Odd round for me yesterday

LeftDaddy · April 11, 2017

I'll try to keep this brief, but for some context...I have vacillated between a 10 and a 14 hcp over the past 3 years (mostly due to knee surgery and recovering from that). My goals are to (a) break 80, and (b) become a single digit hcp. I have undergone major "renovations" in the past 4 years to my putting, my wedge game, and my driver, and those are all finally clicking. I have started to struggle with my irons a good bit though, and it's weird because it just doesn't "match"...I am becoming really solid with my driver and wedges, and I can hit a 3 wood off the deck off of many types of lies...but give me a 7 iron on the tee and I am guaranteed to screw that up. I've posted some stuff on here about my troubles finding the sweet spot of my irons and some of you guys have given me some good suggestions (and my coach says my swing looks near perfect).

Anyway, I have this sense that I am so so close to getting the irons back in shape and having it all feel pretty good again.

Yesterday was probably the best round I've ever played, except it wasn't my best score (and thus the reason for my post). As I look back on the round, I'm only really annoyed with my performance on 4 holes (more on this later). Otherwise I played a "full 18" with my good shots all still "intact" and stayed focused for the entire round and started really well and finished really well, and mostly took my time and fully committed to my shots (with a couple of dumb exceptions).

So here is the summary. I shot 83 with 4 birdies, 5 doubles, and 5 bogeys (and 4 pars). I only hit 4 GIR (3 resulted in birdies), so obviously my irons still need work. My wedges were really sharp, and for those holes that I hit driver and had wedge or less left, I did really well. I pitched in for 60 yards on one hole, and darn near pitched two others in.

Anyway, I felt for most of the round that I had a really good chance of making birdie on almost every hole. I mentioned earlier that 4 holes still "haunt" me a little. I made double on each of these, and my basic analysis of those situations is that I just can't miss where I missed on those holes. The sad thing is, on three of those holes I hit really good shots but they were either slightly long or slightly right of my target. In retrospect though, I had no business even flirting with the right side of that fairway, or being long on those greens. I also wasted probably two strokes when I wasn't totally committed to the shot I was about to hit. And I slightly misread two putts that still haunt me...one in particular to save par on the toughest hole on the course.

Oh well...I left feeling like I shot 83 when a 75 was very possible if I could just manage my misses better, even with my irons still feeling a bit off. Any thoughts from you guys on how to get better at "course management"?

b.mattay · April 12, 2017

This is my personal take on course management:

Treat shots as a probability function (aka like a shotgun scatter pattern) and adjust your target so the biggest portion of your "scatter" is on the fairway/green or the next best place. Also, hit the shot you can commit to, even if it isn't the "right shot". An example would be a flop scenario over a bunker with an iffy lie. If you can't commit to the flop, you would be better off playing some sort of pitch (with conviction) 12-15 feet past the hole and trying to make the comebacker.

SilverBullets · April 12, 2017

This is my personal take on course management:

Treat shots as a probability function (aka like a shotgun scatter pattern) and adjust your target so the biggest portion of your "scatter" is on the fairway/green or the next best place. Also, hit the shot you can commit to, even if it isn't the "right shot". An example would be a flop scenario over a bunker with an iffy lie. If you can't commit to the flop, you would be better off playing some sort of pitch (with conviction) 12-15 feet past the hole and trying to make the comebacker.

I like this advice and this is generally how I play. As one gets better, their 'splatter plot' gets smaller. But in the pitching and chipping scenario, that's exactly what I do. If the shot is really difficult and can lead to a big number, I try to take medicine. A 20 foot putt is better than having to chip again.