Course Management Gone Awry

darthweasel

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As mentioned in another thread, I have been quietly workingwith my 2-man scramble partner on course management. The other day we cam up on18. It bends left, a dogleg that youneed to get past to have a shot at the green. Trees line short and left, then awide fairway, with sparse trees on the right. It is uphill and to get into thetrees Is beyond the abilities of anyone in our group but anything short willleave you on a stout hill and if you are on the left you will have to go overthe trees.

“You can’t go too far right” I told him, knowing he is ashort hitter. If he hits it straight and his normal to even a really good drivefor him and it is on the left we will have nothing but a punch out. He happensto be a lefty, by the way. But if he is center or right of the fairway or intothe rough, even one of his frequent duffs, thins, or skulls gives us a look atgetting further down the fairway, albeit turning the already long four into a 5for us but it lets me be aggressive. So he promptly gets up…and pulls it so farright he hits the trees about 40 yards in front of the tee box, trees thatnormally are not really in play for this hole to which I instantly cracked, “Iwas wrong, I guess you can go too far right. No worries, I got this. Up thehill is what I meant, up there you cannot go too far right.”, thus doublingdown on my prior claim.

I then proceed tobomb my drive fully 31 yards longer than my average. And with my philosophy, Istarted it center fairway knowing if I missed it would fade. I did not miss, itfollowed my line precisely.

And of course when we get to my ball, I am both ecstatic…Ihit it 278 uphill. And straight.Unfortunately, that meant I went straight over the fairway off to the right.And was pretty much dead center behind the tree, meaning all we had was apunchout.

I guess you can go too far right…

there is a happy end to the story as we stuck our third shot close, had a decent chip and walked away with a bogey but I did think it was funny that taking the trouble out of play put us into trouble by hitting too good a shot

 
yes well...that stuff happens.
In any round we can make what we think are the correct decisions based on our ability and success rates. Which imo is the smart choice. of course a best ball scramble is another story. But anyway, sometimes the best decision falls victim to a shot that works out too good for what it was suppose to be. What can ya do? Its kind of like making the right choice and then failing to execute so it doesn't matter in the first place. of course it may be harder to accept when your fail is due to being too good instead of being too poor. But that's golf..lol
 
I mean if you bet someone on heads or tails and you get 1.20 every time heads and lose 1 on tails and it comes tails 10 times in a row did you lose? Not really, if you are smart you sit there all day and get rich. If you have your skill and misses evaluated properly then the result on any 1 hole doesn't matter. You will shoot lower in the long run.
 
funny part is our scores have probably dropped more from Smithers actually following my suggestions on these more than by my improvement but it isn't as flashy so he doesn't give himself enough credit.
 
since your scramble partner is left handed I know its not Frank you are talking about haha.
 
since your scramble partner is left handed I know its not Frank you are talking about haha.

nah, Frank and I we do our own thing. Arguably I enjoy the golf itself far more with Frank...we tend to play our own ball tee to green, he has such a firm grasp on the game is and is much better player than I am and as you well know is a great guy...but I worked with the other guys for over a decade and have known them for north of 2 decades and there is a lot of value there. Good people as well.
 
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