Sometimes when playing planning for the best place to miss that is off the green is beneficial. There could be water left, but a significant fairway area to the right of the green. The player would be better suited to play to the right side of the green where they have a more manageable wedge shot if they miss on that side.
What Say You ?
Atlanta Golf & Fitness Club
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No doubt, a wise miss allowance keeps you in the game. Funny thing about left trouble, the more severe it is the more likely I’ll aim right at the left trouble, and I’ll use a guaranteed cut move and work away off it. Not sure why I do that- it seems foolish.
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I totally agree. I think missing wisely and making par the worst score you can make is a real separator when you start talking about a somewhat good player taking it to another level. In college and amateur golf I definitely would not have considered myself a long hitter by any means (and still don’t). I often had no choice but to make “conservative” choices on our longer course setups (fat part of the green, laying up, etc.), but oddly enough on the shorter setups we played where I might be able to get to a couple of par 5s in two, I almost always averaged lower on the par 5s over the span of a few days when I laid up or played to the safest parts of the hole instead of giving it a go or “challenging” the hole. This is situational of course, but the principal is there.
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The stats are pretty clear on this. Amateurs should have strategies that avoid double bogeys rather than strategies to chase birdies. Lots of pars is as fun as boring gets.
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When I would do my practice rounds I would put notes in my yardage book around the greens.
I would use 4 different colors- one for each pin position.
And put numbers 1-2-3-4 in spots all around the green.
1 being an ok place to miss and 4 the worst place to be so don’t hit it there.
I used different colors for each hole location as that would also help me choose the proper club for the shot. If a 4 rating was long and left it would help me choose a club that couldn’t get to the hole. If a 1 was short right of a hole that was on the right it would give me a green light to go at the flag and not worry too much if I did miss it there.
I would often also walk courses backwards from 18 green to 1 tee. I thought it gave you a much better view of the landscape for areas and angles going backwards then forwards from 1 tee.
Using your memory is all well and good but having it all there right in front of your face in your yardage book makes the job even easier.
Of course I don’t do it anymore cos I don’t play much and don’t use yardage books but from years of experience I am generally very good at looking at a hole and tearing it apart from tee to green to hit the necessary shot needed. In fact some of my best scores have been at courses I have never seen or played before.
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Thanks for sharing your real time in-between the ropes experience. These are the little nails that keep the entire house together that not many really get to see during the build of the entire house. Talking about the entire swing and fixing flaws is the glamorous part of golf but the things that you describe is actually what keeps the house standing in turbulent winds.
Cheers
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I think Hogan used to say that if he hit Augusta #11 in regulation it was a pull.
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Brilliant and humbly I totally agree. Sadly I think a lot of this gets lost because fewer golf courses are setup for walking and fewer golfers would choose to walk. When walking you could walk into the approach for a green and already begin to read the putt. You could be walking a neighboring hole and feel the larger elevation changes for the upcoming “neighbor” holes. Golf holes now are so separated compared to past years that there is only the scientific info coming from the gps stuff and not the empirical looks and feels of the past.
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Not foolish it means that you know your pattern. It also sometimes puts you closer to the peril which will more or less eliminate it from the rest of the hole.
Spot on players get to their balls so fast that situational awareness and critical thinking has become obsolete.
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