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Can you score when one facet of your game deserts you?

PhillyV said:
Depends on which part of the game it is. If i cant get off the tee im almost doomed
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This is me to some degree. If I struggle off the tee it tends to get in my head. I start pressing other parts of the to make up for early bogies.

when I just let it flow I tend to not have poor rounds.
 
I can't score when they're all working.
 
I can get by with poor iron play or lacklustre putting, but a bad tee game or brutal short game will inflate my scores like a balloon.

Depending on ones definition of 'score' I don't think I can even score when everything is clicking.
 
The Milk Man said:
I think as long as you can chip and putt. You should be able to shot a respectable score for your skill level.
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This 100%. I would say I am better than average around and on the greens, so when my swing goes away (which is sadly more frequent every year) I can usually get myself up and down enough to keep the scorecard from being too ugly.

It does just highlight that if I get my swing dialed in I could actually throw a good number on the board.
 
In general, yes. If any one part of my game deserts me for a day I still expect to score in the upper range of 80's. If two or more desert me then all bets are off. As a matter of semantics, that feels a lot more like "survive" than "still score."
 
If my iron game goes, on the front 9 I'm hitting the 19th straight away.
 
It's hard enough to score when everything is working. When one thing is off I can sometimes get by as long as the rest is tight.
 
I accept that I won't be coming to the course with a full plate every time. But to me, score is secondary in golf, I try to have fun and work with whatever I have that day.
 
PhillyV said:
Depends on which part of the game it is. If i cant get off the tee im almost doomed
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I'm with Philly on this. If I'm constantly trying to make up for penalty strokes or hitting out of trees resulting from the driver I'm in trouble. Frustration sets in and it is all over.
 
The Milk Man said:
I think as long as you can chip and putt. You should be able to shot a respectable score for your skill level.
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That's only true provided the tee and iron games are still fairly ok and for a lower cap players even the "not good" long and mid games are still respectable enough. Otherwise this is not true at all. Mid and especially high cappers who can score well enough within their level of play can often fond they are chopping, flopping, slicing, dicing, and slopping thier way from tee through near enough to the greens and that can be can be extremely devastating to scores for many mid and higher cappers even if they have an "ok" short game.
 
It depends. Getting off the tee well is key as is the short game/putting for me.
 
rollin said:
That's only true provided the tee and iron games are still fairly ok and for a lower cap players even the "not good" long and mid games are still respectable enough. Otherwise this is not true at all. Mid and especially high cappers who can score well enough within their level of play can often fond they are chopping, flopping, slicing, dicing, and slopping thier way from tee through near enough to the greens and that can be can be extremely devastating to scores for many mid and higher cappers even if they have an "ok" short game.
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I am going to disagree with you here. If you are chipping and putting well. It can hide alot of flaws. You can't make a career of it but for one round you can survive.
 
Put me in the camp with those saying they can still score as long as it's not the short game that goes. My worst rounds are almost always when my short game is the worst. Conversely, the best round I've ever had was not a particularly good day with the driver.
 
I can barely score when firing on all cylinders, need a lot of work on approach shots, but if the driver goes south my round gets infinitely worse cause I'm adding in tons of penalty strokes and clubbing down I don't have enough distance.
 
The Milk Man said:
I am going to disagree with you here. If you are chipping and putting well. It can hide alot of flaws. You can't make a career of it but for one round you can survive.
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That depends. I've had a day when I was two putting once I got on the green. When I had to chip I was getting the ball close enough to the hole to one putt. My driving was superb on 6 of 7 holes, then there were the par 3s (iron shots). And my iron game sucked cow flop. So after firing a 54 on the front 9, I went straight in for lunch, then threw my clubs in the trunk.

Here was a typical par 4: Hit 240 yd drive; chunk iron shot; chunk next iron shot into bunker; pick the ball clean out of the bunker and overshoot the green; pitch up onto the green; two putt.

OR: we'll leave out hitting into the bunker and require a pitch over a bunker, ending up with a 5 or 6 on the hole

Double-bogey golf. So much fun.
 
I can get by with just about any one thing going awry. More often than not it's my hybrid, so I compensate by laying up with an iron and scrambling for par. I'm rarely off with my putter, but that can get dicey if I am.
 
I think so, if we work on all aspects of our game at the range, we will fill the void. All it takes is work
 
I've been scoring without a tee game for almost 3 years.
 
If I can't get off the tee I am pretty much screwed. If only 1 part of my game is off besides my tee ball I can break 80 but never going low.
 
The Milk Man said:
I am going to disagree with you here. If you are chipping and putting well. It can hide alot of flaws. You can't make a career of it but for one round you can survive.
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i agree. I have had rounds where tee game was wonky and I wasn't hitting many greens but chip and short pitches and a bunch of 1 putts to save the round and this was when I was in the 12-13 hdcp range. Short game is what helped get my cap down
 
I can score when one part of my game goes. The score may not be great but I can score. Really it depends on what goes. I want to say that I can manage an okay score for me because honestly I am not sure how often my whole game is there for every round to begin with.
 
My short game is awful, so no. And I've found that I score equally poorly if either my driver/woods aren't working for me or my irons. Today my driver showed me love, and I kept everything in play and mostly in decent position. But I was hooking (flipping) my irons. The last 4 holes on the course I played have water left of the green. I hit 4/4 approach shots left into water. You'd think I would have learned at some point in the round and aim for the miss, but I didn't. Partially because when I try to aim right I generally swing flatter and more right and make the problem worse.
 
The Milk Man said:
I think as long as you can chip and putt. You should be able to shot a respectable score for your skill level.
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rollin said:
That's only true provided the tee and iron games are still fairly ok and for a lower cap players even the "not good" long and mid games are still respectable enough. Otherwise this is not true at all. Mid and especially high cappers who can score well enough within their level of play can often fond they are chopping, flopping, slicing, dicing, and slopping thier way from tee through near enough to the greens and that can be can be extremely devastating to scores for many mid and higher cappers even if they have an "ok" short game.
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The Milk Man said:
I am going to disagree with you here. If you are chipping and putting well. It can hide alot of flaws. You can't make a career of it but for one round you can survive.
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But "flaws" are very different than out right poor play. Every shot we take with "some degree" of flaw can then be recovered by the next shot we take and so the closer we get to the hole, the more important to make the next shot better. However, it depends just how bad is bad for any part of ones play. My very worst rounds (as I am certain so are that of others too who have mentioned similar) are when my tee game and/or irons approach game are terrible. Even when my chip/short pitch/putting are (for me) average or even better than average my scores are still simply too high before even getting near enough the greens to still score decently. . One is not always saving a decent score because they're playing a decent game close around and on the greens if any of the play prior to that point is too errant, inefficient, and outright sloppy. Its already too late at that point.

If the mid and long game is less than desirable (hence flawed) sure it can then certainly help alot to still save a decent score by playing a decent and especially a good short game. But Just how bad does flawed mean is the difference here and what many are saying. You cant still expect to save a decent score regardless of the fact the short game is ok if their mid and/or longer games are much too costly. Being too errant, loosing balls, and chopping/slopping your way from the tees and/or through the hole's layout before you even get near a green is far too costly and a decent score is just not possible to save just because the short stuff is working ok. A decent score is at that time already a moot point.
 
rollin said:
But "flaws" are very different than out right poor play. Every shot we take with "some degree" of flaw can then be recovered by the next shot we take and so the closer we get to the hole, the more important to make the next shot better. However, it depends just how bad is bad for any part of ones play. My very worst rounds (as I am certain so are that of others too who have mentioned similar) are when my tee game and/or irons approach game are terrible. Even when my chip/short pitch/putting are (for me) average or even better than average my scores are still simply too high before even getting near enough the greens to still score decently. . One is not always saving a decent score because they're playing a decent game close around and on the greens if any of the play prior to that point is too errant, inefficient, and outright sloppy. Its already too late at that point.

If the mid and long game is less than desirable (hence flawed) sure it can then certainly help alot to still save a decent score by playing a decent and especially a good short game. But Just how bad does flawed mean is the difference here and what many are saying. You cant still expect to save a decent score regardless of the fact the short game is ok if their mid and/or longer games are much too costly. Being too errant, loosing balls, and chopping/slopping your way from the tees and/or through the hole's layout before you even get near a green is far too costly and a decent score is just not possible to save just because the short stuff is working ok. A decent score is at that time already a moot point.
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Yes we all have those days were we are terrible from tee to green. I still contend that your chipping and putting can allow you to shot a respectable score for your given skill level.

Let me try to explain it like this. If a players average score is 85 and normally this player has 47 shots tee to green and 38 putts. There maybe days where this player has 60 shots tee to green and 30 putts. I would say a score of 90 for this player would be a respectable score.

Would this be a recipe for success, no but for one round here or there. It is possible to salvage a terrible ball sticking round with a hot putter.
 
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