Golf Is a Series of Independent Decisions

Practical Golf Articles
#41

Im assuming you are playing a draw… dog leg left means the fairway curves with your shot shape, so a good strike down the middle can clear the corner and follow the turn…

Dogleg right means you ball clears the inside corner and starts heading towards the outside corner and trouble… I have the same issue but the other direction.

I view my options as follows:

  1. Can I cut the corner? This works better with doglegs that go against your shot shape. I love cutting left doglegs because my miss tends to be short and right, which usually puts me at the bend.

  2. If I can’t cut the corner, I hit to the turn. Three wood or hybrid… as far as I can without going through.

1 Like
#42

it is not rocket science folks!!!

4 Likes
#43

It is quite amazing the amount of things that we ‘hear’ on the course and when we talk golf with other people and how all of those things are just a fallacy! Things like getting the correct angle sound great and the talking heads on TV have to say SOMETHING so people will keep watching. The angle might look visually better but it is clear that the angle makes no difference at all. Just like a lot of the other things we have read and talked about on here like hitting 3 wood off the tee instead of driver it is just something that people talk about and assume that it is the right thing to do. Love reading the articles here!

1 Like
#44

A great deal of “conventional wisdom” was developed without having any statistics available, so whatever a good player thought was the right thing to do was considered right. Many of the current commentators haven’t done the research to keep up with the newer statistics-based ideas, they’re still repeating the same things they were told when they were learning the game.

2 Likes
#45

thanks! I would love some of the announcers to actually embrace some of this knowledge rather than burying their heads in the sand and just keep repeating what has been said to them forever!

1 Like
#46

Yup - I find myself muting some of the lead announcers at this point. We know some of what they are saying is wrong now. I get that a lot of these concepts were instrumental to them at the time they played, but we do have to give a modern perspective IMO.

2 Likes
#47

Simplify the game is something @jon got me onto through Twitter. Last fall one of his articles basically convinced me to switch from a laser range finder to GPS for distances. I hit about 1 more GIR per round this year than I did last…not a huge improvement, but I attribute that improvement to the GPS taking my focus off the flag. All things equal, I play the center distance for all shots. If there’s trouble long but it’s wide open short, I may trend more to the front distance, and vice versa if there’s trouble short but open long.

With my recent swing improvements thanks to a lesson, and armed with a simpler approach, I feel like I might be on the cusp of a substantial uptick in my play…especially if I can use the winter to add some speed!

3 Likes
#48

Golfer Jake making MOVES!!!

1 Like
#49

Correct. I play a draw that really wants to run, with a left biased miss. It seems as though the high fade may just generally be a better shape off the tee when it comes to playing dog legs both directions.

My left miss is extra “hot” and wants to run through the fairway on a dog leg right.

Your left miss on a dog leg left is likely going to carry a bit further and may still carry the corner.

1 Like
#50

We’ll see if I can commit to the speed part. I’ve had noble goals like that and then winter gets here and I end up watching a lot of football and getting fat.

1 Like
#51

Agree with the premise of the article, but want to question whether or not short-hitting amateurs actually have tighter dispersion than 65-70 yards. In my experience it tends to be the opposite. Obviously if your angular dispersion stays the same shorter tee shots will have tighter dispersions, but Mark Brodie’s work shows that longer hitters are straighter hitters (in angular measure). Specifically, he says that with driver 90-shooters average 215 yards being 6.5 degrees offline - compared to just under 300 and 3.5 degrees. I could see a scratch golfer who hits it 240 having a tighter dispersion than 65-70 yards, but I have a hard time believing the short hitting mid handicaps have such a tight dispersion.

1 Like
#52

Table summarising the relationship between distance and accuracy. (Taken from Mark Broadie’s book Every Shot Counts)

Mark Broadie driving accuracy chart
Mark Broadie driving accuracy chart547×551 107 KB

2 Likes
#53

Perhaps I could have worded it better, but either way, that proves the overall point I was making even further - no golfer is good enough to land the ball in a 10-15 yard window with their driver to gain a better “angle” into a green

1 Like
#54

One other point I’d make (and I’m not entirely sure of the answer). It makes perfect sense that pros are more accurate in terms of angular dispersion. But what does 6.5 degrees offline on a 215 yard drive equate to in terms of total dispersion yardage wise?

I know Scott Fawcett has done some analysis here, and his advice for shorter hitters is to hit driver more because they usually don’t hit it far enough to get into really wide dispersions. In other words, it’s very hard for someone who drives it 220 to hit it 90 yards offline. Not saying that it can’t happen, but if you’re that wild with a shorter driving distance, then you really need help with your swing. Strategy can’t save you that much.

3 Likes
#55

3.5 degrees offline at 300 yards is 18.3 yards offline. 6.5 degrees offline at 215 yards is 24.3 yards offline. For small angles the distance offline will be approximately Total Distance x degrees*3.14/180. (Sin(x) ~ x for small x for any math nerds like myself)

I know Scott encourages short hitters to hit lots of drivers, but I do wonder how much experience he has seeing high handicap swings. Also, you can also get to the point where every club can get you into trouble (not necessarily offline, but chunk/top etc) at which point you may as well hit driver and take your chances. That being said, I do believe that for most golfers to significantly improve they need to tighten their dispersion. Strategy / mindset can only take you so far.

2 Likes
#56

That’s somewhat of a separate discussion, but for the article, I wanted to really show that trying to gain an angle into a green is a losing strategy.

1 Like
#57

Yeah definitely agree with that. Was really just nitpicking.

1 Like
#58

This is what i always work on my kids with…if you already made a mistake…don’t compound it…you can always make up a bogey but it becomes really hard to salvage rounds with a double or worse.

2 Likes
#59

I really enjoyed the article, Jon. I’ve never really been an “angles” type player from the tee box. I’ve tried to hit the ball in the fairway and then make my approach decision based on the lie and trouble ahead of me. I rarely backed off from aiming at the pin as often as I could. (This strategy has backfired a number of times, not surprisingly.) But, when I did miss the green, my short game was always solid enough to give me a chance to save par.
I was interested in your comment that “you should … try to hit the ball as far as possible while avoiding big trouble”. Is that comment pre- or post-Bryson’s development?

1 Like
#60

I would credit Broadie for that thinking. What Bryson has done recently isn’t with new knowledge. He’s known this all along (he sat in on Scott Fawcett’s earliest DECADE seminar in college). He just decided to take a bit more extreme measures to make distance an advantage.

1 Like