Bag setup
MyCaddie uses two loft thresholds to flag pairs worth testing. These screening heuristics do not establish a yardage gap or decide which club belongs in your bag. Here is the arithmetic and how to check it against measured carry.
Last reviewed 30 October 2026 · MyCaddie
≤ 1°
Overlap
MyCaddie flags lofts within one degree of each other as a potential overlap. Equal loft does not prove equal carry or interchangeable shots: clubhead design and shaft length can change flight.
≥ 7°
Large gap
MyCaddie uses seven degrees as a large-loft-gap screening threshold. The loft difference has no fixed yardage conversion; measured carry must show whether distance coverage is missing.
These are MyCaddie's screening heuristics, not universal club-fitting standards. A useful bag depends on measured carry, ball flight and the shots you actually play. A pair can serve different purposes even when its lofts are close.
A fourteen-club example, sorted by loft. The right-hand column is the step up from the club above it. Two pairs trigger MyCaddie's screening flags.
| Club | Loft | Step |
|---|---|---|
| Driver | 10.5° | — |
| 3 wood | 15.0° | 4.5° |
| 5 wood | 19.0° | 4.0° |
| 4 hybrid | 22.0° | 3.0° |
| 4 iron | 22.0° | 0.0° overlap |
| 5 iron | 26.0° | 4.0° |
| 6 iron | 29.5° | 3.5° |
| 7 iron | 33.0° | 3.5° |
| 8 iron | 37.0° | 4.0° |
| 9 iron | 41.5° | 4.5° |
| Pitching wedge | 46.0° | 4.5° |
| Sand wedge | 54.0° | 8.0° gap |
| Lob wedge | 58.0° | 4.0° |
The 4 hybrid and 4 iron are both 22°. The 0° difference triggers a potential-overlap flag. It does not establish redundancy. Compare measured carry, ball flight, turf interaction and the shots each club serves before removing one.
Pitching wedge 46° to sand wedge 54° is an 8° step. The midpoint is 50°, so MyCaddie suggests a 49° to 51° candidate to test. Only measured carry and your shot needs can establish whether that club fills a useful distance gap.
MyCaddie does this arithmetic for you, in the browser, and shows the result as a loft ladder with the flagged pairs marked.
Explore MyCaddieLoft is a proxy for distance, not a measurement of it. Two clubs with a clean loft step can still carry the same yardage when shaft length, shaft weight, or head design differ. A hybrid and an iron can also fly differently at the same loft, so a loft-overlap flag alone does not show that either club is unnecessary.
Stated loft is not always actual loft. Manufacturing tolerance and bending during a fitting can change it. Check actual loft when that uncertainty affects your decision.
Neither flag knows how you play. A wide loft step may suit the shots a golfer chooses. The important question is whether measured carry and the shots you need leave a useful role uncovered.
Loft gapping is a fast filter that tells you which pairs deserve testing. Measured carry distance is what settles it. MyCaddie is not a professional club fitting and makes no performance guarantee.
This page documents MyCaddie's own loft-screening heuristics, not a club-fitting standard or a measured-shot study. Sort the stated lofts and subtract the lower loft from the higher for each adjacent pair. In the example, 22° − 22° = 0° and 54° − 46° = 8°. The putter is excluded from loft arithmetic.
The 1° overlap screen and 7° large-gap screen identify pairs to test. They do not convert degrees into yards. Confirm carry, ball flight and shot needs before changing the bag.
MyCaddie uses loft differences of 1° or less to flag a potential overlap and 7° or more to flag a large loft gap. These are screening heuristics; measured carry and the shots each club serves determine whether a bag change is useful.
Source: Golf club loft gaps: the numbers that flag a gap or an overlap, MyCaddie, reviewed 30 October 2026. Link to this page when citing the method so readers can check the worked example and its limits.
There is no single correct loft step for every golfer. MyCaddie uses its own screening heuristics: 1° or less flags a potential overlap, and 7° or more flags a large loft gap. Compare measured carry, ball flight and how you use each club before changing the bag.
It depends on your pitching wedge, which on modern strong-lofted sets can be as low as 43°. MyCaddie works from your actual pitching wedge rather than a standard chart: when the step up to your next wedge is 7° or more it suggests a filler at the midpoint of that gap, within about a degree. If your highest wedge is well under 58° it suggests adding one in the 58° to 60° range for shots that have to stop quickly. These are suggestions to test against measured carry and the shots you actually play.
Fourteen under the Rules of Golf, counting the putter. MyCaddie treats 14 as a hard ceiling: once the bag is full it stops suggesting additions and instead identifies the weakest use of a slot, because at that point every addition is a replacement.
Not for the initial loft screen. Use the stated lofts to find pairs worth testing, then compare repeatable carry measurements across your bag. A launch monitor or a range with measured targets can help. A clean loft screen does not prove that every distance is covered.
No. It is deterministic, rule-based TypeScript that runs in your browser. The same bag always produces the same output, the thresholds are the fixed numbers on this page, and no language model sits in the recommendation path.