GolfNut33 wrote: » This topic really gets me going. I would consider myself fairly decent at course management but the amount of lads I see making horrendous decisions on the course is incredible. For example; I was playing along side a 18 HC last Sunday. Playing a longish par 4 (think 410 yrds) slightly uphill with a pond in front of the green. He hit a poor enough drive and he had about 200 yrds to the green and about 180 to carry the water. He took out a 3 wood and proceeded to plonk it straight in to the drink. I would have guessed it was a 1 in 20 shot to get it on the green. He proceeded to scratch the hole. A simple lay up would have almost ensured he'd get maybe 2 points but at least 1. I have multiple examples of this kinda of thing, even know a low HC lad who is equally as bad at plotting his way around the course, goes for every Par 5 in two and goes for every pin no matter where it is and only to miss out on wining sometimes by a few points/strokes and wonders why he can never get over the finish line. Golfers spend huge money on equipment and lessons to gain a shot or two improvement but neglect possibly the easiest way to improve their score through course management.
kippy wrote: » Thats all well and good lad, but there are plenty "golfers" who get out on the rare occassion and who are still learning those lessons and learning about golf as they play. The social golfer who simply cannot commit the time needed to improve at the levels that some who play and practice often can. Each to their own, some folks are happy to get out and enjoy the company/peace without being too worried about the prizes if worried at all.
Mantis Toboggan wrote: » Ok but if you don't have time to practice and you're looking to improve then surely the quickest way to improve would be through better course management. Bit of strategy and stop going for the hero shot definitely improved me.
GreeBo wrote: » Arguably the worse you are the more important good course management is. Sure it can be more fun to just go for everything, but it rarely results in a good score for 18 holes and returning a cricket score is just not fun, at least not for me!
kippy wrote: » Course management only works when you are comfortable with knowing your distances and being comfortable cycling through your clubs and being confident of getting a clean hit on the ball in the right direction. Those all come with practice, lots of practice......
Mantis Toboggan wrote: » Watched a good video this morning on YouTube, OMP was on golf vlogs. The episode was about breaking 90 easily by taking all the trouble out. OMP is 78 and his drives go no more than 160 metres. Would apply more to high handicappers but it shows that with a little bit of thought it makes the game that bit easier.
The Tetrarch wrote: » I don't play now but decades ago when I was in my teens we played a links course in the west of Ireland every day of our month long holiday there. For a few years my uncle, handicap 5, holidayed there. With the balls and equipment in those days a 200 yard drive was better than average. I remember he always played a 400 yard par 4 with an easy driver off the tee, a 4 iron to about fifty yards in front of the green, then a short iron to at most ten feet from the pin. He always scored 4 or 5. The rest of us sliced into the rough, hacked our way down the hole, and scored 6, 7, or 8. After a while you absorbed his thinking, assessing the situation from where you were, planning the shots.
Seve OB wrote: » played a game the other day, par 5, I got a good drive away and left myself about 215 to the pin, bunkers short and right of a small green, pin tucked away . clever shot was to lay up short of the bunkers about 70 yards out and chip in from there. so I took out a 4 iron and went for it. stuck it to 12 foot. missed the eagle by an inch but a tap in birdie. some of you guys would have had me playing course management shots where I would have been lucky to make par and bringing bogey into play. by taking on the shot I was not making things any worse for myself, sure I could have ended up in a bunker, but isn't that what a sand wedge is for
TitianGerm wrote: » What do you play off though?
Seve OB wrote: » 12
Mantis Toboggan wrote: » Thread is more aimed at the high handicappers who are struggling to lower their handicap. That 215 yard shot they might only hit the green 1 time out of 10 and the other times land them in all sorts of trouble and walk off with double bogey.
pakman wrote: » I had this exact situation in Captains Prize yesterday in Kilcock. Out with a new driver and hit one 290 with strong wind behind on par 5 5th. Had 210 to hole with tree in middle and water on left. Thinking about course management I layed up but hit it too well and got in trouble. chipped over water into far bunker, two out of the bunker with second going back into the £$%ing water. chip back from where i started and ended with a 10 to end any chances and due to bad course management when I thought I was being conservative. Should have gone wedge wedge but took an 8 after seeing the great drive and wanting to build on it. It was still the right call not to go for the 210 yard shot though. This kind of thing went on to happen all round with new driver giving me distance I'd never had before. Played a whole different course as a result and didn't know what I was doing. Suddenly hitting half shots rather than full which I am awful at. Some short and some long with no confidence standing over the ball. If I had been smart I would have stopped and taken 7 iron and wedge instead of hitting a 5 and then trying to finesse it. That way I would have had full shots and been in places I was familiar with on the course. For me course management is just finding your way around where you have a club in your hand you know you can hit and in places that are safe enough. I've only really started doing it recently and dropped 3.6 shots in past two months almost completely due to it. It also the thing that kills my boards performances the most too as I don't take time to read the course. That and I am cr*p a lot of the time
etxp wrote: » How can you say it was the right call not too go for the shot? You didn't go for it and had a disaster, would you have been much worse if you went for it?
Mantis Toboggan wrote: » Here's the problem with laying up though which you encountered the weekend. It's a harder shot than it looks, firstly people get too casual and don't concentrate as much as a normal shot and secondly, like you after a good drive it kills them to not go for it so they end up being greedy and try to lay up as close to the hazard as possible to eek out every yard, generally the wrong club gets picked and a couple of bad bounces later it's in the drink and then you're cursing yourself for not going for it. Happens us all.
etxp wrote: » edit - off topic, which driver did you go for?
Keano wrote: » That's only one hole though How was the rest of the round?
TitianGerm wrote: » I'd expect a 12 handicapper to be much more consistent in their shots than someone off 18 though. The correct shot for you may very well have been to go for the green in two especially if you've no shot there. Now the 18 player my not be able to hit a 4 iron 210 and will have to hit a 5/3 wood. This makes the shot a bit harder. The correct shot for the higher player, especially if they are not confident in the club/distance, is to lay up to 100 and take the bunkers out of play. Up and down from there will give them 4 points or on and two puts will give them 3 points. If they go for it with the 3 wood then they may catch the bunker and then will be giving themselves a tougher shot to get up and down for their birdie than if they were in the middle of the fairway. I hit my 4 iron no more than 170. If it was me I'd hit the 100 as my bad shot is to leak the ball to the right (can be a slice but have almost gotten rid of that now). I'm fairly confident of hitting the ball within 10 feet from that distance and would be very confident of not having more than two putts from there. If there's no trouble to the left of the green I may hit the 3 wood up there depending on pin position and how much green I have to work with when chipping.
Seve OB wrote: » firstly I had a shot, to be honest I think that is irrelevant but that's another discussion. my point really was though that going for it I could have ended up in a bunker. but if I had of laid up, I still could have found a bunker with my third shot. laying up is not always all its made out to be. sure if you don't have the range to make the distance, then you just have to lay up, but that's a different scenario. its all well saying the 18 handicapper should lay up to 100 yards and chip on make 2 putts...…. but they are an 18 handicapper, they probably don't have the game to always get the 100 yard shot to finish on the green and always make the 2 putts. an 18 handicapper could very easily take 5+ shots to get down from that range. hell knows I've done it often enough no risk, no reward, if you want to score well, you just have to take some shots on sometimes. oh yea and the podcast is called "no laying up"
TitianGerm wrote: » I'd bet the vast majority of high handicappers would have more trouble out of the bunker than from the fairway at 100 yards. I agree on taking shots on. But there's a time and place for that, i.e holes that you are confident on.
GreeBo wrote: » The thing you did wrong was hitting the driver. No point in hitting the driver if you are then going to hit a wedge to layup!
BoardsMember wrote: » Last time I played Druids Glen, the 13th hole kind of sums it up for me. I went for a big power fade off the tee, it just stayed in play and chased up towards end of fairway. Hit a power fade 4 iron that was over water most of the way, drifted off the water and towards the flag at the end, landed softly, finishing pin high 20 feet. I sank the putt for a birdie. Every other time I have played that hole I have played it the same way. I have probably scored on it maybe two other times out of 6 or 7 times playing it. So awful course management but one serious highlight. Some people just want to go for the 1 in 20 shots I suppose. It's not necessarily ignorant, it can be an active choice to go for the champagne shot. That said, some of the stuff higher handicappers go for, the "completely and utterly impossible even from a pro" type shots are harder to explain. They can be amsuing though. It's really what you want out of the game. I'll always remember my birdie. But I'll never be as low a handicap as I should be. My handicap record used to show 2 or 3 low rounds per year max, with the rest in the 20 point region. My way of playing was hampering marginal gains, or more consistent scoring. Maybe that is why I gave the game up....
