Books for Course Management?

[The Gill]

Are there any good books that you'd recommend concerning course managment?

[Three Putt]

My favorites are Harvey Penick's Little Red Book and Green Book. Read some others by sports psycologists and got bored with them and didn't finish (blah,,blah...blah,,)...but I'm just a ham and egger.

[Dent]

The book Tiger Woods: How I Play Golf has i beleive a few chapters on Course Management.

Its not a complete book on it though.

[Shindig]

Butch Harmon had a book on course management: "Playing Lessons with Butch Harmon" or some such. Officially, it's for anyone, since he "plays" 18 famous holes with players of 3 different levels, inventing what they did and giving advice. It's fine, but to understand the C-level's advice, you have to read what A and B did too, and that wasn't helpful. I suggest you take a look at the book in the store and, if you are close to the A-level player's description, give it a try.

Hale Irwin's Smart Golf had a section about course management, but it was more about preparation for a round than playing one. Still worth a look.

How to Break 90 (Adams) had some good advice on when to go for pins, where to aim off the tee based on shot type and landing area, and so on. Worth a read in the store, since either you've broken 90 already (based on your handicap) or you're playing some really really tough courses.

In short, I don't know any great books on course management, and I don't think discussions here have found many, either. So I suggest you make your own for your course. If you have holes that give you trouble, let us know as best a description of them as you can and we'll try to help.


What follows isn't a book, but it may help you if you play the same course consistently. Try walking it backwards (if the course staff will let you) or in your mind. If you can't do it explicitly, make an explicit check of a few things the next few times you walk the course. You can do this after you've planned your next shot but while you're waiting for your partners or the group ahead of you. You might also try this if you can be the last man off at twilight, and thus can take your time.

This helped me save about 6 strokes on what used to be my home course. I plan on doing this next time I play at the course that is going to be my new "home course."

Check landing areas for your common tee shots:
On par-4+ holes:
* Where is driver distance from the tee for you? What sort of lie does it give you? What angle to the green does it give you? Where would you aim off the tee to get the ball here? If you miss this landing area, what sort of trouble are you in?
* Repeat for 3-Wood, hybrid, and longest iron.

For each potential tee shot, evaluate the angle to the green. Are you flying over water or sand to get there? Heavy rough? Where would a miss take you? Could you attack a pin from here in common pin placements, or are you playing to the fat part of the green?

On the green, evaluate where are good places to miss. Is the rough not so bad on one side? How about a bunker without too steep a lip and your preferred type of sand? What part(s) of the green give you flat putts to common pin placements? Uphill?
Also make note of where you're likely to face a downhill breaking putt from... and plan to avoid that part of the green! For obvious reasons, don't think of this during your approach, but rather determine ahead of time to aim for a different part of the green.

If you're a long hitter, determine where you need your tee-shot to stop if you're going to go for a par-5 in two. Determine also lay-up distances on par-5s, regardless. If you're a short hitter, plan to lay up : except on the longest of par-5s, you will be able to choose your third shot in, so make it your favorite iron or wedge. If you're a long hitter, you need to know where to go if your tee shot doesn't leave you a fighting chance at green in two.

For the par-3s, repeat the green-side and approach parts above, except realize you aren't usually choosing which club to hit into the green or the approach angle, since you aren't determining the distance from which you go for the green.

[Bignose]

In short, I don't know any great books on course management, and I don't think discussions here have found many, either.

There are a few good one out there...

A Round of Golf with Tommy Armour by Tommy Armour is excellent. Tom Watson's Strategic Golf by Tom Watson (these guys apparently like to put their names in the book titles!) is also pretty darn good. There is one I haven't seen personally, but would be interested to look at is Dave Pelz's Damage Control (see, another guy who put his name in the title). This book is only available from his website, though, not any bookstore I've found. It is an aspect of golf instruction that is poorly represented. With all the books about swing mechanics, short game techniques and putting, and lately a fair number of books on the mental side of the game, the course management sector has been significantly underrepresented. But, the Armour book has really stood the test of time and is still excellent to this day. Well worth your effort to find it. p.s. In terms of finding it, don't overlook how valuable a resource the local library probably is. My local library can get almost any book via interlibrary loan. If the book is in one of the over 19,000 other libraries in their network, the local library can usually get it, and they only ask that I pay $1 to help cover the shipping charges.

[Shindig]

There are a few good one out there...

I'm going to check these out. Thanks!

[srjorion]

I just recently read "Playing Lessons with Butch Harmon" as well as "A Round of Golf With Tommy Armour". I didn't find Harmon's book that helpful personally. One thing the book did I really didn't like was it went into detail about the specific hole in regards to it's history. I was looking for information to help my game and not a recap of some great golf holes out there.

Armour's book was better in my opinion, mainly because it discussed course management without the history lessons.

I bought all of my books off of Amazon. You can get a lot of books for $.01 and you are really just paying the shipping. It's a cheap alternative if you cannot find a copy of a book you are looking for in the library.

[Shindig]

I bought all of my books off of Amazon. You can get a lot of books for $.01 and you are really just paying the shipping. It's a cheap alternative if you cannot find a copy of a book you are looking for in the library.

When I go to purchase, I check Amazon and Half - the two seem to have some really cheap books. I can't tell you how many of the golf books on my shelf were under $1 + shipping.

[reid]

Are there any good books that you'd recommend concerning course managment?

To The Gill:

My book is about course management (mostly my own blunders until I learned how to exercise better judgement) but also about a lot of other things. I think the best CM book I've read is Ray Floyd's "The Elements of Scoring".

[The Gill]

OK I'll bite. I read the first chapter and liked what I saw. Interesting you're an MIT grad. I work at Boeing and interact with a bunch of MIT guys (mostly electrical and mechanical engineering) and they're some colorful folks.

I just purchased via Amazon. I look forward to the book. I hope the book sales supplement your income as much as AK-47 wielding generals.