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Which kind of golfer would you rather be?

Q1: B (Distance on good hits puts me right there and I am at least 60% fairways since putting the driver back in the bag).
Q2: B (I have lost at least 1- 1.5 clubs in length recently with my irons but those used to be about the distances I would plan for for those clubs (but right now I am more apt to hit my 7I farther than my 5I)
Q3: Consistency is what I want. If I can be consistent with every club in my bag then how many holes am I really hurting myself with not having great length? Hell, give me 250 yards with the driver that is straight and I would be using that while the Type A guy should be hitting his 3W or hybrid.
 
I tell you, you give me the "B" game and I would be spending my practice time on the putting green and short game area and I would likely be beating player A more than vice versa.
 
JMN57 said:
You captured the idea I was trying to put on the table in my OP.

For me, I can be player A if I swing close to 100%. In February, I had a short game lesson with a top 100 instructor. After the short game work, we went to the range for the rest of the bag. I was with another guy (it was a whole AM for the 2 of us) and he told us to hit 7 iron. He worked with the other guy so I was just hitting them out onto the range at a flag that I thought was around 160 or so. Nothing was marked. I'd get 1 out of 5 to the flag with the rest coming up 10 yards or so shorter. When he came to me I asked him how far the flag was and he said "Farther than you should be hitting a 7 iron - it's 195".

My player B is a lot more consistent and scores better than my player A.

So, when I go to the range I have a dilemma. Do I swing like player A and try to make that more consistent or do I swing like Player B and try to refine my game around that.

I've come to the conclusion that it is smarter for me to try and be a better player B than try to make player A more consistent (I'm not sure I could ever quite get that done). Scoring matters to me more than hitting mega shots.
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What I think the lesson is, is that we have our 100% swing and we have our normal 80% swing. Our 80% swing is the one we should play with and practice with. We should also periodically practice our 100% swing because there will be times when we will need it.

A long hitter is never out of it.... if you can be accurate.

There are times say for example when you're in a tournament and you just three putted. You've been in the running. You have the distance available. Now most of our tournaments are two rounds. This is day 2 and you're on the back 9. Do you put the extra heat on this drive so you're hitting a wedge into the green or do you hit your normal drive and hit a 7 iron into the green? You probably won't be in the fairway, but you'll be hitting your wedge shot from the first cut.

You stand a far better chance of a GIR from 110-130 yds than you do from 160 - 170 yds. and chances are that if you make GIR in both cases you'll more likely have a birdie opportunity in the first case.

So I say to have the ability of A, but practice to be like B. Sometimes you need to hammer it, but we have to have our procedural memory to do that with any accuracy.
 
So I'm in Little Rock on business and manage to get 16 holes in after work today. I haven't touched a club in 9 days and I say I am going to play like "B". I am 2 over on the front 9 and 1 over for 7 on the back nine. I had two mediocre drives of around 200 yards but parred both of those holes (one a par 5 that I fixed with a smooth 241 yd 3-wood and the other with a 208 yard H4 to 12 feet and just missed the putt for birdie). Other than that, I was averaging about 250 on my other driver drives and 235 or so with my 3 wood. I was 66% FIR and 69% GIR. When I missed the fairway, I was in first cut most of the time (one fairway bunker that I hit a great drive and didn't carry and one other drive were really the only non-first cut).

What really struck me was that I had only one bad lie the entire round (side hill - light rough). I wasn't in the trees or in gnarly rough. It was either fairway or first cut and on the greens I missed, I was pretty close to the pin and had good chips. The greens had been aerated a few weeks back and they were letting them grow and I left 3 putts at the edge or I would have scored better.

It was my best round of the year. I felt absolutely in control and it was because I was in a calm state, I took nice, easy 85% swings and selected clubs that would get me there with that swing. For the par 5 second shots where I wasn't hitting to a distance I used 3 3 woods shots. Game Golf had them at 233, 241 and 245. I came up short all three times but I wasn't trying to get on in 2 but I was just saying take a nice, smooth easy swing.

I am getting pretty sure that my path to my first sub-par round is to play like "B" and to work on my short game. I also think that's the profile that will take me from my late 50's to my older years.
 
I was talking with my UPS driver today. Back in 1984 he was the San Diego High School Player of the Year. You'll find his name there alongside the likes of Craig Stadler, Scott Simpson and Phil Mickelson. He also won the Southern Cal HS championship which also includes names like Rickie Fowler and Tiger Woods. Today I asked him, based on this thread, how far he hits his 7I. I said, "what, 170 yards?" He shook his head and said "too far, more like 155." He said he really doesn't hit any farther now than he did in grade school (he is a bit younger than me, 50 or so). He said he shot 71 this past weekend on Steele Canyon which is a rather challenging course here but one he plays often since it is near his home. He said the guys he played with were in the 81-83 range and they both hit their wedges 150 yards. He told them after the round that he "schooled them today."

Made me feel better about my 7I distance, which is somewhere around 140-145 right now.
 
Recreational :golf: .... for my health and for happiness.
 
JMN57 said:
So I'm in Little Rock on business and manage to get 16 holes in after work today. I haven't touched a club in 9 days and I say I am going to play like "B". I am 2 over on the front 9 and 1 over for 7 on the back nine. I had two mediocre drives of around 200 yards but parred both of those holes (one a par 5 that I fixed with a smooth 241 yd 3-wood and the other with a 208 yard H4 to 12 feet and just missed the putt for birdie). Other than that, I was averaging about 250 on my other driver drives and 235 or so with my 3 wood. I was 66% FIR and 69% GIR. When I missed the fairway, I was in first cut most of the time (one fairway bunker that I hit a great drive and didn't carry and one other drive were really the only non-first cut).

What really struck me was that I had only one bad lie the entire round (side hill - light rough). I wasn't in the trees or in gnarly rough. It was either fairway or first cut and on the greens I missed, I was pretty close to the pin and had good chips. The greens had been aerated a few weeks back and they were letting them grow and I left 3 putts at the edge or I would have scored better.

It was my best round of the year. I felt absolutely in control and it was because I was in a calm state, I took nice, easy 85% swings and selected clubs that would get me there with that swing. For the par 5 second shots where I wasn't hitting to a distance I used 3 3 woods shots. Game Golf had them at 233, 241 and 245. I came up short all three times but I wasn't trying to get on in 2 but I was just saying take a nice, smooth easy swing.

I am getting pretty sure that my path to my first sub-par round is to play like "B" and to work on my short game. I also think that's the profile that will take me from my late 50's to my older years.
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Yep..... you've got it all nailed down
 
B, B and I would just refine what I have to be as effective as possible, I know a lot of A's and 300 yds in the woods is fun to watch
 
Trout Bum said:
B, B and I would just refine what I have to be as effective as possible, I know a lot of A's and 300 yds in the woods is fun to watch
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I know that when I am an "A" in the woods, it hardly feels like fun! :D
 
To be honest, while hitting 250 may not help one win a pro tour event its certainly adequate for one to score very well and certainly for the rest of the playing world.
250 imo also works just fine even on 7000 yard tees too especially if one is consistent. Bottom line imo its not exactly short nor a real detriment. So I will take that along with consistency any day over being a far less consistent 300 yrd player.

As for irons? there is a reason we carry a set and quite a number of them. If you need to be longer you simply play the next longer one. Again, give me the consistency. Id rather hit more greens and/or be close to more greens much more often than not regardless of the number branded on the club.

But these kinds of questions are always subjective. Even if we plugged different distance numbers in the equation of the two players. Many who lack distance to a point where it is detrimental would usually want to give anything to be able to hit for some. Its always easy for one to say consistency is preferred over distance when one can already hit for a reasonably respectable distance in the first place.
 
rollin said:
To be honest, while hitting 250 may not help one win a pro tour event its certainly adequate for one to score very well and certainly for the rest of the playing world.
250 imo also works just fine even on 7000 yard tees too especially if one is consistent. Bottom line imo its not exactly short nor a real detriment. So I will take that along with consistency any day over being a far less consistent 300 yrd player.

As for irons? there is a reason we carry a set and quite a number of them. If you need to be longer you simply play the next longer one. Again, give me the consistency. Id rather hit more greens and/or be close to more greens much more often than not regardless of the number branded on the club.

But these kinds of questions are always subjective. Even if we plugged different distance numbers in the equation of the two players. Many who lack distance to a point where it is detrimental would usually want to give anything to be able to hit for some. Its always easy for one to say consistency is preferred over distance when one can already hit for a reasonably respectable distance in the first place.
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I think an interesting question is, if you don't make the distances absolute but relative to yourself, do you score better hitting to distances that you are more accurate at than hitting to longer distances where you are less accurate. That question does pre-suppose that you have an "accurate" distance.

It is often cited that pro's play "bomb and gouge" as a reason that it makes sense to take the longer distance path. However, pro's generally have a pretty good short game and can scramble much better than amateurs. For me, I'd rather be hitting 160 from the fairway than 120 from the trees or bad rough.
 
As a recreational golfer, I suffer with consistency and accuracy, so sign me up for B. As a recreational non-competitive golfer, I can adjust which tee box I play from, so hitting long is not primary.

Again I make this decision has a weekend warrior. If I was remotely interested in competitive play I think I would go with A, and work on my consistency and accuracy ...
 
JMN57 said:
I think an interesting question is, if you don't make the distances absolute but relative to yourself, do you score better hitting to distances that you are more accurate at than hitting to longer distances where you are less accurate. That question does pre-suppose that you have an "accurate" distance.

It is often cited that pro's play "bomb and gouge" as a reason that it makes sense to take the longer distance path. However, pro's generally have a pretty good short game and can scramble much better than amateurs. For me, I'd rather be hitting 160 from the fairway than 120 from the trees or bad rough.
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Not only do they have the short game but also the approach game (non short stuff) is on another level too and so their logic seems to be "get as close as possible and I'll play from wherever".
But also playing it from less than desirable places such as the rough or a bunker or whatever is far superior. Simply put they can make the play from places we would struggle from far more often then we can. And to make things even better, their misses with the long ball are in general not the same misses ours are anyway. When we talk of being less accurate I would speculate even they would struggle to win when having to make plays from where our long ball misses end up vs their own.

With all this said there is for them a significant difference in success hitting greens from fairways vs other places. And even though hitting more greens usually means longer putts they still I believe score better in general when more greens are hit. So their logic of "bomb and gouge" may not always be the right decision. If hitting fairways means hitting more greens which means better scoring I wonder if any number of pros using the "B&G" logic might actually do better playing things differently.
 
I would rather be a very rich golfer than a poor wanna be golfer.
 
I saw a discussion on another forum where people were questioning others for wanting a 120mph clubbed speed saying what's the point. Obviously the point is your relaxed swingspeed at 110mph is better than a relaxed speed at 95.
 
So to the OP, assuming you have to live with A or B with no further development, I would rather have B.
 
YetiLooper said:
I saw a discussion on another forum where people were questioning others for wanting a 120mph clubbed speed saying what's the point. Obviously the point is your relaxed swingspeed at 110mph is better than a relaxed speed at 95.
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Surly our objective imo is to swing fast as we can while within reason to maintain successful control.
 
I'd take profile B. 250 is an exceptional drive for me. I'm already accustomed to not hitting the ball very far, but still quite frustrated with nor being able to drive it straight. Plus iron play is the "strength" of my game, so I'm comfortable having slightly longer approach shots.
 
Player B for the consistency, but being a shorter hitter, I yearn for the long bomb drives!
 
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