AMA Thread (@iacas)

[iacas]

3 hours ago, onthehunt526 said:

My question is, would you recommend someone to play low-event golf? I know in LSW you and Dave talk about shot zones and playing for the center of green and such. But how to you do that when you’re fighting a one-way miss?

Coincidentally, this article came out and lists a lot of what we say in LSW and so on. Scoring lower again involves:

• Not taking penalty shots.
• Not taking doubles or, when you get better, not making a bad bogey. (You're still going to make some bogeys.) Playing for pars and letting the birdies happen is tough for people to get.
• Understanding where to miss the ball and fitting the "better side" into your shot pattern/Shot Zone.

The last part answers your question of sorts: If you can develop a ball that only curves or misses one direction, that's a pattern. You can play a patterned Shot Zone much more easily than you can play a "fern" Shot Zone (where the shots have a root and then spread out in all directions from there, two dimensionally, like a fern). I'm not sure what "fighting" a one-way miss means - if the vast majority of your shots are, for example, missing left, either open the face to take off some of that left miss/curve or just aim right and play it. If there's trouble left, aim WAY right.

The smart-player's guide to dropping 10 shots — guaranteed

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Improving at golf doesn't require hours of range time. Recreational players just need to take advantage of the stat-based scoring opportunities out there.

 

 

[Carl3]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

The last part answers your question of sorts: If you can develop a ball that only curves or misses one direction, that's a pattern. You can play a patterned Shot Zone much more easily than you can play a "fern" Shot Zone

I have seen this by playing with some very unusual golfers over the years. Guys that have what most would consider poor swings, but they know where the ball will go. They have some sort of deep competitive nature or want to score so bad. It is like they can score from sheer will power. Some of it might be ignorance. They don't know what they don't know and just get the ball in the cup.

If they saw a video of their swing it might change their game/scores for the worse. I have seen a guy that would line up with body and shoulders maybe 30% to the right of the target line and consistently pull the shot maybe 10 degrees left of target. He would hit a lot of greens and was very competitive with his peers. Another hooded his club at address more than I have ever seen anybody. He would line up for a draw/hook that would be a low runner. He shot 2 over on the 9 holes we played. I worked so hard and concentrated so much to beat him by by one stroke. The most intense 9 holes ever for me. We were playing with 6 other of his regulars and they I know they all wanted him to beat me. I was not going to let the hunchback of Notre Dame beat me. (that is what he looked like in his set up and swing)

I knew another guy who had a beautiful set of clubs and had started playing 3 years before. Not an athlete by any means and well into middle age. He shot a 92 with the most consistent slice I have ever witnessed. He stayed right on my heels through most of the round. Don't remember him ever losing a ball. He knew the distances on his clubs and knew where the ball would land and how it would roll. He would line up on the tee well to the left and most tee shots would land in the fairway. Maybe 200 to 210 yards. From a mental perspective he seemed a little like Moe Norman.

If you tried to "straighten" out any of them with some instruction I would put money that they would never recover, LOL.

[gbogey]

Good article - I think the impact of point #1, awful drives, is often overlooked. Much more important to avoid par killing drives than to find the fairway at most courses. I question the range on point #4 - most amateur golfers should be focusing on 3-7 feet, not 3-10. The odds of making a 10 footer are too small but most of us can have realistic score improvements if we made more from 5-7 feet.

[iacas]

42 minutes ago, Carl3 said:

I have seen this by playing with some very unusual golfers over the years. Guys that have what most would consider poor swings, but they know where the ball will go. They have some sort of deep competitive nature or want to score so bad. It is like they can score from sheer will power. Some of it might be ignorance. They don't know what they don't know and just get the ball in the cup.

Golf isn't too tough (it's still hard, I'm saying relatively) when you know where the ball is going 95% of the time. The actual area may be pretty large, but if you know where it's going it's easy to aim.

42 minutes ago, Carl3 said:

Another hooded his club at address more than I have ever seen anybody.

You saw Vishal, no? 🙂

33 minutes ago, gbogey said:

Good article - I think the impact of point #1, awful drives, is often overlooked. Much more important to avoid par killing drives than to find the fairway at most courses.

We call them "good drives" in LSW. A good drive is one that goes about the normal distance you normally hit a drive, and is basically "between the ropes." Sometimes you get a bad lie, just as you sometimes get a great lie and line to the green when you hit it into the trees, but those even out. More good drives "between the ropes" lowers your score, especially with the rough we tend to play.

33 minutes ago, gbogey said:

I question the range on point #4 - most amateur golfers should be focusing on 3-7 feet, not 3-10. The odds of making a 10 footer are too small but most of us can have realistic score improvements if we made more from 5-7 feet.

Nah. 3-10 is fine. You should be over 30% from 10', and if you make it 5-7 feet you might have only one or two of those per round. Plus, working on your ten footers will help (though a bit less) your 12 footers, your 13 footers… etc.

[saevel25]

11 minutes ago, iacas said:

We call them "good drives" in LSW. A good drive is one that goes about the normal distance you normally hit a drive, and is basically "between the ropes." Sometimes you get a bad lie, just as you sometimes get a great lie and line to the green when you hit it into the trees, but those even out. More good drives "between the ropes" lowers your score, especially with the rough we tend to play

I can attest to this being important. If every one of my drives ends up in a position where I don't have to hit a fairway bunker shot, punch out, or is OB then I had a very good driving day. The typical rough is not that penalizing.