Play Like The Pros

[The Hacker]

Short game, no question. I can drive the ball as far as most tour players (not trying to brag, just saying - they hit it WAY straighter than I do). Yesterday and this evening, on several 310-370 yard par 4s, I drove between 2 and 25 yards from the green. I bogeyed probably half of those because I SUCK at chipping.

If I have a perfect lie with plenty of green to work with, I'm usually OK. But if I have to chip over sand and stop the ball on a short green or something like that, then I'm screwed.

I just recently started playing again after 3 or 4 years off, so I'm way out of practice. My full swing is starting to come back. I can always hit long, but not always straight. I'm getting mostly straight now after a couple weeks of practice. But chipping is a completely different story. Full swings are pretty much all the same. You just change clubs for different distance and swing the same. Once I get inside 100 yards though, I don't get to use that same swing. I have to try to guess how much swing to use to hit my target. It requires a ton of feel, and you just can't have that feel without a TON of practice.

I can put fairly well. I'll 3 put some, but not very often. I will often have 2 or 3 holes where I chip 3 times from within 50 yards. I'll have several where I'll chip twice. Either I leave it short or shoot it too long. Drives me freakin' crazy.

[Shanks A Million]

For those of you who say you can hit it as well as a tour player, are you serious? Have you seen these guys hitting it? You notice how the announcers say "oh, he missed this one badly to the left" when it's like 30 feet from the flag? Yeah, those are often blades they're hitting from 175 yards and expecting to hit within 10 feet or less.

I think some people need an honest reality check.

I also think you need to get some friends on the PGA tour and go play with them. Your eyes will be opened pretty quickly.

[The Hacker]

Just for the record, I never said that I hit it as "well" as tour players. I can hit it as far as they can, but they hit the ball consistently straighter than I could ever hope to. There are many times where hitting the ball long in the wrong direction is a really bad thing. LOL