Henry and myself at Hole No. 2, Signature hole of Joondalup, Dunes.
Bambang, Ronny and Henry at the same Hole No. 2.
Yes, we are mad golfers. Henry, Bambang, Ronny and myself had made an agreement to turn up at Joondalup no matter the weather.
As it turned out, it was a 40 degree day. Luckily we arranged to use motorised buggies.
The weather did not help the game. I ended up with 106 all because of a couple of holes that I blew. This was despite all my tee off shots landing on the fairway. I was most pleased with my tee off shots. The mid game was the disappointment.
Even Henry who usually plays well was under the weather and only managed a 92.
Ronny had 2 birdies but only managed a 99. Bambang also hit a 106 even though he is a much better player than myself.
So it is back to the practice range for me. Which brings me to the newsletter below from Herbie, our resident coach. Great info which is worth thinking about.
I have been hitting below 100 for the last few weeks and it was frustrating to hit above 100 again.
Next game is at the Cut. Let's see what the score will be.
Golf Concepts Newsletter. December.
The following is some advice to take into consideration when practicing. It was gleaned from a Dr Morris Pickens who is a sports psychology consultant for many top tour players. The following thoughts hopefully will give you further food for thought and be both practical and show positive results in your game and score.
Most people only get a few hours to practice at that and as mentioned before we need to make that as beneficial as possible.
Scoring on the Golf Course.
Basically, most players only hit about 20% of all their shots whether they are a 30 handicap or whether they are a tour player, with a 9 iron to a 3 wood off the ground.
80% of your shots with either your driver/3 wood off the tee and then off the ground with wedges or on the green with your putter. That means those 5 clubs have a higher percentage importance than the other 9 clubs in your bag. These are your scoring clubs.
That means those other 9 clubs are there to “advance the ball without hurting your score” clubs
So, if you have a limited time to practice then you should split that time and concentrate half the time on drivers and wedges and the other half on chipping and putting, and in doing so you will improve in the scoring areas.
Score Card golf.
There are 36 putts in a round of golf (par three is 1 shot and 2putts, par 4 is 2 shots and 2 putts etc)
There are 14 tee shots (excluding par 3’s depending on your game) so the total of the shots is now 50.
There are 4 par 5’s where you can’t reach the green in 2 or either you go for the green in 2 and miss the green, as a result let’s just say you have 4 wedges into the par 5’s in one form or fashion. That now takes us to 54 shots.
You in most likely will miss 6 greens so we have to have 6 chips. That now takes the total to
60 shots and you still haven’t hit any irons out of the fairway yet.
The reality is, spending time trying to improve your accuracy with 5 irons and 7 irons from a 20 metre miss to a 5 metre miss does not give you a good return on investment and your time.
You will do much better spending time making sure you can take 2 putts from 20 metres and occasionally make the 8 to 10 metre putt. It will give you a better return on invested time as in reality you don’t hit enough mid to long irons to make a difference. Hitting a 7 iron, or 5 iron or 3 iron or even a hybrid is basically the same. Same swing, same set up and the only difference is the distance the ball will fly. This is determined not by you as you are constant but by the club and its design, let the tool do the job.
So, set the game up by accuracy off the tee (not length), then think conservatively but play with confidence (stay out of trouble) with your next shots to set up your ability to get the ball near the hole with either a good chip/pitch or putt and then be able to close out without costing you strokes needlessly. Remember that you game is determined by you bad shots, not your good shots.
Hope it gives you something to think about.
Herbie
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