Club Gapping - Is it me or is that just golf?

jjfcpa

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Admittedly, I'm not a long hitter... I'm 69 years old but absolutely love the challenge of the game after picking it up less than 2 years ago.

I'm at the 17th hole at the Mohave Golf Resort in Laughlin, NV. It's 118 to the middle of the green over water. I hit my 8 iron about 110 - 120 so I grab it and hit a shot. Didn't want to hit it too hard because the flag is only 3 paces on from the edge of the retaining wall and the water.

Came up short and plunk, 5 feet short into the water. Since I was playing by myself, I thought, I'm not going to the drop zone, I'm going to put this ball on the green.

Grabbed another ball and said to myself, you've got to hit it a little more flush. Hit another ball and it was 40 feet past the hole. WTF?

I have difficulty determining just how hard I should hit approach shots into the green. Any trick to getting it just right or is golf just a "hit or miss" kind of game. The problem is, I come up short much more often than long, so what should I do differently?
 
hit it flush, avoid the danger, I wouldn't have even thought about taking the flag on that close to water

...and if you're coming up short all the time, those are your actual distances, and you to adjust for that
 
If you are short the majority of the time, club up from now on. I think it is Hank Haney who teaches people should play one more club since the majority of the time amateurs aren't hitting to their distances.

Then course management comes into play on this particular shot. You had trouble short and played to the trouble. If there wasn't anything to worry about by going deep, you should have played for a deep miss. The number one issue I see with golfers is course management. Going from shooting 100 to 90 is pretty easy IMO. Play smarter and KNOW where you can miss
 
If you are short the majority of the time, club up from now on. I think it is Hank Haney who teaches people should play one more club since the majority of the time amateurs aren't hitting to their distances.

Then course management comes into play on this particular shot. You had trouble short and played to the trouble. If there wasn't anything to worry about by going deep, you should have played for a deep miss. The number one issue I see with golfers is course management. Going from shooting 100 to 90 is pretty easy IMO. Play smarter and KNOW where you can miss

Played the same course again this morning and landed hole high and 8 feet from the hole on the left side with the same 8 iron. I did put about 95% effort into the shot because I knew that yesterday that I came up short. I think sometimes I underestimate exactly how hard I should be swinging. I'm trying to error on swinging with too much effort (speed) instead of too little because of my tendency to leave it short. I think with more experience, I'll be able to judge this a little better.
 
In my experience swinging to hard creates it's own set of problems. For me if I have a distance I know I can hit at 100% power, I'll take the next longest club and swing easier. If I'm playing the shot you're talking about I know I can muscle a PW, but for better results I'll take 9 iron, choke up and swing easy.
 
You tend to gain more of a feel for shots the longer you play... comes with experience. I know for me, i know how far I hit my 8i with a 3/4 swing, full swing choking down, full swing, and max effort swing. I don't always hit the shot how I want. But I know how far it'll go with good contact.

I remember that hole. The lake goes from the right front edge of the green and wraps all the way around the front to the back left side of the green. Not a long hole, but pretty intimidating.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
 
Yeah it's probably you for the most part, but don't take offense, in the larger picture it is most of us. THE most important stat on an iron is dispersion, how tight a circle (or ameba) are most of your shots with a given club. Your irons are your scoring clubs. Most of the dispersion is on us. When you get to the point in your game where you make a consistent swing and solid (high smash factor) contact that's when you have a clear idea of how much the clubs can make a difference. A professional fitting with a club fitter that literally has thousands of head and shaft combinations can make a big difference in the dispersion produced by the club itself.
 
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