How To Play Golf

Hi everyone,

Was just on one of those golf forums where the articles were obviously written by someone from Southeast Asia who has never played the game. You would think the site owner would at least read through and correct all the errors and wrong adjectives before posting his “own” article.

Am I just cranky today or what is my point? My point is you should at least take enough time to learn your subject and to take some pride in the information you are sharing before you post it on your website. Maybe there should be a “reader’s bill of rights”!

If you are like the vast majority of players, you want to show some progress in the way you play the game. Golf  has two distinct elements to it: One is ball striking, that is, learning to make solid and predictable contact the vast majority of the time.

The other element is course management: your strategy for how you are going to play the game that day.

Think of it this way. You are the coach of a junior high basketball team. You spend a good part of daily practice working on the basic skills of passing, shooting and dribbling together with conditioning. But this is not enough. You must also prepare your players to play both offence and defence as a team. In other words, they will be unable to execute their skills unless you have some sort of plan (in the form of plays) which gives them that opportunity.

Click here to discover the secret to a powerful golf swing.

Golf, too, is a game. You must try to master the skills to allow you to successfully navigate around the golf course. When on the course you must focus on your plan, not on a distraction called “fiddling with your golf swing”!

If you play "fiddle", you cannot focus on your plan. It is either one or the other. For some reason, the 15 billion cells in your brain cannot multitask in this fashion.

I am sure some neuroscientists or sport psychologists from Duke or MIT could decipher what is going on in your bean, but do really want to know? Suffice it to know what is happening.

For those who have read some of my other stuff, you know that I was a caddy on one of the satellite pro tours some years back. Pros and caddies get together to map out how they want to play each and every hole. You want to try to get the best angle of attack depending on that day’s pin placement.

There are tweaks you put into the plan depending on whether you have a green light pin or a sucker pin. Like life, your plan won’t always work out perfectly, but it keeps you on track and focussed.

One really overlooked skill is to learn to become a very solid lag putter. When you have to play to the fat or safe part of the green, you must be able to lag those putts up to a couple of feet for those stress free pars that fuel a good score. The best short putt is a makeable second putt.

If the average player could have a caddy, here is a sample of how they would plan your round. Let’s assume a regular 18 hole course with 4 par 3's, 4 par 5's and 10 par 4's.

The goal would be to hit 7 Greens in Regulation (GIR’s): that is, 50% of the par 3's and 50% of the par 5's. Next. you need to get on 3 of the par 4's in regulation (that's 3 out of 10).

On the remaining par 5's and par 3's we want to end up 20 yards from the green on the safe side. We should also be able to get to this same spot on "3" of the remaining par 4's.

We will now have a total of 7 pitches, chips or even "putts from the fringe” on these seven holes (within the 20 yard leave zone). Our goal is to get up and down in regulation on at least 3 of these 7 holes. We should be able to scratch out a bogey on the rest. Still with us?

The 4 remaining holes are "4 killer par 4's": think uphill, into the wind, 450+ yards. We are going to play these as par 5's (or for those of you who do not want to concede defeat so easily, we will call them par 4.5's!).

On these killers, we will be laying up on purpose on our second shot to either 75 or 100 yards. We will play for the middle of the green on our approach. And we will play to two putt.

If we manage our game according to this plan, we are aiming for 7 pars on the 7 GIR holes; 3 pars (out of 7) on the “20 yard leave zone” holes, and 8 bogies on the rest.

What is our score? A tidy and workmanlike 80. That is the plan and that is what you should plan for. Now you know what to practice: master 20 yard pitch shots or long chips. Improve your lag putting. Learn to hit 75 to 100 yard wedge or 9 iron shots to the heart of the green. (Very realistic!).

You can now see the value of having a solid and predictable swing which allows you to execute good shots (not phenomenal ones). You do not have to worry about a swing that has to produce exceptional shots.

If you are not quite to this level yet, just modify your plan to match your own course. BIG TIP: You will find that taking the driver out on your nemesis hole is the wrong choice. You may find that hitting a three wood, or a hybrid or even a 5 iron gets you in play and you simply play to take the bogey on the tough par 4.

That is a whole lot better than either losing it in the woods or having an unplayable lie and ending up with a double or triple bogey.

Here’s a little tip for you which is also fun. When we were kids working in the pro shop we used to go out every once in awhile and play “hero golf “ for an entire round (usually on rainy days when we had the course to ourselves).

We hit the driver everywhere and over everything. We played the absolute highest risk/reward shot we could conceive. We flopped it, curved it, cranked it and took a run at every putt. We all ended up a gazillion over par, but we learned a valuable lesson. You can never have too many golf balls! Also, it gets really tiring after awhile looking for balls on every hole.

Click Here to discover the secret to a powerful golf swing.

Try the planning strategy. I think you will be surprised how well it works.