Course Management

[glk23]

Would like to hear people's opinions on the importance of improving your course management in order to lower your scores; especially with regards to mid-high hdcp players.
I play as a single mostly so get paired up with a lot of different people most of which have a higher cap than me. Also read a lot of posts here about equiptment and swing tips and while important, I see better course management as an easier and free way of lowering your scores.

For me in the last year, focusing on par 5's, short par 4's and not aiming at every pin has made a big difference. On par 5's most try and hit driver then FW as far as possible and try to pitch and putt. Since driver and FW can be tougher to hit for the higher caper this strategy often goes bad. Get some looks when I pull out an iron with the philosophy of getting somewhere between 100-130. My par 5 stats have gone down in the last year.

See a lot of driver on short par 4's and very little irons or hybrids. Most of the short par
4's I play (less than 300 yds.) require a well placed driver to be on or close. On one couse most think today is the day their driver carries the water that's 230 and still holds the green that is only 10-15 paces wide. Again get some looks when I pull out whatever irons gets me to my comfortable distance for the day.

Don't get me started with aiming at every pin. I spent so much time short sided last season thought I was going to lose it. Once my thoughts changed to "where do I want to miss" short side virtually disappeared and converted more up and downs.

Sorry so long, but I think a lot of people here could benefit in a fairly easy way to drop probably more than a few shots from their scores.

[out_in_30]

highly important. Course management is one of the hardest things to learn imo and i myself can still benefit from learning more, i think my course management skills are about a C+; i am trying to get to + index and i believe that my lack of course management skills is what is keeping me from breaking through to that. Its vital to know the strengths (and weaknesses)of ones game and to play to those strengths. for me it means leaving driver in the bag and hitting irons and 3 woods off tees. equipment never lowers scores because equipment doesnt fix swing faults. What lowers scores is getting around the golf course and keeping the ball in play.

[sean_miller]

1.) Keep the ball in play - hit something that gets you to the fattest part of the fairway or green.
2.) If you hit a bad shot, take your lumps. Never make a shot that could cost you more strokes or leave you in a worse position.
3.) But don't be afraid to attack the holes that suit your game - bogey, birdie is the same as two pars.

[soloredd]

For me, in the past month or so, I've been focusing on having a plan for each hole. When I get to the tee box, I don't hold a club in my hand, I survey the layout and look for hazards to avoid and where bailouts would be. Then I make a decision on what club to use. This has cut down on my default use of just grabbing the driver and hitting it out there. If my tee shot is wayward, I don't panic and instead I look for the play that will best set me up to succeed. I've hit a lot of punch 7 irons lately and have been surprised at how well that type of play has turned out.

[Blades4me]

IMO, course management is much more important and probably the most over looked, underrated and not used thing in golf. You should give yourself as many breaks as possible if you want to score well.

I rarely, if ever see hi hc'ers do much with course management. So congradulations to you sir, you are ahead of the game. The only ppl I see really trying to do course management are the ones who have decided to get at least somewhat serious about the game.

My favorite is the hi hc'ers who can't drive, hit their irons or chip/pitch b/c with them, its never them. Its something wrong with their equipment, lol, right. And course management, oh that is just too confusing, after all, they are trying to hit the ball like the pro's, so who wants to mess around with course management. Perish the thought that they would actually go to the tee with something other than their driver. (When I see guys going to the tee with their diver on a par 3 its all I can do from laughing, lol, sometimes I have to look away).

[TourSpoon]

To improve my course management, I bought a rangefinder. It has made it so much easier to find the end of fairways on doglegs, carry distances, etc. It has taken the guess work out and let me find the pet distance/club that I want. Also with the greens, I can shoot the bunker lips and know exactly how much distance I have between it and the pin. Sean also said to take your lumps, and I couldn't agree more. Make your bad whole a bogey, not a double or triple and you will see those scores go down.

[O.B. Right]

I play the same course all the time so I really have developed a strategy for playing that particular course. I just started playing this year and shoot in the low 50's for 9 holes (although I usually play hole by hole and only recently started to keep score). I would say my knowledge of the front nine gives me a 7-10 stroke advantage over the back nine, which I rarely play.

I would add that, as a rookie, I probably don't have good course management skills yet. .but I do always know what side of the fairway I'm aiming for, how far I'd like to hit to make the angle for the next shot and if I would rather miss long or short, etc.

[westcyderydin]

play with what you have that day...if youre hitting irons accurately, aim at more pins (still way the risk and all like if theres water or something), if your hitting your driver bad, tee off with a fairway wood or an iron.

also notice that most par 4s are reachable with a 4 iron and a 8 iron.

and when you are laying up, lay up to a distance you are comfortable from..dont just hit as far forward as you can if it is too risky of a shot (fading it around thru a gap of trees or something

[mrmiller8]

I don't think that there is many players out there who couldn't work on this. Avoiding the blow up whole becuase your dumba$$ is what kills my rounds. I try to play low percentage shots and it ends up screwing me. This is definately a learned trait and its something that everyone could use some work with.

[gilbo]

yea i when i first started playing, i had no sense of course management, but now, with me course management is an integral part of mine game.

[jlh1508]

I have been learning this. I juse to just play for fun, but being in a league has forced me to care more about my scores. In turn that has made me actually think about putting myself in position to remove double bogey as an option and make safe plays.

I think the three biggest things for me is

1. You don't always need to pound driver off the tee
2. On par 5's it is not just hit the longest club you can, I will go for it in 2 if I have a shot, but if not I leave my 3rd shot at a distance I am comfortable with, instead of in no man zone at 45 yards
3. Aiming at the flag is not always the best place to aim, sometimes it is good to miss smart

[gilbo]

  jlh1508 said:

I have been learning this. I juse to just play for fun, but being in a league has forced me to care more about my scores. In turn that has made me actually think about putting myself in position to remove double bogey as an option and make safe plays.

check

check check totally agree with all three

[jlh1508]

I had a good example of missing smart this morning.

My friend and I were within 5 yards of one another. Flag was in the middle back, and about 3 feet behind the flag the green dropped off to a 2nd tier. GPS was reading 135 to the middle and 150 to the back. So the flag was probably 140, and 143 or longer was danger.

I choose 9 iron, my 130-138 club. Knowing that being short of the flag was the smart play. My friend told me it wasn't enough club and to grab 8 iron and shoot at the flag. My 9 iron landed nicely and left me a 12 foot birdie putt, which i missed but I tapped in for par.

My friend took his 8 iron and aimed at the flag. His ball mark was pin high 3 feet left of the flag. His ball was 15 yards away on the fringe after rolling down the slope. He didn't get up and down and walked away with a bogey.

It is these types of things I have been trying to learn, and having an actual home course where I now know the pin placements and the greens, it has enabled me to make smarter choices

[Fourputt]

  glk23 said:

Would like to hear people's opinions on the importance of improving your course management in order to lower your scores; especially with regards to mid-high hdcp players.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm doing the same thing, particularly in competition play, and so far it seems to be working. It doesn't mean that I don't make mistakes, but when a shot goes wrong, I do what is necessary to minimize the impact on my score. I still hit driver off the tee when it's indicated, but when I fail to hit perfectly safely, I plan the next shot so that bogey is most likely the worst score I'll make. This sort of thinking has dropped my index from 13.2 to 11.7 in the last month, and it's won me low net in my flight in our Senior Club Championship, and gotten me into the semifinals of the master senior match play tournament. It had been a more than a year since I last finished in the money in any club tournament.

I still try riskier shots on practice rounds (not submitted for handicap), both to practice the shots, and to define the always changing parameters of what is "safe" versus "risky". That way if I'm faced with such a situation when the pressure is on, I already know pretty closely what my chances are of pulling off any given shot, and base my strategy on that and how badly I need to score. Sometimes my place in the competition will force me to take the more dangerous path, but it's good to know that I'm taking an informed risk, rather than just blasting away without any thought of the consequences. In my opinion, that is what course management is all about. It's not all about always taking the safe route. It's evaluating and weighing the risk against the reward and factoring in the necessity. How badly do I actually need any given shot to be a factor in the competition? Do my chances of pulling it off measure up against the need? The more I use this sort of thinking in my game, the better my scores seem to be.

[Dad-2-3]

I still have a very long ways to go in this aspect of the game, but this is probably one of the biggest reason for my 5 shot drop in handicap this season. Last year was the first golf season that I actually played more than 2-3 times and actually played seriously/practiced. When I hit a horrible tee shot I would attempt a "hero" shot that I had no chance of pulling off. This would usually end up in a worse spot than before resulting in another "hero" shot attempt. There were lots of triple and quadruple bogeys as a result. This year I will attempt a recovery shot only if it is within my abilities, which are pretty nill, so I punch it out or lay up.

Another lesson learned out of last year was the fairway was my friend. One particular hole at my home course comes to mind. A short"ish" 340 yard par four, but the fairway is only 45 yards wide and treelined. Half of the green is guarded front right by a large oak. Last year I would hit 5W (I didn't carry a driver last year) and try to put it close as possible to the green. Usually I was hitting a recovery shot under or over trees lining the fairway without a really legitimate chance at a par let alone a birdie. When I did hit the fairway I was too close to the tree guarding the green to use a wedge. Last evening I hit 5i in the FW, and 9i to the heart of the green. I missed the birdie putt, but made a tap in par.

Most high (I know I'm still in the high index category) index players don't think about anything but hitting it close as they can to the green. They are doing their scores a disservice IMO.

[CPT]

I always go after every pin back in earlier days and had my share of failures. When I got a bit better, I had to give points to most players in the group, so I couldn't really do that anymore. A lot of the times, I had to play safe.

I think course management is something in your second nature. You will have some methods of your own, depending on what type of games you usually play and also what kind of people you're playing with. When you know your swing well enough, you will have some ideas over the shot and what you should do not to lose strokes. For example, for me, if I'm more than 160 yards to the pin, I'd go to the fat part and try to make the putt.

[bwdial]

Course management is for sissies...







... and people who really want to score well.

This is probably the part of my game that's the strongest right now. Once I have a handle on my ball-striking and how far I hit each club, I think my scores will go down dramatically. About a month ago I played with a couple of high-handicappers, and I was the "go to" guy in regard to how shots should be played, and it was kind of neat to help people score better.

[newtogolf]

Is there a good book that helps you learn course management? I understand the basics from watching the smart players on tour, but I'm sure there's more to it. It's not a huge concern for my game now, as I have yet to establish any consistency with my clubs on a real course, but find it interesting and would like to read more about it.