"Lowest Score Wins" by Barzeski and Wedzik

[JonMA1]

I wanted to share a result from using the strategy of "advancing the ball as much as possible" that happened today.

The last hole of the 9 hole course I play is a 300 yard par 4 (yes, I hit from the geriatric middle tees). Besides hitting over a marsh from the tee, there's nothing particularly tricky about the hole. It's a straight but narrow fairway. If you miss it, you're in the creek on the left or woods on the right...very little margin of error and little to no chance for recovery with a hook or slice.

I'm not a very long hitter - average driver around 220, average 3 wood a bit over 200 off the tee. For the last 2 years, I've been using a 3 wood instead of the driver for this hole. I did this because I thought it was smart golf use a "safer" club even if you leave yourself with a longer approach.

Today, I decide to change it up. My 3 wood hasn't been real dependable this year anyway and I've been reading and re-reading LSW. I had made the decision to start going a bit more for the distance. The first time on hole 9 I hit the driver straight - maybe a tiny draw but for the most part right down the middle with a good roll. I leave myself 50 yards, using a pitching wedge for a bump and run (I think that's the term) I get close to the flag but I end up 3 putting. It sucks that I wasted an opportunity for par but I'll take a bogie. I didn't add my score for the first 9 but I know it's not bad.

I'm playing the 2nd time through and I know I'm on pace to have a good round. I get to hole 9 again and the thought runs through my head to play it safe even if it means another bogie. But I can't. I pull out the driver and hit another one right down the middle this time leaving myself a little over 60 yards. Playing the same half swing with the PW, the ball hits the fw just in front the of the green and rolls to within 10 ft of the flag. I 2-putt for par. Walk to the car, put my stuff away and add up my score. I beat my all-time best by 1 stroke. Probably wouldn't have happened had I played it safe.

Maybe this was an anomaly and 8 out of 10 times it doesn't work out. But I guarantee I will never leave myself a 60 yard or less approach shot on this hole by teeing off with a 3 wood or safer club.

[Hammer 4]

I wanted to share a result from using the strategy of "advancing the ball as much as possible" that happened today.

The last hole of the 9 hole course I play is a 300 yard par 4 (yes, I hit from the geriatric middle tees). Besides hitting over a marsh from the tee, there's nothing particularly tricky about the hole. It's a straight but narrow fairway. If you miss it, you're in the creek on the left or woods on the right...very little margin of error and little to no chance for recovery with a hook or slice.

I'm not a very long hitter - average driver around 220, average 3 wood a bit over 200 off the tee. For the last 2 years, I've been using a 3 wood instead of the driver for this hole. I did this because I thought it was smart golf use a "safer" club even if you leave yourself with a longer approach.

Today, I decide to change it up. My 3 wood hasn't been real dependable this year anyway and I've been reading and re-reading LSW. I had made the decision to start going a bit more for the distance. The first time on hole 9 I hit the driver straight - maybe a tiny draw but for the most part right down the middle with a good roll. I leave myself 50 yards, using a pitching wedge for a bump and run (I think that's the term) I get close to the flag but I end up 3 putting. It sucks that I wasted an opportunity for par but I'll take a bogie. I didn't add my score for the first 9 but I know it's not bad.

I'm playing the 2nd time through and I know I'm on pace to have a good round. I get to hole 9 again and the thought runs through my head to play it safe even if it means another bogie. But I can't. I pull out the driver and hit another one right down the middle this time leaving myself a little over 60 yards. Playing the same half swing with the PW, the ball hits the fw just in front the of the green and rolls to within 10 ft of the flag. I 2-putt for par. Walk to the car, put my stuff away and add up my score. I beat my all-time best by 1 stroke. Probably wouldn't have happened had I played it safe.

Maybe this was an anomaly and 8 out of 10 times it doesn't work out. But I guarantee I will never leave myself a 60 yard or less approach shot on this hole by teeing off with a 3 wood or safer club.

WTG dude...I'm sure you'll do even better as time goes on. Congratz on the lower scores..

[taxgolf]

The delivery costs to Holland are killing. So I can not give an opinion.

For me, I was always trying to hit a club as far as possible. And sometimes I did, and sometimes I didn't and ended up making a mess of the hole. Now, I do not focus as much as in distance, but more to where I leave my ball. Prefer a shorter drive, but in the fairway leaving me with a longer club, but a better/easier chance to proceed. Picking an i8 with a 3/4 swing instead of an i9 which I have to wack full. Do not know if it counts in this review.

[JonMA1]

WTG dude...I'm sure you'll do even better as time goes on. Congratz on the lower scores..

Thanks Greg.

[RFKFREAK]

Thanks Greg.

Pretty awesome.

[JonMA1]

It's been about a month since I read my copy and continue to browse through it. I don't know what it is exactly, but I've played my best golf in that month. Maybe it has me thinking just differently enough to show improvement???

Anyway, please let me know if this is not the right thread for this (and feel free to move if not).

I worked on changing the way I traditionally play a couple of problematic holes on Sunday and shot a good round. Here are a couple of par 4's I made changes to. The shot zones are not very scientifically calculated but this is what I've come up with simply based on what I think. The white shape indicates a playable shot.

On hole 9, I opted to use a longer club replacing my 3 wood with the driver. The reason being that my 3 wood has been less dependable and there didn't seem to be any added risk compared to the reward of being closer to the green (even though the green is somewhat forgiving). I bogied and parred this hole on Sunday.

Hole 4 is a pain in my neck. I normally use the 3 wood for this hole as well and decided to change by going down a club. It may be hard to tell from the image, but there's a bottleneck with hazards on either side. The fairway opens up before and after but because I can't carry the bottleneck with my driver, I opted to use my 5 wood (which I tend to hit as well as any club in my bag). Unfortunately, this green is a bit tougher than 9. Along with the bunkers in front, there's a crest in the middle of the green and a creek that runs not far behind it. A well-struck 5 wood will leave me with a short to mid-iron approach. I bogied and triple-bogied (penalty off the tee) this hole on Sunday but I still think using a 5 wood is the way to go. It's just a tough hole for me.

[iacas]

It's been about a month since I read my copy and continue to browse through it. I don't know what it is exactly, but I've played my best golf in that month. Maybe it has me thinking just differently enough to show improvement???

Anyway, please let me know if this is not the right thread for this (and feel free to move if not).

I like the decisions you've made. On the second, it's definitely the right play, IMO, given your current SZs.

The first could go either toward a 5W or the driver, depending on how punishing those trees are. If, when you are in them, you still have a great chance of getting a nGIR, then driver is the play. If they force chip-outs or penalty strokes, the 5W seems to give you a chance to get a nGIR each and every time.

[CarlSpackler]

In flight (re)reading material. =)

[boogielicious]

So I gave one of my signed hardcovers to a close friend who has always been a better player than me.  Last night, I asked him if he read it,  He said he did and joked that I was jinxing him.  He was right.  I beat him by three strokes in our league 9 hole round.

[cipher]

GIR for the year before reading LSW is 40%, average score 79.4.

GIR for the period after reading LSW is 51%, average score 78.0.  Over the past three 54 holes I am at 57% GIR. This includes a number of rounds where I was really struggling and could not even hit the driver.  I can't wait until I get the SV4 skill of driving working for me again!

[saevel25]

GIR for the year before reading LSW is 40%, average score 79.4.

GIR for the period after reading LSW is 51%, average score 78.0.  Over the past three 54 holes I am at 57% GIR. This includes a number of rounds where I was really struggling and could not even hit the driver.  I can't wait until I get the SV4 skill of driving working for me again!

I wish I kept my stats that well. I should really start doing so.

[mdl]

My copy came at the end of last week.  It's a pretty quick read (at the once through pace, there will be referencing for sure), but I haven't had a time get past the first part with lots of stuff I already know from being around here for years (you know, think analytically, question often accepted platitudes about what's important for scoring, basics of 5 keys, etc.).  Though even there I've gotten through, and really like, the description of the quantification method of SCOR and SV.  It's a great framework, with solid statistical basis, both for thinking about practice and course strategy.  What really is the cost/risk if one option gives you increased chances of less distance/GIR/whatever but also increased chances of X non-optimal condition for your next stroke.

Really interesting about how green side bunkers aren't very high SV because even pros average 2.6 strokes out of a green side bunker.  So basically if you can accomplish just getting onto the green ~100% of the time, even if you rarely get that close you'll average 2.9X strokes and will be losing less than a stroke a round even versus the average PGA pro unless your home course is crazy bunker heavy and you're in a bunker most of the time you miss the green (which of course might change the SV for you!).  I hadn't thought about it that way, but I've already found that to be true.  I'm no sniper from the bunker, but I'm much improved from bunkers versus 2-3 years ago, and though I'm expecting to take 3 shots to get down, and am bummed to be in it since I'm expecting to average less from near, but out, of the bunker, I don't hate or fear bunkers like I used to when I wasn't highly confident I could at least get the ball on the green in 1.

Lots of interesting and useful bits like that even in the intro part I've gotten through.  With not having a ton of time for dedicated practice right now I'm particularly excited about getting to the sections on game planning and decision making.  I feel like there's lots of course management and decision making stuff that could gain me strokes even with exactly the game I've got right now.  And I like the SCOR/SV framework for thinking about that.

I'm wondering though Erik if you guys don't have some sort of statistics factor or percentage of reasons for if and why 10+ handicaps lose their swings through out a round. That would definately be helpful....

I'd be interested in that.  Reminds me, I've been thinking for a while of trying to create some sort of bad hole recovery of streakiness metric.  Basically a way to give a single number that gives you some idea of whether you tend to have your bad holes randomly interspersed through the round (taking hole/course difficulty and your handicap into account), or are generally streaky, with more stretches than you'd expect by chance where you bang out pars or better or score particularly badly.  I'm particularly interested in bad hole recovery.  Like, are you way more likely than you should be of following a double or triple bogey with a streak of worse than average scores.

In your case @MattM ted to see your front back splits over the period you're talking about.  Are you sure it's not just been randomly bad recently?  I'm assuming you're in reasonable shape and don't feel like you're getting tired at the end of rounds.  As a 12 HC, you're going to have bad streaks in pretty much any round.  Even if your worse than par holes are randomly interspersed (taking hole difficulty into account), you'll have streaks of rounds where your bad holes are disproportionately in the back nine.  Over how many rounds are you more often worse on the back than you'd expect given the difficulty of back versus front?

[imsys0042]

I really credit it with improved play recently. The best concepts that I got from it were the following: 1 - when to aim at the center of the green and when to go for the flag. 2 - going for it more often coupled with advancing the ball as far as possible. For me this is generally off the tee. I had been laying back off a lot of tees leaving fuller wedges and high irons, but now I am hitting with longer clubs off the tee and getting as far as possibly safely. 3. - one thing about the book that struck me is the use stats. I am taking bad shots more in stride because statistically I know I am going hit them once in awhile, so I swing with more confidence knowing next time will be better. Very useful. I'm shooting in the 70s more and had my career round yesterday, 4 over par. 4 birdies.

[Hammer 4]

Played today. Followed as much of the LSW's instruction that I could recall, i.e. don't go flag hunting, ect. I would have played pretty decent, cept for my Lousey putting. Actually hit some good drives, on my best drive, I couldn't find my ball, I'm 99% sure the people in front of us picked up..Argh. Found out my estimate on my short irons was off. Par 3 123 yds. Hit my PW 10+ yds over the green.

Anyways, other than the poor chipping, and putting, I did pretty well considering this is only the 3rd time I've played since starting back in the game last Oct. I intend on playing much more, and practicing my putting..lol

Thanks to Erik and Dave for a great book.

[brood211]

Got my copy of the book. Very very good information on the gameplan.  Just one questions, I may have missed it in the book, but what does S.C.O.R. stand for and what do the values mean?

[iacas]

Got my copy of the book. Very very good information on the gameplan.  Just one questions, I may have missed it in the book, but what does S.C.O.R. stand for and what do the values mean?

Check out page xiii.

[TN94z]

I'll be ordering my copy this week.

[LuciusWooding]

Mine's on the way. Hopefully I can improve on the 1,000,072 I shot the other day.