Does not sound crazy … I enjoy golf for all the challenges it presents … of course I’m trying to improve each time I get a chance to get out … but bottom line it’s me against myself out there…
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Don’t forget that the pros hit it hard high and with a bunch of spin. That they don’t benefit from a better angle doesn’t mean that amateurs won’t. That in no way undermines the premise though. If you’re not good enough to stop it from the fairway then you’re not good enough to pick a side of the fairway. The reason to pick a side of the fairway is because of hazards or OB close by. Take 18 at TPC Sawgrass. You’d be mad to aim that at the middle of the fairway. That’s why the pros spend so much time in the right trees.
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My decision to improve 20’ers would get me <90 more often. I couldn’t hold a candle to you low handicappers & admire the decisions you guys face.
I don’t know, I think we should each use the same basic criteria when making a decision. Always get as close to the hole as possible without taking on excessive risk. The difference between players comes in deciding what the risks are, and that is best done by knowing your own game, typical dispersion patterns, strengths and weaknesses. @jon might correct me, but his examples show that its not a great idea to aim for one side of a fairway simply to get an “angle”, the tiny advantage you might get is more than outweighted by what you lose in accuracy for your next shot when you drive it in the rough. Yet it might be a good idea to aim at one side of the fairway when there’s OB on the opposite side, or a pond, or bunkers, etc.
As you say, if you 3-putt semi-regularly from 20 feet, that’s a weakness, one you should work on improving.
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I like GreenOak’s clip from Broadie’s book.
Interesting that 80-golfers are much closer in accuracy to 100-golfers (6 degrees vs. 7 degrees) than to 60-golfers/Pros (3 degrees).
By contrast, 80-golfers are much closer in distance to Pros (280 v 295) than to 100-golfers (200).
I was reading about angles this morning. I got to wondering, Ben Hogan famously hit it in the same spot on Carnoustie all week, that apparently is hard to get to. This is the evidence “angle chasers” always point to when they say that chasing angles is the way to go. Did Hogan just luck out? Or was he that good? Why has nobody else been that good? @jon
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I think you can try, but 9/10 times you aren’t going to be inside that “desired” circle. More often than not you’ll end up in fine position if you hit it well. This is where shot-shaping can give someone such an advantage. If you have a high, low, cut, draw and any combination of them you’re in good shape from anywhere in play. You can attack any pin from whatever angle you were hoping for off the tee.
A lot of the time, though, straight is your best option.
Use your attack clubs to attack. Use your power clubs to get you as close to the hole as possible off the tee.
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I don’t think that the dispersion was as great with their equipment as it is with today’s equipment. I may be completely off base, because I haven’t gone down that rabbit hole, but there wasn’t much they could do with the older equipment to speed it up, if I may. I think he got so good at hitting the 1 iron and like Tiger could pretty much do with it what he wanted. However, I think today’s equipment, although very forgiving, also is harder to hit precisely because of the speed of the swing that has evolved with the equipment. Again, this is Jim data and unfounded, but if I were a betting man, I think I would be onto something,
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All of these things are well and good, assuming that your shots will go where you are trying to aim them. For various reasons, such as conditions, lies, obstacles, and general abilities, all this stuff about angles could all be moot!
The famous Hogan line is at the par-5 6th hole. Having played that hole I saw how difficult it was, he took a risky line with driver, between a couple of bunkers and the OB. The bunkers start about 250 off the tee (long in those days), and the gap is only about 25 yards wide. The only option is to play a shorter club, or go right of the bunkers, with very little fairway between the bunkers and the tall fescue. Hitting into a 25-yard gap with a driver is pretty remarkable.
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Hogan never had a hole in one in competitive play… if his dispersion was that precise, you’d figure he’d have at least one.
I love stories about Mr. Hogan, but believe some of them have reached myth status.
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If you have problems with hitting shots somewhere near your intended direction and distance, all types of planning are moot. But as we each gain in skill, shot planning gains in importance. One of the points of the article is that as long as you’re in the fairway, having the “right angle” really doesn’t make much difference in your score, so there’s no reason to take risks to try to GET to the right angle.
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Tiger went a decade without an ace. I believe it was 08 to 18
I believe that’s competition and casual
Been thinking more about this (and have bookmarked this thread so I can come back to it easily in the future).
Now this will be obvious and simplistic to many of you, but just kinda “thinking out loud” here to help me further process and internalize the concepts of the article…
So… When you consider that each and every shot during a round of golf is unique and different from all the others - ie. no two shots are the same (may be “alike” but not the same)…
…and that for each shot you’re making numerous small adjustments to your setup to factor in the lie, the slope under your feet, the distance, the club, the direction to the target, any wind, any elevation change, any intervening hazards, etc etc etc…
…and this set of discrete (unique) adjustments is absolutely nothing like the set of adjustments you had put together for the previous shot you just hit…
…then whatever you did in the previous shot to cause it to not be what you’d intended has absolutely no bearing on the current shot you’re putting together…
In other words:
Let it go!
Yeah yeah easier said than done, BUT - here’s where a brief post-shot review can be a huge help…
…not “I suck at golf”
…but “Golf is hard … what can I do better with that kind of shot the next time I see one like it???”
…which feels directly into the “growth mindset”
Whew, ok, I’m fixed. 
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Probably luck IMO. Given how long he played he was bound to do something like that somewhere.
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well said! Play away from the big trouble will definitely save you more strokes than trying to gain a small edge by angle chasing
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I don’t want to get into a cross Twitter debate , but pointing to 4 rounds as “evidence” is usually all the proof those guys come up with
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I find it interesting when looking at my rounds after entering them into decade how little I gain on what I think is a good shot, how little I lose on mediocre shots, and how I actually can gain on some bad shots that end up in play. This is primarily the case on approach shots (drives that bad are obviously bad)
Examples from my last round (PGA tour as benchmark):
133 yds from fairway to ~20ft - good shot, +.02 approach
85 yards from rough to ~40ft - mediocre shot, -.1
175 in rough to 40 yards in fairway - chunked it… still GAINED .25 (we’ll not talk about how I didn’t get up and down for par)
Hit drive into wrong fairway, had 175 in with a recovery shot. got it to about 30 yards in the rough - gained .22
Even on putting - remember 8ft is 50/50… made a 12 footer +.7, made 13 footer +.7, make 5 footer +.2,
Lesson being - just avoid big numbers and you’ll be fine
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Much easier said than done, but that’s primarily what I’m trying to help everyone (and myself) with PG!
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This is the key! My best competitive tournament round was an 85, I had two triples that day with a four putt (missed on the wrong side of an extremely down hill putt) which actually ended up as a double, oddly enough. However had I just avoided the “big numbers” the four putt and two triples, would’ve shot a 79 making the triple’s just bogeys and the four putt a two putt. The thing about that round is even when I made those “BIG” mistakes it was one of the few times I played each shot as an independent decision!
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