Hitting over the trees

[14ledo81]

Depends how great the risk is for me. Some shots there is hardly any risk at all to go over.

[LuciusWooding]

I answered sometimes.  If I know I can clear the tree with the height of my shot, I will.  I have hit quite a few shots over trees successfully.  I have used as low as a 6 iron from the rough.  I assume you are not talking about tee shots.

I do consider tee shots to be part of it, I did it both ways in my last couple rounds and it worked out very nicely overall. It might be obvious to many people that it's an option but it's one I seldom considered before recently. Sometimes you need to have some balls to walk into the next fairway and hit your ball as that can be embarrassing, but sometimes even that is better than the target they give you.

The thing I like most about this strategy is that all the holes with narrow openings on my course can become a lot easier to deal with, and I can hit more draws and pushes. One of the biggest hurdles in playing my home course, especially from the longer tees, is that the greens are tough to hit on a lot of holes unless you can both draw and fade a fair distance, since there's usually a lot of trees in play off the tee for one or the other. If I hit a high draw over the trees, it's like having 2 fairways to land in plus shortening the hole a lot. I can pick up 40-50 yards on some holes, and I'm playing a much less risky shot than trying to fade it because I can crush it as high and hard as I can as long as I don't make poor contact. And if I do miss my line a bit or get a squirrely fade I can usually still clear everything.

It's interesting though, more people are willing to try it than I expected. I guess it's easier with wedges but I still expected about half to be unwilling to do it.

[clutchshot]

Heck yes, under, over, around, I will try any shot. I'm always going for it and like to challenge the impossible over taking the smart shot.... Probably the reason my handicap isn't lower.

[MS256]

Funny thing today: There was a big strong guy in our group that could really smash the ball (and usually hit the fairways). The rest of his game was at or a little below average. One par 5 has a tree right in the middle of the fairway about 320 yards from the tee. He hit a good drive but directly behind the tree. The guy he was riding with asked him if he could hit a fade, to which he replied "No." Then he asked him if he could hit a draw, to which he relied "No." The he said he was just going to try to hit the ball right of the green. He pulled his shot directly at the tree and it went through a hole about the size of a five gallon bucket inches above a fork, never touched a single leaf, and went on the green. The other guy riding with him said, "You are luckier than a two peckered billy goat. You couldn't shoot a rifle through that tree without hitting it."

[Lihu]

Funny thing today: There was a big strong guy in our group that could really smash the ball (and usually hit the fairways). The rest of his game was at or a little below average.

One par 5 has a tree right in the middle of the fairway about 320 yards from the tee. He hit a good drive but directly behind the tree.

The guy he was riding with asked him if he could hit a fade, to which he replied "No." Then he asked him if he could hit a draw, to which he relied "No."

The he said he was just going to try to hit the ball right of the green. He pulled his shot directly at the tree and it went through a hole about the size of a five gallon bucket inches above a fork, never touched a single leaf, and went on the green.

The other guy riding with him said, "You are luckier than a two peckered billy goat. You couldn't shoot a rifle through that tree without hitting it."

At least he can hit a really really straight shot

I answered over the trees. I used to flip and as a result have this really high shot in my bag. If I don't blade it, I can usually hit short shots pretty high.

[MS256]

That he could! I played with him all day and never saw him hit a fade or draw (even accidentally). ;-) Just hard and straight. Sometimes a pull or a push but straight.