charley48
Well-known member
Bingo! This is the case with me. I can spray my 3h as easily as my driver. My 4h is a bit safer than the 3h and as the clubs get shorter, they generally get a tiny bit safer. But I can certainly shank or top a short wedge shot a perfect lie into the water or weeds on occasions. I'd estimate poor decisions make up less than 5% of lost strokes.
I went back and looked at the last several rounds that were tracked and discovered that the penalties came from off the tee or from a good lie in the fairway or the short rough into what should be a safe target. Not saying I don't make poor decisions or at least in hindsight think about what an alternative choice could have been. But that simply doesn't happen very often.
I play the majority of holes for bogey anymore. Sometimes I get pars and the occasional birdie, but mostly I'm trying to keep every shot in play. If given an opportunity for a green in regulation, I pick a safe spot around the green as my target. If I'm too far out and the green is protected, It's unwise for me to go after the green with a hybrid. If the green is wide open and I'm hitting the hybrid well on a given day, that's a different story.
There are just too many instances where a simple layup fails... or a 3' putt... or a 10' lag putt or any number of possibilities. So that bogey I'd planned on becomes a double, triple or worse. When I do shoot in the mid 90's it's because there was better execution or less damaging levels of misses not because I was more conservative.
So it's all about improvement and knowing your capabilities. I don't play with others very often so maybe strategy is an issue with most, I don't know. But I know for a fact it has almost nothing to do with my scores.
Yup. The first hole I was an 8 iron out on my approach. A par 5. In the fairway with good lie. I needed to hit at least 120 yards to clear the water in front of the green. The 8 iron is my 140-150 club. A clean hit should have no problem clearing the water. It wasn't a clean hit. It was a little fat. It almost cleared it. It hit the bank on the back side of the pond and rolled backwards. The next hole a par 4, I'm another 8 iron out after a good drive. A better hit and I'm on the fringe with putter in hand. That is the life of a high handicapper. Some good shots. Some bad ones.