The Ball Keeps Rolling

Howdy everyone, shameless brag post here but I'm pretty excited. This is the first year that I've taken golf seriously, after 10 years of playing about 2 rounds a year. I splurged before the season, buying my own set of clubs (had used my dad's old k-mart clubs in the past), and decided I would work hard on getting my game to a new level. Anyways, at the beginning of the year I was playing to a 28 handicap, and had never broken 95. In May I managed to shoot a 91, and had dreams of getting in the 80's. A month and a half later I managed to throw together a lopsided dream round, and shot 84 (49/35). That round served as kind of a paradigm shift, and I found myself shooting high 80s and low 90s consistently. Fast forward to today, where I decided to set my ego aside and try to play a smart round for once. With the driver in the bag, and the 3I as my goto-club, I put together the best round of my life (77). I know course management and club selection is second nature to a lot of you, but I never imagined how big of a difference it would make in my game. Driving a ball 320 yards is fun, but hitting 7 fairways, 8 greens, and going 40/37 for the best round of my life was pretty damn fun too. Sorry for ranting a bit here, but it's just nice to see things come together. Next stop, single digit handicap (hopefully).

I think your post may shed alot of light into peoples minds. The entire golf industry is aimed toward more distance right now it seems, but unless you are a superb non-full swing player (meaning you can hit your wedges 1/2 or 3/4 and control your distance well) alot of people will see much more improvement through course management (making sure you hit to leaving yourself a full club in and staying out of trouble) than they will ever realistically see trying to add 10 or 20 yards in distance.

Watching the last major there was alot more discussion based on "why did he hit to a partial wedge instead of laying up to a full wedge" and it focused my mind on the fact that good scoring is about good ball striking, not amazing distance.

I am not confident in my partial wedges at all, to much variation in what I think is the same 3/4 swing etc, so I plan on using course management properly next time I play versus trying to see who hit it farther.

Awesome round by the way.

I agree with that. At the moment whilst I'm still a beginner I cannot hit wedges under 3/4 swing so I'd rather be 80+ yards than say 40-80 yards. Though I can hit some very good chip shots upto 60 yards but they aren't very good if you have to carry more than 80% of the distance.

I suppose hitting further is better on long holes where you leave yourself a short iron rather than a long iron for your second shot.

It's funny that you mention the television comments, because I think that's where the idea of playing to leave full shots first really hit and stuck with me. My strategy pretty much the whole round was to leave myself between 120-150 yards, with a decent look to the whole. The only two holes I used Driver were on shorter (290ish) par 4's, where I had a reasonable chance of hitting the green or leaving a short chip (ended up with birdie on both). I'm not saying that I won't continue to work on getting the big stick more controlled (because it is a huge weapon on some holes), but I'll definitely be looking to the 'little' guys more often until the day I learn to control the driver comes. Cheers.

Just to prove a point on how valuable course management is. There is one particular hole on my club course that is the 'course managers dream hole'. It is a Par 4 SI 18 320yds. Direct path to green (300yds) takes you across a valley of the worst rough filled with small bushes and trees. To carry it, is approx 280yds, then there is an up slope with a bunker just before the green. I can and have reached the green several times, but in 10 average shots, 1 would be in the bunker, 1 just clear of the rough and 8 in the rough. 4 out of 8 in the rough would be lost. The other 4 would be a nightmare to get down in two or three. Average score was 5 or 6. As I don't get a shot on this hole (14 h'cap), I need to Par it all the time.

So, decided to stop letting pride get in the way of my game by trying to reach the green all the time. Now I hit a 5 iron every time down the centre of the fairway for about 210 yds. Then pitch a PW 110 yds to the flag. Nearly every time now, I'm putting for a birdie and scoring 3 & 4 regularly.

I appreciate that there is no feeling like hitting a lovely long accurate drive, but save it for the long Par 4's & 5's. This one hole has cut my average score by 2 - 3 shots.

Cheers.
Lee.

We have a par 4 downhill. it is only 315 yards. Because it is downhill it only plays 280 yards. but the fairway only goes for 200 yards. so the last 80 yards are rough and sand bunkers. Most guys pull out the driver and try to reach the green and most of them finish in the bunkers or the rough. I use a 7 iron then have a full pw into the green. I hit this green in reg more then 3/4 of the time. I have birdied it more than any other hole.