Padraig Harrington FIG Round

[billchao]

Might be an interesting way to acclimate yourself to scoring low. Thoughts?

[iacas]

Not sure I understand, or that he really explained it all that well. You have two options, but you have to use the third if you get there, and there's a fourth option too? Option to do what?

[Zeph]

Sounded like he had the option hit a new ball if he didn’t like the shot, playing scramble with himself. Hitting a new ball meant using an option, which locked him in to that option, but for the hole or round? And what were the options?

[billchao]

I think they’re just mulligans. Seems like you get two per shot basically. It doesn’t seem to be a scramble because at the end of the video he chips up from the penalty area, he does it twice and his first shot was closer, but he putter from the second one.

[GolfLug]

Heh. Seems to me like he is playing psychological games. I guess that's one way to condition yourself to go low. 

IDK about this one but in general I think Paddy H is one cool fella. Would love to play a round for fun with him.

[Ty_Webb]

I saw this video yesterday, couldn't figure out what he meant, then saw this thread and thought "oh maybe someone knows what he was talking about" and you guys are in the same place as me. 

I *think* what he's suggesting is that you play a game such that going low is expected. He said there are different variations of it. I think his variation is you get three goes at a shot. You hit your first shot and it's good enough, then you just take it. If it's not good enough then you can abandon that shot and play another. If you still don't like it, you can hit it a third time, but then you're stuck with it. He's good enough that three goes at a shot ought to give him one that's good enough to move on. He did mention his parameters for what counts as "good enough", although I do note that he should have hit a third go on that pitch from the hazard based on that. He holed the putt though so it worked out in the end.

I think if you're not as good as he is (which let's face it is everyone here and virtually everyone on the planet), then you'd adjust those rules to make it such that you might manage to make 5 birdies in a row. So maybe you play a two ball scramble with yourself and if you don't like either one then you can abandon those and hit a third or you play a three ball scramble or whatever it is that you need to make your standard work. 

At its base though, it's just like going out and playing from the front tees or playing a scramble with yourself. The goal is to gain comfort with making lots of birdies and going way under par, so that when you find yourself in that situation in a real game, you don't panic. It's an interesting variation and if I ever got to play "for fun" at my home course, then I'd definitely try it.

[billchao]

54 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I *think* what he's suggesting is that you play a game such that going low is expected. He said there are different variations of it. I think his variation is you get three goes at a shot. You hit your first shot and it's good enough, then you just take it. If it's not good enough then you can abandon that shot and play another. If you still don't like it, you can hit it a third time, but then you're stuck with it.

That’s how I interpreted it. You’re giving yourself two mulligans on every shot.

56 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

At its base though, it's just like going out and playing from the front tees or playing a scramble with yourself. The goal is to gain comfort with making lots of birdies and going way under par, so that when you find yourself in that situation in a real game, you don't panic.

Yea it’s just a variation of getting used to scoring low. I’m curious how valuable that practice is. I guess for some people they feel mounting pressure from playing a string of holes well?

I’m kind of the complete opposite TBH. Once I start putting together good holes, I get a little swagger and if anything I get overconfident. I start thinking I can hit the green from anywhere, I can hit my driver to the smallest of targets, and everything inside of 10’ is going in. None of that is true, of course, and I inevitably will hit a miss that brings me back down to earth.

[StuM]

I think if I could hit a 2nd shot when I did not like the result from the 1st I am sure I would get some lower scores.  I guess the idea is to mentally put yourself in a position where you need to make a really great shot, not just a good shot.  For example, hitting from the lie next to the creek his 1st chip was, in my view, pretty good but it was not "Great" in his opinion so he tried to do better on the mulligan, but he failed and was farther from the hole.

I see myself doing this more on the range.  For example, after a period of practice I will mentally say I need to hit 4 good shots in a row.  I start with a Driver and if that is good then I do a 3 Hybrid followed by a pitch with a wedge and finally by a short chip.  If any shot is "Bad" I have to start over.    

 

[p1n9183]

In your first shot of every hole you have 4 balls. If you like your 1st ball, you can just play from there your 2nd shot. If you don't you can hit a 2nd ball but first ball is now lost. Same procedure for 3rd and 4th ball. On the 2nd shot, you have now 3 balls. On the 3rd shot you only have 2 balls, and on the 4th shot you only have one shot. He doesn't say anything beyond the 4th shot. 

Example: Hole 1.. For his first shot hit ball 1a. Don't like it, hit ball 1b, don't like it. Hit ball 1c, he like it so he don't hit the 1d. He walks to the 1c ball and hit his 2nd shot with ball 2a. He likes it so he don't hit balls 2b or 2c. He plays his 3rd shot with ball 3a, he don't like it. Hit ball 3b to a worst place than 3a. He would love to play 3a but he can't. he is stuck with 3b. He plays his forth short with ball 4a and get the ball into the hole. That's a 4 in the scorecard for hole 1.
Hole 2... again you tee off with ball 1a... an have 3 more options if you don't like the shot.

I think that this game is going to show us how unrealistic we are about our game. We are going to not choose decent shot in hopes to hit better ones and we are probably going to get stuck with the last ball in most shots that is going to be worst that the previous shots. 
Even Padraig is so unrealistic on the last pitch he attempted. From the video I can figure out that he is in two shots on a Par 5. So he have 2 balls for the 3rd shot. He hits his first pitch to 4..5 feet from a really difficult place but because he thinks he should chip-in from green side he ditch that shot and proceed to hit another ball, now he is stuck with the 2nd shot from a tough place. He goes and hit a poor shot leaving him with a long put for birdie. He is lucky enough to make it but in reality he is going to score a lot better in average from 4..5 5 feet for birdie than from 20 yards, from the hazard for eagle.        

[snapfade]

At my level it is about stringing together par holes and not get over confident if and when I do. Honestly, I have only 2 goals when I play. Don't 3 putt and don't go in the water. Interesting video on how he practices though. I think when you play practice rounds it should have some sort of goal. Sometimes I will play 2 balls and see which one gets the better score or whatever.  He kind of word salads sometimes in his videos but I like him. I'd like to see him and Trevino do a video together. 

[Ty_Webb]

4 hours ago, billchao said:

That’s how I interpreted it. You’re giving yourself two mulligans on every shot.

Yea it’s just a variation of getting used to scoring low. I’m curious how valuable that practice is. I guess for some people they feel mounting pressure from playing a string of holes well?

I’m kind of the complete opposite TBH. Once I start putting together good holes, I get a little swagger and if anything I get overconfident. I start thinking I can hit the green from anywhere, I can hit my driver to the smallest of targets, and everything inside of 10’ is going in. None of that is true, of course, and I inevitably will hit a miss that brings me back down to earth.

I think that's the same sort of issue though. Changing your game plan because you're playing well is not, generally speaking, a good idea. Playing a game to get you used to having a good score will (hopefully) help you learn to handle that situation better. So maybe next time you're playing well, you'll keep doing what you were doing.

When I was about 19-21, I would play many times and find myself about even through 11 or 12 holes. Then I'd fritter a few shots away due to silly mistakes and end up shooting 4 or 5 over for the round. I did that a LOT. Then one day I didn't do that - I was even or so through 11 and wound up shooting -2 for the round. After I did that, I did it a lot more.

I was probably improving somewhat over that period because I was playing a lot, but my mindset definitely improved as a result of that one round. It was like mentally I bucketed myself as a mid-70s shooter, so that's what I shot. Then after that one round I could break that down and mentally became a high 60s to low 70s shooter (on my good days at least). That was quite a freeing feeling. I do wonder if I'd have got better faster if I'd heard of the ideas to play front tees or the FIG round that Padraig talks about here.  

[billchao]

1 minute ago, Ty_Webb said:

I think that's the same sort of issue though. Changing your game plan because you're playing well is not, generally speaking, a good idea. Playing a game to get you used to having a good score will (hopefully) help you learn to handle that situation better. So maybe next time you're playing well, you'll keep doing what you were doing.

Absolutely. It's definitely something that took me a long time to learn. One of the things I kept telling myself during my tournament (out loud, mind you) was, "Stick to the plan." There was the temptation to cut off doglegs with the driver because I was hitting it well, at one point on #15 I actually walked to the tee box with it in my hand. I was like, wait a minute, this is not the plan. Put it back and hit 6 iron.

[iacas]

4 hours ago, p1n9183 said:

In your first shot of every hole you have 4 balls. If you like your 1st ball, you can just play from there your 2nd shot. If you don't you can hit a 2nd ball but first ball is now lost. Same procedure for 3rd and 4th ball. On the 2nd shot, you have now 3 balls. On the 3rd shot you only have 2 balls, and on the 4th shot you only have one shot. He doesn't say anything beyond the 4th shot. 

Example: Hole 1.. For his first shot hit ball 1a. Don't like it, hit ball 1b, don't like it. Hit ball 1c, he like it so he don't hit the 1d. He walks to the 1c ball and hit his 2nd shot with ball 2a. He likes it so he don't hit balls 2b or 2c. He plays his 3rd shot with ball 3a, he don't like it. Hit ball 3b to a worst place than 3a. He would love to play 3a but he can't. he is stuck with 3b. He plays his forth short with ball 4a and get the ball into the hole. That's a 4 in the scorecard for hole 1.
Hole 2... again you tee off with ball 1a... an have 3 more options if you don't like the shot.

I think that this game is going to show us how unrealistic we are about our game. We are going to not choose decent shot in hopes to hit better ones and we are probably going to get stuck with the last ball in most shots that is going to be worst that the previous shots. 
Even Padraig is so unrealistic on the last pitch he attempted. From the video I can figure out that he is in two shots on a Par 5. So he have 2 balls for the 3rd shot. He hits his first pitch to 4..5 feet from a really difficult place but because he thinks he should chip-in from green side he ditch that shot and proceed to hit another ball, now he is stuck with the 2nd shot from a tough place. He goes and hit a poor shot leaving him with a long put for birdie. He is lucky enough to make it but in reality he is going to score a lot better in average from 4..5 5 feet for birdie than from 20 yards, from the hazard for eagle.        

So you're basically saying you get three mulligans to use on every hole, and you can use them on any shot until you're out of mulligans?

Do I have that right?

[Ty_Webb]

25 minutes ago, iacas said:

So you're basically saying you get three mulligans to use on every hole, and you can use them on any shot until you're out of mulligans?

Do I have that right?

I thought that was what he meant at first, but I think he's saying you have three mulligans for the tee shot, two for the second, one for the third and none for the fourth (and presumably any more after that). Seems a little strange to me though, so I'm far from sure.

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I thought that was what he meant at first, but I think he's saying you have three mulligans for the tee shot, two for the second, one for the third and none for the fourth (and presumably any more after that). Seems a little strange to me though, so I'm far from sure.

Oh, maybe?