Course management to win or to play your best.

[MS256]

We changed some holes this year and made them MUCH tougher driving holes off of the tee. Since it's a tight course people on a couple of tee boxes and greens were always in danger of being hit by tee shots from another hole.

The course owner got the idea of making it OB down those sides of those holes with white stakes. The other side of those fairways were always OB and at the edge of the course property.

It worked to a degree but not completely. It now keeps people from cheating drastically to that side and I've noticed that most people are hitting less club off of the tee when they are just playing by themselves or in a friendly round (as the course owner hoped they would do).

Where it doesn't work is during group money games. Everybody is still hitting the driver and of course there are occasionally stray shots OB in the unwanted direction. One or two players tried the "smart" approach for a couple of weeks but soon figured out that if a whole group of people are going for it, and there is only one winner, somebody will likely pull off the tough shots and have a big leg up on winning the match.

The fact that some will fail and hit it OB doesn't help the "smart" player that made his par and shot a good score...And finished in second place to the one that gambled and pulled of the shots.

Personally I'm still on the fence. If I am really hitting my driver well I take the chance and if I'm not I don't. Over time my average scores would be better when laying up...But that means a lot of second place finishes (which I hate).

[MEfree]

I think it depends on how many are in the game and how close they are in skill.

I played pretty conservative in the Club Championship at Copper Creek this year because I (correctly) felt that if I played solid golf that I would win- I ended up making nothing worse than bogey for the 36 holes and won by 16 (which is more than I expected) with a 145 score.

In our 3 other individual 18 hole days prior to the Championship- winning one by 4 with 72 and the mystery 9 by 3 with an even par score.  I finished out of the money when I played poorly and shot 79 so I knew that I needed to play well, but not spectacular to win the Club Championship and felt that conservative golf gave me the best shot.

OTOH, in the two club scrambles that I played, I played more aggressive on some holes than I normally do- in some cases this resulted in easy birdies for our team on holes that I typically par playing conservative (but also resulted in me losing a few balls on other holes).

If I were playing in a skins game with 20+ guys, then I might also play more aggressive.

[hendog]

My answer doesn't seem to fit any of the available.

I would take a bit more chance in a personal round because that is the time to challenge myself. If I don't pull it off then my score may be a few strokes higher but I will have that experience under my belt. In a tournament or competition, I am focused on high percentage, smart plays that will give me a chance to win not challenging myself with difficult shots.

Basically when I play a competition, I play with the game I have at that time. In personal rounds I will push myself to get better and that sometimes means over reaching.