Why do better golf players work the ball? Why isn't hitting it straight "enough"?

So I have been playing for about 4 years, and I learn and get better each time.  I have not spent much time practicing working the ball left to right, or right to left.  Honestly, I'm not sure why I would want to be doing those things.  I am very happy with how my ballstriking is, and I am finally very confident standing over a ball at address and have reasonable confidence that my ball is going to go to my target, and land somewhere near the target.

So with that said, why when I watch pro golfers on TV do they start the ball dramatically off to the right and then curve it back towards the green?  What are they accomplishing by doing this?  Is it because they want to control their misses, as I often hear that term being used.  Is my game suffering because I cannot / have not been practicing these shots?  These are some questions I was thinking about earlier today.  Any insight would be great, thanks!

I doubt your game is hurting. But there are numerous reasons why players work the ball. They can hold it up into the wind. Work it away from trouble. Or fade or draw the ball to better get at different pin locations. A straight ball flight would be subject to the wind direction, so for example, if there is a left pin location, the wind is left to right, you would have to start the ball way left of the green and hope the wind brings it back on target. Or you could draw the ball (right handed) into the wind and have your miss (if the wind overpowers the draw) be in the middle of the green. It also can improve the angle of attack depending on pin location and shape of the green. Also think about fairways that bend left or right. Shaping the ball allows them to utilize the most out of the course's shape.

Be a little careful judging starting lines and curve from TV pictures. Unless the camera is positioned exactly on the line of the shot it can make it appear that the ball curves much more dramatically that it actually does. I believe that the majority of pros play a fairly gentle draw or fade.

Last year is the first time I started learning how to work the ball either way. I definitely agree with the controlling the miss and that is one of the main reasons I do it. If I want to play a draw most of the time the miss will be it just doesn't draw and goes straight which most of the time that works just fine. At my home course I use it a lot due to the wind as we rarely have a day that is night windy. For example we have a par 5, elevated tee box with woods on the left directly from the tee box and about 200 yards out the fairway goes a bit left, if you go too far right you can make an aggressive second shot due to woods on the right. If you have a left to right wind the woods started right after the tee box so you would have to hit a high ball over the woods with a strong wind in that direction. Instead I setup to hit a draw and fight the wind, allows me to put the ball where I need it to be and removes most of the wind issues.

The other piece is getting out of trouble. I played a course a couple of weeks ago on vacation that I had never played before. It was downhill to a blind landing spot and it was a dogleg right, but I couldn't see where it turned. I ended up hitting a great drive but too far. I had a lot of trees between me and the green but I could hit a low flying hook that I needed to turn about 30 yards. Instead of having to punch out and take a shot at the green from 100 yards I hit the low hook and landed just behind the green by about 5 yards, easy chip and sunk the one putt. Having the skills to curve the ball can definitely save a stroke or two when needed.

Most pros try to hit a draw or fade because thats more consistent than just trying to hit it straight.  Its very difficult to have a perfect spin axis but trying to hit it with a slight amount of curve isnt all that difficult.

Also, its to their advantage to be able to hold them ball into the wind or to be able to curve it around trees or doglegs.

My situation is very similar to BrianJ. My handicap is 15.  I hit my shots straight and far and make many pars. I have some knowledge on how to work the ball, but the truth is I seldom try to do it and I'm not so good at it.

So, a question for all of you: In your experience, how good can an average guy get to be by just hitting straight shots? Low 80's? High 70's?

Years ago (scary now to think how many) I had the privilege to play a good bit with my father, who was a low single digit handicapper.  I don't recall him ever hitting a very long drive, (with persimmon woods!) and I don't recall any fancy shootin' though I presume he could shape shots if he wished.  Pretty much everyone played blades then, though he did have an early set of Ping Eye irons before he passed.  He mostly played down the middle of the fairway, except as needed by the hole in question.  So, my answer to the question of how good you can be hitting straight shots is, pretty damn good!  Maybe not great.  But I'm thinking you'll know when you really need to learn to shape shots.  I may never get to that point, but it sure won't be until I have inside 100 yards pretty much beat.

Here's why: Yesterday I drove into the fairway, but on the right side. The edge of a tree blocked the straight line to the pin. So I started the ball left, and turned it in, about a 5-yard fade. The result was a fifteen-foot birdie putt.

A straight shot would have left me twice that far away at least, with a bunker ready to catch a ball too much left, the tree too much right.

Another example: A few years a go I was deep into trees on the left side and the green was nowhere insight. I hit a severe push draw, and the ball turned through an angle of well over 50 degrees, ending up on the left edge of the green.

I might have to curve the ball maybe once a round, but it's a real handy skill to have when it's called for.

To me, "working the ball" either a bit left or right is not related specifically to the above mentioned shot. Yes, knowing how to get out trouble with a 50 yard hook or slice is one thing, but those gentle 'worked' shots are as mentioned above. It's to be able to get at that tightly tucked pin, hold against a breeze, etc... If it doesn't take that little draw(fade), you're still on the surface for the most part. Just a bit longer putt. And who wouldn't want to have a shorter, easier putt if they could. BUT- having said that- players like Billy Casper and Tom Lehman couldn't hit a controlled fade to save their lives. Casper especially, he played those big sweeping hooks to his best ability and did pretty well with it. When I was at my peak in the mid 90's, my standard off the tee was a fairly high draw of about 10-20 yards and fairly consistent. My standard iron shots were gentle fades of about 5-10 yards. I realized that a draw would roll out further and that a faded iron stops quicker (at least to me). Ideal in my mind. It took LOTS of work and plenty of playing time to develop that combination without having one interfere with the other. But I COULD work the irons back to the left if needed- all my irons had 3 yardages depending on the shot. A 9i might be 145 with the draw, 140 normal, and 135 with more fade. It all depended on the hole location and where the trouble was. I tried to avoid taking the path that could be the most trouble- not sweeping draws to a back right pin with water or trouble right. I would take the club that got me there coming in from the left. Vice-versa if trouble was left. If I missed, I wasn't wet or in the gunk, woods, swamp, whatever.

I hit a draw. The only time I would consider hitting a fade is a low punch fade to get out of trouble and advance the ball toward the green. Most players do not try to work the ball both ways because it is very difficult to control a fade and a draw from hole to hole. I never start the ball off of the green. If it's a right pin location, I hit it at the pin and let it draw to the middle of the green. Not every hole is a birdie hole. If it doesn't set up for your stock shot, play for par and move on

In a similar vein, Nicklaus relied on the fade much of his career. In "Golf My Way," discussed his reason why. Here is my summary of his comments:

Nicklaus said later in his career he started using a draw more often, but tended to rely on the fade as a standard shot.

I think you are being tricked by your TV.  In general, pros hit the ball (not counting Bubba Watson and a couple others like him, or when they need to do it out of necessity) pretty darn straight.  They all have a "stock shot" that they play most of the time, that is either a fade or a draw, because, let's face it, nobody can consistently hit a ball dead straight on purpose.  If you think you can, then that means you are aiming directly at your target, which in turn means that your ball will always, ALWAYS, be curving away from your target.  Nobody wants that.  So, everybody tries to develop a 'go-to' shot.

I am currently working on delevoping a draw.  As far as I'm concerned, the smaller/tighter, the better.  Like, 2 yards if possible.  For now, it's more like 6 or 7 yards***.  But when I do it right, the ball starts 6 or 7 yards to the right of my target and draws back towards it.  Sometimes it draws 6 or 7, sometimes 12, sometimes not at all.  But as I get better at it, what is happening less and less is that it's not cutting.  And when I get better still, I can cut back on the 12 yard draws too.  That leaves me with a really high level of comfort that I can line up at a target, know my ball will start 6 yards right of that, and finish somewhere in between those two lines.  If I spend all of my time practicing hitting it straight, I will NEVER know which way its going to curve, and thus, will never have the level of comfort I have with the draw.  Even if I cut my dispersion down to the same 6 or 7 yards, it's now going to be 3 or 4 on either side of my target line.  Which, in turn, means that I can't aim at the same targets as with a draw.  If there is a pin on the left side of the green, for example, and I'm playing my draw, I can aim directly at it, and know that I'm going to be on the green one way or another.  If I'm playing a straight ball I have two options, aim at the flag and risk missing the green if this time it curves left, or play it safe and aim 3 or 4 yards right of the flag.  The problem with option 2 is I'm still unsure about which way its going to curve and it could just as easily curve further right than at the target.

Oh, and regarding my first comment about the TV tricking you; the camera is a telephoto lens setup behind the player so depth of field is frequently out of whack, which leads to it sometimes looking like their balls shoot straight off the top right corner of the screen ... almost like a high shank.  Rest assured, that is not what is actually happening.

*** I'm thinking about 6 or 7 irons in that example, by the way.  I have no consistent go-to shot on my driver and fairway woods/hybrids yet, and my clubs shorter than about 8 iron go virtually straight.  Unfortunately, not always straight where I am aiming, but straight meaning they don't curve. :)

Thanks for clarifying. This was driving me insane.

Short irons rarely curve at all, and they will gain more curve the longer you get. The driver will curve the most. But mostly the ball doesn't curve that much in the irons. If you think about it, lets say you have a 150 yards club, you start the ball somewere around 3 degrees right of the target line. They draw the ball back, they only need to draw the ball back 7 yards to get it near the target. Even if you look at a 200 yard shot, your looking at 10 yards of draw. i think 3 degrees right sound very large. Rory hits it 3 degree's right with his driver. I doubt he gets that much right with an iron. So maybe 1-2 degrees right is better. When you look at that, its 4-6 yards curve. That's not that much. Were not talking bullet straight like a pull or push, but a slight curve isn't bad.

Really a curve is better to play, first because you know were its going to curve and you can cut half the hole out of play. So if you know you hit a fade, you can take trouble left out of play. That's not a bad way to play golf right there.

To the OP, my handicap is similar to yours and what we do is a lot different from what you see on TV, so I don't think we suffer from not being able to do that! We have other more pressing problems, LOL. That said, there are many reasons to hit something other than a straight shot or in the case of us mere mortals, to plan for something other than a straight shot. First off, a truly straight shot is next to impossible to hit. Everything must be perfect. Nicklaus said that playing an intentional curve made the fairway twice as wide. What he meant was if you aim at the left side of the fairway and fade half the fair way, you will be in the middle. If you fade double what you meant to, you will still be on the right side of the fairway, and if you don't fade and miraculously hit dead straight, you will still be on the left side of the fairway. So for us mortals it is kinda like Snead said "You gotta dance with who you brung!" Of course there have been and are pros who can hit it very nearly dead straight, Byron Nelson was one, and I am sure there are others today. But most work it one way or the other and some both ways depending on the need.

Thanks for the info everyone, that was a lot of info to read and digest. I suppose I should have mentioned that I guess it's a bit obvious if there is something about the hole that demands the fade/draw. (Such as a tree in the way, a dogleg, etc) I was more wondering about why they appear to hit draws when they are in the middle of a fairway and there is nothing in the way. Maybe it is the cameras depth of field and it's more of an illusion than what is really going on.