Gap analysis — overlaps and holes in your bag

A well-gapped bag is like a bike with well-chosen gears: each club should own its own stretch of yardage, so you're never stuck between "not quite enough club" and "way too much club." ContactCoach's gap analysis panel builds a per-club carry table from your session and flags the clubs whose ranges step on each other.

What does the gap panel actually measure?

For every club with at least one valid-carry shot, ContactCoach looks at that club's shots this session and finds three landmarks: the distance that separates your worst 10%, your middle, and your best 10% of shots — then sorts your bag from longest club to shortest by that middle number. The middle number is the headline: half the club's shots carried farther, half carried less, so it's a far more honest read on "what this club actually does" than a plain average, which a couple of thin or fat strikes can drag well off the club's real number. The worst-10%/best-10% pair brackets the middle 80% of your shots, giving you a sense of that club's spread without letting one shank or one flush strike define the whole range.

How does the gap number work?

For each pair of neighboring clubs, ContactCoach reports "Gap↑" — the difference between a club's typical carry and the typical carry of the next longer club in your bag. A gap under 8 yards gets flagged in yellow, since two clubs that close together are more likely to be redundant than genuinely useful as separate options. As a rule of thumb across most bags, somewhere around 10–15 yards between neighboring clubs gives you a full set of distinct, usable distances without excess redundancy or gaps you have to "take something off" a swing to fill — the panel's under-8-yard flag is a conservative floor under that.

What counts as an overlap, and why does it matter more than the gap number?

Overlap is a stronger signal than a small gap in the typical numbers. ContactCoach checks whether a shorter club's best-case shots actually reach past a longer club's worst-case shots. When they do, the panel shows an "Overlap Detected" warning naming both clubs and roughly how much they overlap. A small gap with no real overlap just means two clubs are sitting close together but each still owns its own turf; an actual overlap means that on any given day you genuinely can't predict which club is going to go farther — and that unpredictability, not the yardage gap itself, is the real problem an overlap warning is pointing at.

overlap = shorter.p90 > longer.p10

How do I read the mini range bars?

Each club gets a horizontal bar spanning its worst-10%-to-best-10% range, with a bright tick at the middle — hover any bar or column header for the exact numbers. Scanning down the list from driver to wedges, you want each bar to sit mostly to the right of the next club's bar, with only their far edges touching. Bars that visually stack on top of each other are your overlap candidates even before you read the warning text above the table.

What should I do with an overlap or a small gap?

An overlap usually means one of two clubs is redundant for how you're actually swinging it that session — check whether you're swinging the shorter club at less than full effort, since that's the most common reason a hybrid and a long iron end up trading places. A gap under 8 yards with no real overlap is less urgent; it often just reflects how your set is built (a pitching wedge and a gap wedge can legitimately sit close together). Use the "copy as markdown" button in the panel to pull the full table into notes if you're planning bag changes with a coach or comparing sessions over time.

Try it

Upload a full-bag session at /, or click "Explore a sample session" on that page, and open the gap analysis panel to see your own overlap warnings. If a club's range looks wider than expected, the dispersion ellipses guide explains the shape of that spread in more detail, and the mishit filtering guide covers how to keep a few bad strikes from distorting the numbers here.