4 minute read
Your Coach in Your Pocket (Issue 6) - Andre Louw
Managing your game around a golf course
Let’s do a quick recap on the previous articles and what we covered. We started with the understanding of how the club movement affects the golf ball, we know that the more you understand how the club affects the ball the more consistent you can become.
We then looked at getting better off the tee and how understanding the different potential penalties that you will incur by missing the fairway can help you with more insight as to where you can save shots.
In issue 3 we covered approach play, now this is any shot where you attempt to hit the green, what you will notice in the stats is the trend between having good quality approach stats and victories on the PGA Tour. To view this trend make sure you visit the Golf Stats Coach Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/GolfStatsCoach/
We then looked at short game and putting in issues 4 and 5 respectively, what we learnt is that improving your skills in these areas can definitely lead to lowering your scores.
Now that we have learnt how to improve our skills in each aspect of the game, how do we put this all together? By understanding how to better manage our game and current skill set around the golf course. Here are some strategy tips to help you with that:
1. Free up and rip it of the tee
Longer drives convert to lower scores, we can clearly see a trend among the players on tour who are consistently in the running and the distance they hit it off the tee.
We also know that a 30 yard advantage of the tee will gain you 7.25 shots in a 4 round tournament. Have a look at this image explaining the advantage of longer drives. This is based on a 10 handicap player.
If you and your golf buddies are all a 10 handicap and you hit it 30m further than your friend who hits it 200m off the tee you will according to the strokes gained stats gain +0.24 shots on him and that equates to +3.36 shots in a round of golf where you hit 14 tee shots. Now imagine teeing off with a potential 3 shot advantage every time?
2. Have a trusty longer club in your bag
Too often I see recreational golfers reach for the longest club that they think can get them to the green but instead this can typically get them into trouble as it is a very difficult shot to play.
So instead of always reaching for the 3 wood and forcing yourself to hit it perfect, put the ball into play with a more lofted long club like a 5 or 4 hybrid that is a bit easier to hit. This will help you avoid some unnecessary wasted shots and also help you build confidence during the round.
3. Play the percentages into the green
If we again look at what the Pro’s stats are regarding how far they finish the ball to the hole from 100m out, we will see that they also don’t hit every shot to 3ft from the hole. It’s easy to get mislead by only watching the leaders on television.
But the truth is that the average distance to the hole from 100m out is 6m and this is for a professional golfer. So if you hit the middle of the green you will even on a large green be about 10m from the hole, keep this in mind next time you try and pull off the perfect shot to a pin that is tucked behind a bunker or close to the penalty area.
4. Make small strokes around the green
- Putt if you can
- Chip when you cannot putt
- Only go with a lofted shot when you really have to
5. Always be aware of the cost of danger zones
Knowing what the potential cost is on any given danger zone will help you to understand which landing areas you would want to avoid. As per the strokes gained stats we can see that the highest penalty is incurred when hitting a ball out of bounds, this automatically costs you 2 shots.
Avoiding a penalty area, previously known as water hazards will potentially save you 1.25 shots. As per the image below if the strokes gained stat is 3 from that specific distance in the fairway, we can see that the rough can add 0.25 shots to your score and a bunker 0.34 from the same distance. This can easily be avoided by taking on less risky shots.
Should you need more personal assistance with your game do not wait any longer - Download the app: https://golfcoachapp.com/download-app and create student account using coach code "CoachAndre".
