My colleague, Johnny Wunder, recently joined Jake Knapp at Scottsdale National to hit every iron in the PXG lineup, and they came away with some really cool findings about ball speed. This is a wonderful metric for every golfer to look at when they’re picking out new irons, and I want to talk about how to use ball speed when choosing what irons you want to put in your bag.

What’s the “target” ball speed?

The PGA Tour average for a 7-iron is right around 123 mph of ball speed. The “average” golfer is closer to 115 mph if they’re swinging between 75-80 mph. Tour players, like Knapp, obviously swing faster but also are aided by single-piece irons, whereas most amatuers use an iron that provides a little bit more help.

The truth is, there really is no “standard” speed that fitters try to achieve for every golfer. Instead, we try to match up speed, peak, height and spin to dial a player in. Remember, though, speed creates spin and height. Regardless of loft, which is where most golfers get tripped up, having something with a lower CG that produces a higher ball speed will inherently spin the ball a touch more and launch the ball higher.

An important metric to think about here is smash factor or efficiency. You typically want your irons to live in the 1.35 realm. Even up to 1.40 is completely usable. Many golfers may think that trying to get a set of irons close to the legal limit of 1.51 would be the most useful, but you’ll start to run into playability issues.

PXG 0311T GEN8 Custom Irons

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What we want to try to find is a set of irons that still have a usable level of control built into them. That’s where having a “baseline” speed to target in a fitting can actually help.

The best example I can provide is a good ball-striker who’s losing speed. I know plenty of senior-aged golfers that still strike the ball out of the middle, but their 7-iron has lost 15 to 20 yards over the years, and they want to bring back their “old distances.” This is where the difference between a PXG CB and a PXG Gen8 T can be useful — but going to something like a P or an XP could be too much.

Good ball-strikers still want control with their clubs. They want to be able to shape shots, change windows and feel like a shot-maker. The faster ball speeds we produce, with less spin and more height, the more control gets lost. So for a player who can still hit the ball out of the middle but may be on the lower end of swing speed, something like the T would be a perfect compromise. Even a combo set of CB in the bottom and T in the top could make these players feel very comfortable.

Speed throughout the set

Speaking of combo sets, with PXG’s Gen8 lineup being very combo set-friendly, we need to discuss the concept of ball speed gapping in a set of irons, and why a combo set could be necessary.

Typically we’re looking for about 5 mph of ball speed in between irons. If you notice in the video with Johnny and Knapp, he hit each 7-iron iron with about a 5 mph gap in speed, while hitting the ball higher with each progressive model getting more forgiving. He started with about 135 mph in his ST irons, as a super-high-speed player, and up to 154+ in the better-player XP irons toward the end.

This speaks to loft and CG packages, but it’s also a great way to look at your entire set. If you find a really comfortable 7-iron at 115 mph of ball speed for example, you’d want your 5-iron to live around 125 mph. If you go to hit the same iron model in the 5-iron and you find yourself being a couple miles an hour short, that’s when it’s logical to move up into the next model.

PXG 0311P GEN8 Custom Irons

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My favorite combo sets are actually for higher-handicap players at lower speeds. Something like the Gen8 P and the Gen8 XP would be a great option for players who can still strike the ball well, and who don’t want to jump into hybrids or fairway woods too soon.

By playing a set of P in the bottom of the set and maybe switching over to the XP at the 6- or 5-iron could be a great way to ensure consistent speed gaps through the set. This will usually result in about 10-12-yard carry gaps between irons, but the beauty of focusing on speed is that the speed wont change with loft. So if you need to bend the irons 1º weak or strong for the sake of height and carry, you’ll still be getting everything out of those irons that you’re looking for.

If you’re looking to get fit for a new set of PXG irons and see what ball speed you’re comfortable living at, head over to our friends at True Spec or find a PXG fitting center near you.

The new golfer brings the bottom of the new-to-her object close to her face and tilts it at a 2 o’clock angle, examining it curiously, before extending it toward a nearby onlooker. 

“Is this one right?”

It’s a 4-hybrid club, which the new golfer discovers after being shown its marking. That’s good to know, and it seems correct, but that also depends, especially when you’re a new golfer. 

I’d hit whatever feels best. 

“OK, thanks,” says Jenna Smith, who goes with the club, and her ball wanders off to the right, dodging a few trees along the way. 

The college golfer then does it all over again. 

And again. 

Her scores are out there, but keep scrolling down the leaderboard. Two weeks after the hybrid session, at her school’s most important meet of the year, the NAIA-level Appalachian Athletic Conference conference tournament, there were 12s, a 13, some 14s and a 21. After three rounds, Smith finished with a 511, 295-over-par at Governors Towne Club in northern Georgia, and 289 strokes behind the winner. How she got there isn’t complicated. Her school, Reinhardt University, also in northern Georgia, had been down to three women’s golfers, four are needed to field a team, a note went out to Reinhardt’s other teams, and Smith and a few of her volleyball teammates were in. What’s the worst that could happen?      

How about finishing worst?   

Was she ready to put herself out there like that? Was she prepared to be embarrassed? She’s really, really good at volleyball, and really, really competitive in just about everything she does, so could she handle being really, really bad at golf? 

What if a golf website heard about her story and chose to put her score in the big, bold words that everyone can see? 295-over par at a college event? 

But look at the second part of that headline above. 

Here’s the uplifting story behind it. 

But maybe not initially. Samantha Roper, Isabella Mobley and Addy Anderson would’ve concurred to that, after their women’s golf coach, Evans Nichols, first told them they’d be joined by volleyballers. He could’ve entered the trio as individuals in events, foregoing a team score, but Nichols said the NAIA sours on that, though his solution wasn’t welcomed, either. His players seemed, well … 

“To be frank,” Nichols said, “they seemed pissed.” 

Addy?

“My first thought was: This isn’t good,” she said. 

“This is not embarrassing for our program that we’re bringing in somebody that doesn’t know how to play golf and we’re playing the college sport, but just like, could we not find somebody else?” 

Smith had played once before, just nine holes, and she thinks she shot 200. Maja Brodzinska, a volleyball teammate, had previously played for an hour, then played two days for Reinhardt in early March. The weeks leading up to that felt like a midterm cram session, only in this case, you never went to class all semester and the material was written in something akin to Martian. The instruction? Buffet style, as in here’s everything, but eventually you may get stuffed. During one practice round, Brodzinska worked on basics on the practice green with assistant Debbie Blount — in between nines. No one believes in Reinhardt and its women’s golf team like Blount, who, five years ago, joined the team — as a 62-year-old freshman. “She asked me the first time, she said, ‘What is the thing that you put the ball on?’” Blount said. “I said, ‘The tee?’ She said, ‘Oh, tee, tee.’ She said, ‘I don’t have any of those.’” Or anything. Blount gave Brodzinska her clubs; Smith was given a set that had been donated to the school a couple of years ago. 

Brodzinska’s tournament came. 

She shot a 204, 132-over par. 

The next day, she shot a 172, 100-over. Progress. She took photos. 

But a few weeks later, she needed to go back home, to Poland. Smith was called on, for conference of all places. On the first tee, she said a prayer. Smith does that. Back in late December, she did, and it had to have been heard. How else can you explain her asking to feel a little more unpredictability, and the golfer upstairs gives her tee times? “I want to be in uncomfortable situations as I’m getting older,” Smith said. “I crave uncomfortable situations because I know that’s going to push me to think about things, talk to different people. Think about how I’m going to get through it. And so it is very nerve-wracking, and it is uncomfortable, but it’s very exciting, and it’s something that every day I’m like, ‘Ooh, I don’t know how the next day is going to go.’” 

Or her tee shots. Why the prayer on the first hole?

On the range at conference, her driver had been going right.  

“No one knew why,” Smith said. “Coach was like, ‘I don’t know why. The swing looks great. The head face is turning the right way. I don’t know what’s going on.’ And so I was like, ‘Dear Lord, please don’t let this ball go to the right.’ I was literally sitting there thinking that the whole time.

“And I swung and it went to the right. And that just made me so angry.”

On the first hole, she made an 8. Then a 12. Then a five; hey, that’s a double bogey. Then a 21; that’s a septendecuple bogey. Or a lot. Whatever, she thought. She finished. It became a game. Finish holes, then better them in the next round and the round after that, especially that fourth hole. “I knew that I was going to have to do the same thing tomorrow,” Smith said. “And if I wanted to get better at tomorrow, then I had to finish it today at least. 

“And then I ended up — I remember I counted specifically because this hole was so annoying. I got it in 11 strokes the next day. And then the last day, I got it in seven. So I was so happy about that.”

This, too. 

Afterward, she learned her teammates tried to guess what she’d shoot. The number was 185. 

Smith shot 184. 

Then 167 in round two.

Then 160 in round three. 

“And so I was like, ‘Hmph.’ So we got the scores in,” Smith said. 

“And I got 184. Boom, boom. I beat everyone’s bets.”

She laughed. The question is, could her teammates have done what she did?

Thought of another way, could the golfers have, say, played volleyball, if the Reinhardt volleyball team had been in a similar bind?

Maybe now, following Smith and following Brodzinska. Maybe there’s beauty in 295-over par. It’s better than a zero. You started, you finished and then you returned wanting to shoot 294-over, which is what golf is all about, ain’t it?

If not more than golf. 

295-over par at a college event? 

Here’s the uplifting story behind it. 

“One of the things that I’ve tried to take out of this whole experience for volleyball is the sport is not you. You are so much more than the sport,” Smith said. “And after this is all over, it’s not going to matter. 

“I’ve talked to one of the girls on the team about that. She was beating herself up and I was like, you know, your score is not who you are. You’re more than that. You have so many qualities that just aren’t bound by golf. And I have to tell a lot of the girls on the volleyball team that as well, because it’s the same thing. It’s the same mindset. 

“Even I have to remind myself at the end of the day, if I have a bad game. I am so much more than this sport. And this sport doesn’t last forever.”

Neither did Smith’s driver, the club she kept hitting right. She ditched it after the first hole. A few other clubs, too. She finished with a putter, a wedge, a 7-iron.

And that 4-hybrid.  

They felt best. 

They’re also getting new grips soon. Smith’s just a junior, after all. 

Spring golf is only a year away. 

The swirl around LIV Golf’s tenuous state reached the White House on Thursday.

In an Oval Office press conference, President Trump was asked to reflect — against the backdrop of the Saudi Public Investment Fund announcing that it is pulling its LIV funding at the end of the 2026 season — on whether he believed the PGA Tour should welcome “the defectors back with open arms”?

Trump, seated at his desk, said that, yes, he would like to see LIV’s top players reintegrated. “I want to see Rory [McIlroy] playing Bryson DeChambeau,” he said. “I want to see big Jon Rahm playing Scottie [Scheffler], who is so great.”

But as for what the future holds for LIV, the president, whose Northern Virginia golf property will play host to a LIV event next week, sounded like he is as uncertain as the rest of us.

“I’m not sure what’s happening with LIV,” he said.  

What we do know is that the PIF is out, by way of a larger strategic pivot from the Kingdom’s coffer keepers and oil-revenue stresses caused by the war in the Middle East. The beginnings of a new LIV board also are in place, led by corporate restructuring veterans Gene Davis and Jon Zinman, who LIV said in a statement have been charged with “institutionalizing the league and evaluating the range of strategic opportunities that have emerged with the league’s rise.”

Read: sell it or unwind it.   

Selling LIV will, of course, not be easy, at least not in its current form. The league, according to published estimates, has lost anywhere from $5 to $8 billion since its 2021 inception and spends more than $100 million per month. Its own CEO, Scott O’Neil, has said any hope of profitability could be a decade away. You don’t need an accounting degree to understand that the math, at least in the short term and quite possibly in the long term, too, just doesn’t work. So now it’s Davis, Zinman and Co.’s job to put together an offer that will entice an investor or investors. If the board is unsuccessful in that quest, it’ll shift into disassemble mode.

With financial questions suddenly lingering over LIV, I consulted two mergers-and-acquisitions executives to get a better sense for what the league’s next steps might look like; both experts requested anonymity for professional concerns.

“What happens is people come in, they’re independent and they are looking to maximize value,” a corporate restructuring expert with experience in the sports world told me in a phone interview Thursday. “They will identify all the options that there are, and they’ll pursue all those options to a point that what makes the most sense. And then at the end of the day, they prepare a plan for the worst options, whatever that is. That includes a going-out-of-business option, which is the floor value.”

LIV’s floor-value figure is anybody’s guess, but the league does have significant assets that include contracted players, 13 team franchises and hundreds of millions of dollars in sponsorships. The “LIV Golf” name also is worth something.  

“There’s brand equity there,” a second executive, who oversees transactions for a global professional services firm, said on Friday. “You also could argue whether there’s value in the way they run the organization. It’s very different than golf as we know it.” The same executive added that as part of the commercial due-diligence process, a prospective buyer would likely analyze LIV’s fan base. “If it’s 10 percent more people that wouldn’t normally watch the Masters or Players or something like that, then maybe there’s value there.”

That LIV is a sports property also could benefit it, both executives said. A deep-pocketed “vanity buyer” could emerge, drawn by the appeal of having entrée to the golf world and brand-name golfers. The first executive, who has experience in buying and selling teams, said sports sales typically aren’t driven by traditional economics.

“[Teams] are not based on what their actual cash flow value is,” he said. “It’s based upon somebody wanting to own a sports team. And there’s only so many of them.”

The second executive posited that another “completely outside-of-the-box” suitor also could come along, like, say, a casino or sportsbook. As with any sale, it’s hard to predict who might show interest.    

Trouble is, despite LIV’s push to market team golf, the league still is largely known for and powered by its stars, like Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, who were drawn away from the PGA Tour by nine-figure deals. If a new investor can’t see a path to turning a profit with that kind of recurring outlay, the buyer(s) would be left either trying to convince LIV’s shiniest players to take pay cuts or reimagine the league with a less heralded roster of players. Either route would be challenging. “I’m usually a creative guy,” the first executive told me. “But I’m hard-pressed to come up with a rationale as to why someone would buy something that is hemorrhaging billions with no light at the end of the tunnel.”

Said the transactions executive, “This could be one of those situations where the purchase price is a dollar, and someone just takes the liabilities off your hands.”

Sports law and business professor Andrew Brandt was wowed when LIV came along. He said he could never have imagined that one of the established U.S. sports leagues could have its stars wooed away by an upstart competitor, but he also could never have imagined that a wooer could have the financial might of the PIF.    

“It was just such an extraordinary time in sports,” said Brandt, a former sports agent and NFL executive who is now executive director of the Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law at Villanova Law. “You have these leagues, you have these tours, you have these elite properties and there’s never any challenges. But the one thing that could make it a challenge, of course, is unlimited funding. That’s what made LIV so different than any other sports league rival. It appeared that there was unlimited funding.”

Until there wasn’t.   

“It’s something I never contemplated,” Brandt said of the PIF’s pivot. “I just thought, OK, unlimited funding, throw a few billion at the LIV tour, have your billions for whatever else you want to do. But there’s a change of heart from the PIF and that to me is the most surprising part of all this.”

LIV has seven events left on its 2026 schedule. That number was eight before the Louisiana event, slated for June, was unexpectedly postponed earlier this week. LIV Virginia, at Trump’s course, begins Thursday. Then comes a three-event run overseas (Korea, Spain and England) followed by the season’s final three-event finale back in the U.S. (New Jersey, Indiana and Michigan).

And then? That’s a question to which we might not have an answer for months. If a sale or some kind of merger is unsuccessful, LIV could be no more. In that scenario, one of the executives said, “You would take each of the liabilities and try to negotiate with each of the parties to an end.” If any parties are still owed money, they could potentially file lawsuits, the executive said, “but who wants to get involved with suing a Saudi sovereign fund? That could take a while.”

For right-handed players who favor a fade, Augusta National presents several uncomfortable tee shots. That means the opposite is true for left-handed players, seemingly baking in an inherent advantage for those able to deliver the shot shape that’s most frequently asked of them every other week on Tour.

Start with the first nine, where holes 2, 5 and 9 each move significantly right to left. On the second nine, 10 and 13 move in the same direction. Both par-3s on that side — 12 and 16 — also lend themselves to a left-handed fade.

All of this, one might presume, would help explain why, since 2003, left-handed players have won the Masters six times (Mike Weir, 2003; Phil Mickelson, 2004, ’06 and ’10; Bubba Watson, 2012 and ’14). In that same period, lefties have combined for only four wins at the other three men’s majors.

But what does a deeper data dive say? On what parts of the course are the advantages most significant for left-handers? Or, conversely, does the math not back up the long-standing theory?

We analyzed shot-by-shot strokes-gained data from every Masters from 2015 to present — including more than 3,200 rounds and 234,000 strokes — in search of meaningful answers to our question.

The data set

The left-handed rounds we analyzed come from an eclectic mix of players at different points in their respective careers, including past champions (Weir, Mickelson, Watson); major contenders and winners (Robert MacIntyre, Brian Harman); emerging stars (Akshay Bhatia); and journeymen (Ted Potter, Jr.).

While lefties account for six Masters victories in the last 23 years, they make up a relatively small percentage of the fields. Since 2015, just 4.6% of Masters rounds have been played by left-handers.

When it comes to elite players, that share is even smaller. Since 2015, less than 3.5% of left-handed entrants have been ranked in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking. And just three lefties in that span have been ranked in the top 10 in the world, accounting for only 2.7% of field makeups in the selected time span. It’s important to factor in those numbers when considering that right-handed players in our study window outscored left-handed players by an average of 72.92 to 73.25.

Overall trends

Because most elite players are right-handed, it’s difficult to make broad assessments comparing the average performance of lefties vs. righties.

Off the tee, the numbers are a wash. The two groups produce almost identical overall fairway hit percentages (69.2% to 69.1%). In terms of strokes gained, left-handed players since 2015 have gained an average of 0.03 strokes per round compared to right-handed players.

What about overall approach play? Since 2015, left-handed players have had positive strokes gained approach in 52.7% of their rounds played vs. 51.3% for righties. When looking at elite-level approach performances, though, the numbers drift in favor of the bigger group of high-level righties: while 22.0% of rounds from “elite” lefties result in a full stroke gained or more with approach play, 28.6% of right-handed rounds check that box.

The more interesting data reveals itself when looking at individual holes.

Hole analysis

Statistically, some holes produce surprising results.

You’d think that the par-5 2nd hole, which features the familiar right-to-left dogleg, would favor lefties. But left-handed players make birdie or eagle about 10% less frequently than righties there since 2015. By that statistic, it’s the largest negative differential lefties experience at Augusta.

The par-4 5th hole, which also works right to left off the tee, ranks in the middle of the pack in terms of approach shot difficulty for right-handed players, with the 9th-toughest green in regulation rate since 2015. For lefties, it ranks 5th-toughest, yielding a GIR rate 4.1% lower than their right-handed counterparts.

The par-4 10th hole produces the largest green in regulation rate advantage for left-handed players. Since 2015, lefties have hit the green about 6% more often than righties.

On the famed par-3 12th, left-handed players make birdie 4% more often than righties, and the left-handed scoring average is 0.13 strokes lower than it is for righties (the second-largest advantage on the course).

No single hole has generated a larger statistical advantage for lefties than the hard dogleg-left par-5 13th. Since 2015, left-handed players have hit the 13th fairway 82% of the time, or 11.4% more than the field average. That has led to a birdie or better rate 11.5% higher for lefties than the rest of the field. The memories match the math: think of some of the incredible shots Mickelson and Watson have hit at 13.

The par-3 16th generates the largest disparity of green in regulation rate on the course. Since 2015, right-handed players hit the green in regulation at Redbud about 75% of the time. For lefties, that rate is 11% lower. A stock right-handed fade at 16 requires moving the ball over the water that sits left of the green. This wide differential suggests that righties are more prone to a conservative approach there (find the middle of the green) while lefties take on more risk (attacking the pin).

While Augusta National’s par-4 18th moves slightly left to right, lefties have a slightly higher fairway hit rate (+2.3%), green in regulation rate (+2.8%) and birdie or better rate (+0.9%) than right-handed players. Hole shape isn’t the only determining factor in these statistical differences, but it is inarguably the biggest one.

Conclusion

In broad strokes, the stats indicate that left-handed players in the Masters do not have a meaningful advantage over righties. But the course does ask different questions of the players depending on what side of the ball they stand — and in several key spots, the numbers tell you, it’s much more comfortable to be on the left side.