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Beat the ego, get the score?!?

ddelloch

ddelloch

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My last 3 rounds have been my best scores in a long while 78-84-82 on fairly tough tracks after playing in the high 80s for the entire first 1/3 of the season. I don't feel like I was doing anything different and I wasn't dropping any more putts, my average is a pretty consistent 1.85/hole. I wasn't chipping any better or hitting more fairways. The one change I did make that I am attributing to the stokes coming off was pretty simple and I have the GIR stats to prove it. Whatever I know my distances to be..... take 1 more club into the green unless its a tight front pin (play those to the front 1/3 of the green). Simple as that... trackman and the range markers say my 8i is good for 155-160 very consistently and I come up to that 8i shot... take a 7.... 6i is good for 175-180 and I get that distance..... take a 5.

I battled hard with this the first round and a half and had to slap that ego into place... forced myself to do it and the results were there. Not only am I swinging easier, those misses where I don't quite hit it right and lose some yards (happens quite a bit) they are on the green and I'm still putting. I'm sure this is no secret to a lot of you low handicappers (or myself really) but it certainly felt like a revelation once I made myself commit to it.
 
I've tried this approach too, but it doesn't work as well for me. When I take more club I seem to get lazy with my swing and wind up swinging too easy or quitting on the swing, which results in a lot of poor shots.

But I guess that's why this game is so frustrating!
 
I've been doing this for my 4 through 8 iron the last month or so and had decent results. I take one more club with a shorter backswing and get a lower shot that has less side spin and therefore goes straighter. When I try to get after my irons too much my miss is a hard fade and this has helped to alleviate the problem.
 
Beat the ego, get the score?!?

Very good strategy! One of my biggest problems is GIR and I too have battled with this thought process. Instead of thinking about it as "I can hit my 6i 170 yards if I catch it clean and pure, it's more likely that I will catch it thin or fat or whatever and end up 15 yds shy of what the perfect shot would be. It's hard but it does work.

The only exceptions I take are if there is say trouble behind a green and short is clearly better than long.


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The only think I'm confused about, why not just consider your 7i your 160 club and so on? Does it matter what a range (I never use the range to determine yardages) or Doppler session says your distances are? It only matters what the distances are on the course. Real world distances.
 
If it is working for you keep it up I find that i lose yards on the range due to bad balls and limited flight balls
 
I dont use my irons at thier max distances that require the perfect strike because it just doesnt happen often enough. I just use the club that normally gets me to a distance with a decent strike most often but not the perfect strike. But it also depends on pin and/or desired landing area location. I will use a club at its "max distance" for a rear pin when being too long is dangerous this way I know that if I do hit it perfect I it will never be too long.

But its weird though. there are days when the irons are playing longer and days shorter. The weather of course but that aside sometimes its just how the ball striking is going. Nothing to do with being on target as that is a whole other subject lol, but just some days where the distances can all seem about a club longer than normal or on other days shorter than normal. Part of the reason i am still an inconsistent golfer :)
 
I remember a thread just like this a few years back by a low handicapper, he really saw improvement in score at a level where improvement is usually not very measurable. Good thread and thoughts ddelloch
 
blugold said:
The only think I'm confused about, why not just consider your 7i your 160 club and so on? Does it matter what a range (I never use the range to determine yardages) or Doppler session says your distances are? It only matters what the distances are on the course. Real world distances.
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I think that is what I am transitioning to in less words. I think it has more to do with the fact that on a golf course where you get one shot at it and there is the pressure of score and everything the not perfect shot seems much more likely to come out (for me anyway)

If I go to the range I can hit 9 out of 10 balls with a club right at the 150y marker. Once I get on the course, that 1 out of 10 that I left short/left/right at the range.... seems to be 50/50 rather than 1/10... So my challenge has been how to force myself to play for that 50/50 when I know I just hit 9/10 right where they needed to go 30 mins earlier.
 
Brianbigoats said:
If it is working for you keep it up I find that i lose yards on the range due to bad balls and limited flight balls
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I know its mental but I am pretty sure if you dropped a bucket of balls on the 150 and put a 9i in my hand and a middle flag I would put the vast majority of them on the green and maybe not tight to the pin but close enough that the putts aren't just a prayer. At the same time if you threw one ball down and told me THIS IS THE ONLY ONE THAT COUNTS OR MATTERS AND YOU GET 1 CHANCE!!" I would be far more likely with that 9i in my hand to make something bad happen vs if I had an 8i that I knew I didn't have to do anything but swing easy with.
 
Swinging "easy," vs. swinging "smooth," is a big difference to me. Depending on course conditions, weather, wind, turf, I often take more club than the yardage would indicate. However I have to make a conscious effort to swing smooth, not swing easy. Easy swings tend to get me out of tempo, whereas smooth swings usually bring good results.
 
This has been a huge change for me. Forget about what I can do, or did a couple times on the range, or did by accident one time. Forget about the lightning in a bottle shot. If I hit a bad drive and find myself needing a perfect 4-iron shot for a GIR, forget it. Go 9 iron, wedge, and either wedge it close and still have a putt for par, or 2-putt and take my bogey. Do I end up with a couple fewer 4's on my scorecard? Sure. But I got way fewer 6's and 7's.
 
I have seen similar results and I've been trying to talk my roommate into taking more club on most of his shots. He always comes up short and acts like he's surprised he didn't get his 9-iron 170 yards. I'm taking more club regularly now and finding more greens as a result.
 
I do the same thing ddelloch, sometimes it's hard to remember but when I do, like you I play better and score better.
 
If my 8 iron maxes at 160 on the perfect strike, there is no way I'm going to consider that my 160 club. What that tells me is that if I'm in between clubs, there is a chance I can push that 8 iron out to 160. More than likely though I'm only going to use my 8 iron for 150 yard shots. It's so much easier to make solid and consistent contact when you are swing at say 80% of your normal swing.

Something that I think a lot of golfers forget is that it doesn't matter which clubs you use, the only thing that matters is the number of times you hit the ball on that hole. You aren't going to get docked strokes because you hit an 8 iron from 150 instead of 160.
 
I use a GPS and the best advice I ever received was that most of us should always play to the back of the green distance. If the pin is center, and you play a long approach to that center length, you have to hit a perfect shot each and every time and I found out thirty years ago I would never be that good. To the longer distance you can be off a little and still be good. Best advice I ever received in golf.
 
I read that a long time ago somewhere too. It's not too often that you're long off the back, most amateurs miss short of the pin. Now that you've put it in my brain again, I may have to try it. Not trying to kill the ball may help my misses too.
 
Texasbrons said:
I read that a long time ago somewhere too. It's not too often that you're long off the back, most amateurs miss short of the pin. Now that you've put it in my brain again, I may have to try it. Not trying to kill the ball may help my misses too.
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This was me. Never long, always short. Good GPS changed that. The only time I'll back off a little is downwind and if there is serious trouble long. There are times when short is good, but GIR is better.
 
In my experience, long off the back is really bad. Short is okay (except where there's a pond in front, etc.).

But, yeah, taking an extra club usually works for me. As long as I'm not long off the back....

Texasbrons said:
I read that a long time ago somewhere too. It's not too often that you're long off the back, most amateurs miss short of the pin....
Click to expand...
 
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