Clubbing up

I played a casual round with a buddy this afternoon and my score was at the top end of my usual range (I've had like eight straight rounds of either 83, 84, 85 or 86). I made two birdies, which was good, but offset them with a couple of double bogeys.

The interesting thing was that both birdies resulted from hitting 9-iron approaches from my normal pitching-wedge distance. On both of those holes (one a short part-4, the other a par-5), I'd been pi$$ing away good good tee shots with poor wedge approaches, so I wanted to do something different. The lousy shots weren't always short, but just not struck properly in one regard or another, and I was rarely getting birdie chances on the biggest birdie holes on the course.

My idea was to take one extra club and "barely" swing it. Needless to say, I was thrilled with the results, as both birdie putts I made were in the 5- to 6-foot range.

The next time I play, I plan to try that with every approach -- one more club and an extremely relaxed swing. I'm just wondering if anybody out there does this regularly, to where the one extra club becomes the new norm.

I have zero ego about clubs - I'll hit any of the 13 I carry from any distance if it'll result in a lower number on the scorecard. I've got no qualms with hitting a 7-iron from 140, a 5-iron from 160, etc., etc.

Has anyone had long-term success playing this way? I'm not talking about going with the bigger club from a "tweener" yardage, but rather making one more club than you know you need the rule and taking what feels like a less-than-aggressive hack.

I tried and didn't have much luck.   If I club up, my shot tends to go over green and then putting downhill makes things often worse.  I had better luck chipping short shots up the green.