Random blow up holes

[Pablo68]

Good post there Wade.

The 100 yard in game is all about conquering the 4 inches between your ears. Building your concentration skills to put aside everything else and focus solely on the shot at hand to leave yourself in the best possible position to save par. Sometimes it seems so very difficult to do for everyone, including tour pros.

It brings to mind a couple Harvey Penick quotes I read years ago......

"Beware:

One of my University of Texas golfers was playing in a tournament in North Carolina. He won his first match handily.

He phoned me and said, "The guy I play tomorrow I can beat easily. He has a bad grip and also a bad swing."

My boy lost the next match.

"The lesson to be learned," I told my golfer later, "is don't be afraid of the player with a good grip and a bad swing. Don't be afraid of a player with a bad grip and a good swing. The player to beware of is the one with the bad grip and the bad swing. If he's reached your level, he has grooved his faults and knows how to score."

And another:

"It reminds me of a college match I saw. I had a good player named Billy Munn, who was matched against R. H. Sikes of Arkansas at the old Austin Country Club.

Billy hit every fairway and seventeen greens and shot 67. Sikes hit few fairways and maybe five greens. But Sikes shot 66 and beat Billy 1-up.

After the match I found Billy and said, "I'm very proud of you. You played a wonderful round of golf. But, Billy, don't ever think what you saw out there today was luck."

Sikes had a great short game, as he went on to prove on the professional tour."

When I first started playing golf years ago, tee to green I'd beat the brakes off my older brother but could never actually score lower than him. He was a great scrambler and only when I started putting in more time on my short game did I finally start beating him.

[wadesworld]

Originally Posted by Pablo68

Building your concentration skills to put aside everything else and focus solely on the shot at hand to leave yourself in the best possible position to save par.

I agree.  I think I take my short game too casually.  Often, it's just my desire to keep the pace of play going that causes the disasters.  I'll stand over a chip not feeling comfortable, but hit it anyway because I don't want to back away. Or I'll putt only having looked at it from behind the ball, and then as I walk down for my 5-foot comeback putt, I'll see the huge downhill I couldn't see from behind the ball.

I don't want to be a slow player, but I definitely plan on getting better at taking the necessary time to make sure I understand the situation and am comfortable before I execute the shot.

[Pablo68]

Well, taking the extra 30 seconds on those shots will save you more shots and thus be a push.

It's not about playing slower but being deliberate. It's something I struggle with each and every round. Get over my chip and skull it across the green because I got careless. If I'd have taken a few seconds to examine the lie and noted it was a downhill lie, I would have moved the ball back slightly and made my shoulders match the downhill slope.

It's the reason Jack was the greatest of all time. He simply cleared his mind and was very deliberate.

[Putridgasbag]

One of the things that has helped me try and eliminate the blow up hole is getting a number, for me it is 115, a smooth PW. When I get in trouble I first look at getting to the green or just short. If the odds are not good my next look is getting to this distance. I am better from 100 to 130 (W, PW, 9) than I am with the partial shots inside of 100. From the 115 range I save more pars and limit the damage to bogey way more often than I would trying to force something into the green.

[robrey85]

I need to learn this because I could have shot a 95 last week if I just turned my 3 blow up holes (8, 9, 10) into 6's. I mean, 6's is still a double bogey on all those holes but shit, at least I would have been under control AND broke a hundred! Haha. The advice on this thread will definitely help me out next time. I'm going to go back to my scorecard and examine those holes and replay every shot to see where I went wrong.

[MacDutch]

I think that every golfer high and low handicappers want to avoid blowup holes. The definition is different. Today I made a seven on a par5 and my third ball was pinhigh 8 yards left of the green. Normally I will be able to chip the ball and get a change for par. But I blew it. Same round hit my first ball on a par3 out of bounds, reloaded, on the green and two putts voor an other double. All together a round of too many mistakes and ended up scoring an 88.

But next day I will shoot a low 80 without those mistakes.

Maybe when you hit a ball out of bounce you want to compensate too much. A double or tripple is a good score when hitting OB.

The decision to use your driver must be made on 'what is to gain and what is to lose'. A lot of par5's you will not reach the green in two, so why hit your driver? Most people even take out the driver on a par4 of 275 yards. There is nothing to gain here....

So in the OP's case I think it comes down to coursemanagement to shoot lower scores (for sure when you are someone who can hit all the shots, which I doubt ).

[Strike One]

I just took up golf again after a long hiatus while raising my kids. It's been about 5 months now, and the game is slowly returning. I'm starting to get more pars, and the occasional birdie, but the "others" also plague me.

I had a typical "other" a couple of days ago. I hit a great drive to within about 80 yds of the green. I then proceeded to hit three thin wedges in a row, followed by a skulling across the green into the trap. Out of the trap in two, then three putted to finish off a classic train wreck.

I find when I hit a bad shot, I start analyzing my swing. Then it gets all too mental and I forget to concentrate on my next shot. This usually causes a second bad shot, which then kicks in the emotional component.

So, then I have both emotions and ego/intellect complaining to the body (which is perfectly capable of executing a fine shot without any input), before the third shot. All the noise ruins any chance of recovery, and it inevitably goes downhill from there.

I think we all have a slightly inflated mental image of the golfer we believe ourselves to be. When an inferior shot challenges that self image, we allow ourselves to indulge in destructive recriminations, as though mentally punishing ourselves is going to solve anything.

The obvious solution is to take a deep breath and go about lining up the next shot, but the human component is not so easily tamed. Once released, the demons take some time to get herded back into their cage. In the meantime golf becomes a four letter word.

[bplewis24]

Outlier blow-up holes can probably be limited by a couple things:

1) Course management.

2) Routine

Course management in this context just means knowing where the worst trouble is and adjusting your game plan on that hole accordingly.  Routine is just a reference to making sure that you're using the same setup/address and pre-shot routine for similar types of shots.

Neither of these will guarantee you won't have a blow up hole.  After all, almost all of us here are amateurs and mid-to-high 'cappers.  We are going to have some crappy swings throughout the course of a round.  We just have to do our best to ensure that those crappy swings result in a long par save attempt or a tough up-and-down for bogey, and not doubles and triples.

[Wisguy]

I've considered posting something like this, as the 2-4 blow-up holes are what kills my score frequently.

My blow-ups are typically of two varieties:  multiple tee-shots out of bounds or repeatedly sculling short pitches back and forth over the green followed up with a three-putt.

The problem with some of the advice here is that it doesn't seem to work for me.  I've played rounds where I consciously decided to play it safe, tee off on narrow holes with 3-wood, use a hybrid or an iron off the tee on short dogleg par-fours, chip out of the woods instead of trying to hit it through a gap between trees, aim for the middle of the green instead of the pin, hit away from hazards, etc.... It didn't work - my "safe" tee shots go just as far out of bounds as with my driver and my scores aren't any better.  I suspect that hitting a range once or twice a week would help significantly, as would a lesson on driving.

[johnclayton1982]

Quote:

So the next time you knock it in the woods or whatever, make your next shot one that gets the ball back into play, punch it out. No heroics. Play for bogey.

I don't think this is good advice.  Its not that you should play the safe shot every time, but the shot that gives you the best chance to score the highest on a percentage basis.  Sometimes the hero shot is the right play, even for a beginner.

I have three pieces of advice for the OP; these are things I've tried that have worked pretty good to eliminate blowup holes for me.

1.  Most important, get your wedge yardages down cold.  Most bad wedge shots come from deceleration due to uncertainty that you are going to overshoot the pin.  Know your yardage and know how far your wedges go so you can hit the ball hard every time you have a wedge in your hand.  The #1 mistake i see on big holes from bad players is the "nice and smooth" wedge that goes about 1/2 speed from their normal swing and gets chunked.  Know your SW goes 90 full out and when you are 90 hit it.  When you are 45 know that your 60* waist high backswing hit hard goes that far.  Most blowup holes come from wedge mistakes and most wedge mistakes come from decceleration due to uncertainty.  A Eureka moment in golf for me was about a year ago I went to TPC Louisiana to watch the PGA Tour and Kucher had a wedge from 45 yards.  He took a tiny backswing and swung as hard as he could.  They all played wedges like that unless in rough or short game - if they were hitting a wedge from the fairway they hit it *hard*.  Just my opinion.

2.  Try this drill at your local - I do it once a week in the twilight and it has really helped.  Play 9 with four balls per hole.  Drop the four balls at the 150 marker.  hit one over the green, one short, one left and one right.  Then get up and down from each spot.  You get +1 for each up and down.  If your iron doesn't go in the right spot (i.e. you tried to hit over but landed on) you don't get a point at all.  After you've done this 3-4 times, you start to really learn where its hard to get up and down from on your course and where its not.  Now you know where you can miss.  This information is very valuable.  For example, on #3 at my local course, there are trees on the right, and the chip out area is left of the green.  After hitting a tee shot too far right, you want to try a big cut to the green - a "hero shot" as you need to cut it about 20 yards; I've tried it 10 or 11 times and only done it once.  However, if you miss and it doesn't cut you are in the chipping area.  Trying the cut is fine because a miss is fine.  Learn where on your local you can miss by experimenting with different leaves.

3.  Develop a consistent driver miss.  Now I am no pro but personally in getting better this was more important than length or even being straight.  I disagree with people who tell beginners to put the driver away - its fine to hit driver.  Just miss in the same spot - take half the course away.  This is done through experimentation on the range.  I can tee the ball up high and forward and consistently miss by slicing - it almost never hooks.  The higher and more forward, the bigger the slice when I miss.  Doing this allows me to aim off the tee, usually in a diagonal across the fairway, so that I always miss to the right of my aim line.  Its so much easier to hit the driver when you have a really good idea where the miss is going.  It only takes 2-3 range trips to notice that if you tee it a certain way you miss in a certain way.  That is invaluable for cutting blowup holes.  If I can't afford to miss right, I don't hit driver.  If I can set it up so that a miss right is fine, I smash it.

4.  Go to the range and practice ballflights.  Most people on the range hit high arcing irons over and over.  When your at the range, pull your 3 iron and try to hit the ball 2 feet off the ground.  Its not that hard to hit a 200 yard shot out of the woods (it really isn't) if you try it at the range for 45 minutes.  Ball way back, weight left, flat left arm, really wide stance.  Experiment a little.  Just 30 minutes on the range can teach you how to smash line drives out of the woods that will immensely help you.

At the risk of sounding like i'm contradicting another thread, don't underestimate the power of slowing down and taking deep breathes.  Alot of people seem to go "on tilt" and just start hitting the ball over and over with very little break to their blowup holes.A preshot routine can be invaluable there, but thats the subject of another post.

I really don't like the play for bogey advice.  Play the best shot with confidence.  If you play for bogey and mess up you have a blow up hole right there- no margin for error.  "Course management" means just that - playing the most optimal risk/reward shot, even if its driver or whatever.  "Course management" is not a synonym for put the driver away and always chip out of trouble, but rather knowing where to miss on your particular course and planning your shots accordingly.  "Course management" does not mean "always play conservative" it means play the highest percentage shot, which sometimes *is* the hero shot.