How Would You Play It? An Exercise in LSW Shot Zones and Shades of Grey (#15 at Pinecrest CC in Bluffton, SC)

Is that area off to the left where all the carts and people seem to be the forward tees or a drop zone? If that's a tee box, I'm playing from there!

For my game, play a fade with the driver at the right side of fairway bunker, then wedge to green.

As long as the tee ball doesn't cross cart path, appears to be a lot of rough to safely land if drive crosses fairway.

Driver would be out, because the area behind the cart path is an unknown. Plus, the forced carry of 240 is too close to my decent shot carry. A small breeze could kill that option.

Aim for the right side of the bunker. The forced carry to the area between the bunker and the green is about 210 or less, so a properly hit 3W should be about the right distance with a 10 yard margin on the forced carry. If it rolls a little you end up 35-40 yards from the green towards the cart path behind the target landing zone. This is a potential for an up and down. If it looks short enough to me off the tee and there is no wind, I might even try the hybrid.

The alternative for me is a 4i to the center of the bunker which is 210 yards away, forced carry is about 175-ish, which would leave me an 80-90 yard a 60 or 52 if I get in the bunker. A fade shot would end up shorter, but the forced carry would be shorter as well. The other only real risk is hitting over water on the second shot, but at 80-90 yards is not over challenging.

I would hit my hybrid club (200-210) on or slightly to the left of the line drawn in the picture or 5 wood (230) slightly further to the right...depending on the day and how the view looks from the tee box.  Especially as a righty...with water short and right... I am not going to try to be too aggressive here.  I would be perfectly happy with 100 yds out for my second shot.

I would really go toward using my hybrid club here though because it doesn't roll out much from the tee so I would be aiming for a fat part of the fairway with minimal risk of missing short and almost no possibility of making it to the fairway bunker.

Depending on conditions i'm going with my 3hy (~220 carry)  or 3W(~230-235 carry) and aiming at the right edge of that bunker.  This leaves a flip shot with my GW, SW, or LW again depending on conditions and pin placement. This strategy also gives me room for error off of the tee--slightly short is ok, left is ok though maybe in the bunker, unless i push it way right (which is one of my misses at the moment) i should be ok on the right and going long actually gives you a better angle to the green.

Driver is a no-go for me on this hole.  Those trees to the right of the tee box block a direct shot at the green and i'm not going to try to fade a driver 250 yards.

I'm hitting a hybrid at the left edge of that bunker and then a wedge in.

I'd do the same thing.  I'd try to hit a draw to give the ball a better chance at staying on or near the fairway.

This is actually pretty funny because in my tournament on Sunday and Monday there was a hole similar to this one but the trees and the green were on the left. It was 251 yards to carry to the green and there was bunkers in front of the green and a creek below the bunkers. What I did was I hit a high driver over the left trees and played my fade and I hit the green and rolled off the back but had a nice easy chip and 2 putt for par. Depending on wind and all I would more then likely do the same on this hole and just play my fade onto the green but I would go a little passive left. If there is a fair amount of wind or I am not comfortable hitting my driver on the day I would just hit my hybrid at the bunker and fade it right into the fairway.

My first thought was "Holy $#*%...I would never play that hole"...then i realized I was reading the hole backwards. 5w is enough for me to carry the water but not enough to reach the fairway bunker, which is by far my worst shot. Hopefully put a little fade on the ball for a little extra roll.

Same here. I don't trust my longer carry distances. I am going for a line that gives me room to hit the fairway and lesser carry over the water. I feel pretty good about hitting a wedge to the green from there. The main thing is I don't want to be in the water, second I don't want to be in the fairway bunker.

This is realistically what I'd do. 5w and hybrid would both do the trick, but 5w being about 210-215 vs. hybrid at 195-200 makes me feel safer about making the carry. My 4h tends to over draw while my miss with the 5w is right, so I think the 5w would have a tendency to "get better" with my miss as opposed to leaving me a longer approach if the hybrid overdraws. If we assume 70ish yards, that's a pitchy SW.

You can't aim straight at the green though, the trees next to the tee box block your line. Can you carry 240 with 50 yards of slice?

I would hit the longest club I can hit without reaching the bunker, probably my 7wood, a hit my stock draw just starting just a smidgen to the right of the first line on the map. Go for the pin if it is center or left of center. Center of green for any pin on the right.

5 wood to the fairway and a wedge onto the green.

Ideally, I'd hit my 5W off the tee and follow the yellow line. Then hit a gap wedge onto the fat part of the green hopefully landing it somewhere around where the three people are standing.

Reality. I'd slice my tee shot into the water, forcing me to take stroke and distance and hit my third shot (looking at the crap growing around the nearside of the hazard) with a 7 iron landing it somewhere in the rough short of the fairway (ladies tee side) but at least not in the water. My fourth shot I'd hit a 7 iron and land it somewhere close to the green on the cart path side, and go up and down for a double bogey.

I haven't received my copy of LSW yet?