hybrid 125 -- is the cleanest distance-by-club curve in your data. Each step up the bag added 6-13 mph, exactly the kind of progression you want to see. 4-hybrid at 125 average with 130 mph peaks (shots 1, 4, 6) is doing real work. The body was building speed through the session and finished strong. The engine is not the problem.

This is the most important number from today. Your 7-iron averaged 162 carry. Your 6-iron averaged 163. Your 5-hybrid averaged 168. That's a 6-yard distance window across THREE consecutive clubs. For comparison: the 9-iron to 8-iron jump was 13 yards, and 8-iron to 7-iron was 20 yards. The bottom of the bag is gapped fine; the middle is stacked. Two things could be happening: (1) the 7-iron is over-performing because you found the strike there, (2) the 6-iron is under-performing because the longer club is harder to compress with the ball-back setup. The 178 carry on 6-iron shot 7 and 187 on 5-hybrid shot 8 show the true distance ceilings are higher, so the averages are being dragged by soft strikes. A calm-day session to re-baseline gapping is worth doing before you make club decisions on the course.

9-iron: 5 of 7 shots finished left (L2 to L12). 8-iron: contained at L7 max. 7-iron: shot 1 was L27 despite only L2 curve -- pure pull. 6-iron: 6 of 8 finished left, including L22 and L14. 5-hybrid: 7 of 8 finished left, including L35 (shot 4) and L27 (shot 8). 4-hybrid: 3 of 6 left, including L19. The wedges' left finishes are explained by the wind (5-8 mph R-to-L pushes a square strike 5-10 yards left). The hybrids' L20+ misses are not -- those came from a swing path that's left of target. The pattern is consistent enough to be a setup or alignment issue, not random variance. Next session, set an alignment stick down on the first ball with each club. The same fault is showing up in three different bags worth of data now.

You played the ball back a touch and watched for trajectory effects. 9-iron launched 25 degrees -- still high, no apparent flattening. 8-iron launched 21 degrees, with shots 4 and 5 dropping to 18 degrees on the hardest strikes -- possible flattening, or possible thin contact. 7-iron averaged 18 degrees with one 15-degree shot (the thin one). 6-iron averaged 15 degrees. Without a calm-day, normal-setup baseline to compare against, the trajectory drop in the 6-iron and 7-iron could be ball-back effect OR could just be where those clubs naturally launch. Don't make a swing decision off this data alone -- alternate setups on a calm day to isolate the effect.

You changed setup for the hybrids -- more upright posture. The data backs it: 5-hybrid produced 125, 126 mph on shots 5 and 8. 4-hybrid hit 130 mph on three separate shots (1, 4, 6). 130 mph at the 4-hybrid length is in the range you'd expect from a low-loft, long-shaft club, and the consistency of it (three identical readings) suggests the setup is repeatable. Compare to the May 11 driver data where you topped out at 142 mph but with much more variance -- the upright hybrid setup is producing speed that the driver wasn't. Keep it. If the same posture transfers to the driver, that's the next thing to test.

9-iron carry range: 12 yards (124-136). 8-iron: 14 yards (133-147). 7-iron: 21 yards (149-170). 6-iron: 41 yards (137-178). 5-hybrid: 37 yards (150-187). 4-hybrid: 30 yards (159-189). This is the textbook shape -- shorter clubs are more forgiving of strike variance, longer clubs amplify it. The 6-iron's 41-yard range is the wildest of the day, but most of it is one bad strike (shot 6 at 137) plus one soft warmup (shot 2 at 149). The other six 6-iron shots ran 152-178, a 26-yard window -- still wide but explainable. The hybrids tightened back up because the upright setup produced more consistent contact.

Counting the soft balls and the mishits: 9-iron shot 1 (slow warmup, 92 mph), 8-iron shot 1 (slow warmup, 102 mph), 7-iron shot 2 (thin, 109 mph), 6-iron shot 6 (thin, 105 mph), 5-hybrid shots 1-2 (warmup, 107/110 mph), 4-hybrid shot 2 (thin, 110 mph). That's roughly one weak strike per club, plus the standard warmup ball at the start of each club. The pattern matches what you see in prior sessions. Expect the first ball of each new club to be 10-15 mph below the eventual average. Two practice swings before the first ball of a new club would clean some of this up.

1. Re-baseline iron gapping in calm conditions. The 6-7-5h compression has to be resolved before you can make confident club selections on the course. 2. The pull pattern is the highest-leverage fix. Alignment stick on every club's first ball, video the swing from down-the-line, check whether the more-upright setup at hybrids is over-correcting. 3. Keep the upright hybrid setup -- it works. 4. Add the driver back into a future session for a same-day comparison with the new hybrid setup. If posture transfers, you may unlock the same speed gain at the longest club. 5. The ball-back experiment needs a controlled comparison. Half a club at normal setup, half at ball-back, on the same day, in calm conditions. Today's data doesn't tell you what ball-back is doing.