The thing about long par 4s is they generally aren’t birdie holes to begin with, so my approach is get in position for par and move on. Pressing off the tee often takes par out and moves you into bogey or worse territory. Easier said than done, but having the mindset of not needing a nutted driver off the tee will help keep the swing controllable. You may have a mid-long iron in, but even if you miss the green you’re a good chip and a putt away from a ho-hum par. Anything less than a par on holes that aren’t necessarily scoring holes is icing on the cake, but should never be a situation where you try to force it.
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Yes. One of the hardest things is ACTUALLY swinging to the predetermined target at a nice tempo.
These oops swings are when the subconscious decides to over ride the plan and yells “SMASH IT”
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I think, overall, one of my biggest takeaway from being on this forum is that chasing birdies is overall a strategic mistake… I’m working to consider birdies a luck happenstance in my pursuit of making a 2 putt par.
That mentality puts you into a strategic headspace of: Hit the fairway and give yourself a decent look at hitting the green (vs chasing a 300+ bomb to try to force a shorter 2nd shot)…
I’m excited to listen to this episode, as I’ve changed my opinion of what a good golf shot is while learning here… I also just finished the Chasing Scratch episode where Eli is 1 under through 17 and makes a triple and it doesn’t occur to him that his 2nd shot was a huge mental blunder (he sails it 50 yards left out of the rough with the ball above his feet)… I think it’s a very illustrating conversation about how people approach golf… Per him “his tee shot was perfect” it just ended up in the rough because it was TOO good… so instead of going into recovery mode, he kept his priors and tried to hit the green… He could have easily shot a 72 with no real pressure by punching out, getting on and 2 putting.
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It sounds too good to be true. But when you accept that birdies are merely a byproduct of a smart series of independent decisions and not something that you can “manufacture,” then you are on the path to becoming a smarter course manager.
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We may be veering too much into my Philosophy degree (Sorry, mom!) but I think you can take a step back and look at golf as an interesting study in human nature and a good look at expectations.
Going back to the Chasing Scratch example (and this is all speculation)… Eli hit what he considered a good drive and got a bad result… He ended up trying to hit a hero shot onto the green, instead of punching out and playing for par… if he had hit a BAD shot and it had ended up in the same place, my guess is he would have at least considered taking a smarter route into the green. As you said, if he made a smart, independent decision, he would have likely had the opportunity to make par.
It’s really hard for me to separate each shot. “I hit a good drive, I should have a birdie putt!” “I’ve really got to get after this shot to make par”… One of my biggest goals for the season is to separate out each hole into it’s own bucket (not worry about my total score, just play the hole in front of me as well as possible) and then separate out each shot… try to consistently make the best decision from where I am, based only on the situation I’m currently in…
I don’t play enough match play events to worry about anything but my score… I’m hoping I can build out a good mental game to handle this, but we will see!
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In “Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow” they go through the psychology of chasing losses. Can’t remember the specific examples, but they offer a bunch of interesting behavioral case studies that show that after someone loses, they have a huge tendency to chase and become very prone to taking high variance courses of action. For anyone who is a fan of the Sopranos, this is something that Tony Soprano is constantly exploiting in his opponents.
I think this fact of human nature is essential to understand if you want to get ahead in business, or really anything that is an iterative trading game.
Oh, I guess it can help your golf too!
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I think I mentioned this in the podcast, but it’s the same exact thing when someone goes on tilt in poker or at the blackjack table. Believe me, I know the feeling. Your instinct is to make up for your initial mistake with more aggressiveness, and we all know how that usually plays out!
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One more thing to add here after thinking about my own game and reflecting on this thread.
The LIE of the golf ball is critical. Anytime you have a marginal lie you have to significantly dial back expectations. I am TERRIBLE at this.
Last round I smoked a drive through the fairway and am now on a sidehill down hill lie down to a hazard. Even though I am 100 yards out, anything within a pace of the green is GREAT. Instead of an all out 50 degree optimal play would be club up to p wedge and take a very controlled swing with all the focus on a SOLID STRIKE.
Obviously, I went full out with the 50 degree, hit it marginally and was very lucky not to dump it on the water.
Bad lie = yellow light… time to focus on safely advancing the ball with out taking too much risk
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This is so huge. So many amateurs stay in bogey golf purgatory because they’re trying to make birdie on every hole. Every course has holes that are better birdie opportunities than others (usually par 5s), but birdies aren’t to be chased either way. Too many of us stand on a tee box and say “OK, this is a birdie hole” and get way ahead of ourselves.
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Another really strong podcast. Finally found some time to listen in today. @jon add me to the list of folks that started playing to the middle and back of every green last year and saw great improvement last year due to that advice/this forum.
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Did this today. Just reminded myself to hit it solid off the tee. Nothing “extra”.
Really helped. There are very few strokes gained between “nutted” and “solid”.
There are lots of strokes lost between solid drive and major error.
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thanks! It doesn’t have to be complicated, just disciplined
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Yeah, but I remember the nutted ones long past the good ones!
Seriously, though, committing to a swing and staying in your shoes is a better way to play golf.
One day, I’ll do it !
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I generally agree with what I heard on this podcast, but did want to make a few points regarding “leaving the ball short” of the green:
- Many (most?) statistic tracking systems (including the GHIN handicap app) REQUIRE that your second shot to a par 4 (or 3rd to a par five) be recorded as either on the green, short, long, left, or right. So every single time you hit a bad drive, you end up with a stat that says you were short of the green in regulation. Which has absolutely nothing to do with picking the wrong club - you were chipping out to the fairway, or blasting out of a fairway bunker, etc. This will bias the statistic (I believe it was quoted as 91% of greens were missed short). Not sure by how much, but probably significant for higher handicap players.
- On my home course, there are 14 greens where it is MUCH worse to be long than to be short. Three greens are about equal, and on only one green out of 18 is it better to be long. So being short is not the worst thing in the world.
- Even if I hit the green, there are 4 greens on my home course where I would rather be chipping from in front of the green than putting a significant distance (downhill) from behind the flag. Another reason to aim short.
All that said, I don’t disagree that most amateur players don’t take enough club. Part of that is certainly ego (who wants to hit a 5 iron when everybody else is hitting 7?), but I also believe part of that is lack of data. You know how far you can flush your 7 iron because you will never forget that one. And you also know how crappy you can hit it, because you remember those too. What you don’t really know is how often you do each. I just ordered a ShotScope to fix that problem for me.
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That is a great book. I highly recommend reading it!
I think the main reason we gave that advice is that even though most golfers might be playing for yardage to the back of the green, they would still rarely go over. Of course, each golf hole is different. If there was severe trouble like OB behind a green then you might adjust, but as I said in the podcast I can’t tell you how many golfers have reached out to me seeing success with that basic strategy.
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Yes. Lack of data is correct. Jon’s advice compensates for the fact that most golfers overestimate the average distance they hit a club.
Ideally, you can spend time on a launch monitor so that you know “average” distance and “max”/flushed/nutted distance.
If long = jail, you pick the club where “max” distance stays on the green. This should put most of your dispersion on green.
I would also say that the longer the club, the more likely i am to choose a middle / front yardage and accept that marginal strikes may be 5-10 yards short (assuming trouble long).
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What I’ve been thinking about for my own tracking and improvement is looking at where I am front, middle, back of the green vs where the pin is…
If I’m constantly on the front of the green regardless of pin position, my strategy is flawed.
I want to get to the point where if the flag is in the middle, half the shots that aren’t the “right” distance are long of target… that’s an i oversimplification of my goal, but an easy way to see if you are consistently under clubbing into greens.
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I have been tracking “near green in regulation” and then make a note of location.
One thing i have stopped doing is 3/4 swing. I don’t have the skill to take off ~7 yards
Pretty much all my 3/4 swings end up short
Dropped a second ball a few times and realized i am really only hitting 5 yards long with full swing
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Boom - keep track, analyze, adjust. We try are best to give advice to help all golfers, but it’s just a starting point.
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