Bogey Golfers Only (Index 16-22) / Breaking 90 Topic

[Vinny Cap]

After a slow week at work and reading a lot of threads on breaking 90 I can say that on Sat I did just that.  I shot an 87!  This is my best score ever!  I usually shoot about a 93 for the most part... slow golfing season for me as I have only 8 rounds under my belt and 2 are from courses I have never played.  Yea, I shot a 100 at both of them.  Tough sometimes when you don't know the course.

So I went into Sat's round wanting to break 90.  I threw in another wedge so I would have all my short yardages covered, left the 5 wood at home as I have not hit it at all this year, and decided against hero shots, dumb shots and evaluating every shot for best/worse outcome to avoid the blow up holes.

Shot 44 going out and 43 coming in.  3 pars on the front, 3 pars and 1 bird on the back.  This was my first bird of the year.  Par 5, on it 3 and drained a 22 footer for bird.  I had 3 sandies and I was very proud of those up and downs.

I did get two bad breaks as the ball had bad bounces and went OB.  I took my medicine and the penalty strokes... kept my cool and played smart shots to minimize the damage.

My putting was spot on as I was within a foot on anything that I didn't get it.  Great day for driving, irons, wedges and putting.

I wont set my sights too high for next weekend but do plan to follow this game plan again and hope for similar results.

I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did this weekend.

[newtogolf]

2 hours ago, Vinny Cap said:

After a slow week at work and reading a lot of threads on breaking 90 I can say that on Sat I did just that.  I shot an 87!  This is my best score ever!  I usually shoot about a 93 for the most part... slow golfing season for me as I have only 8 rounds under my belt and 2 are from courses I have never played.  Yea, I shot a 100 at both of them.  Tough sometimes when you don't know the course.

So I went into Sat's round wanting to break 90.  I threw in another wedge so I would have all my short yardages covered, left the 5 wood at home as I have not hit it at all this year, and decided against hero shots, dumb shots and evaluating every shot for best/worse outcome to avoid the blow up holes.

Shot 44 going out and 43 coming in.  3 pars on the front, 3 pars and 1 bird on the back.  This was my first bird of the year.  Par 5, on it 3 and drained a 22 footer for bird.  I had 3 sandies and I was very proud of those up and downs.

I did get two bad breaks as the ball had bad bounces and went OB.  I took my medicine and the penalty strokes... kept my cool and played smart shots to minimize the damage.

My putting was spot on as I was within a foot on anything that I didn't get it.  Great day for driving, irons, wedges and putting.

I wont set my sights too high for next weekend but do plan to follow this game plan again and hope for similar results.

I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did this weekend.

Congrats!  It's a nice feeling to see an 8 in front of your score isn't it?

[Jeremie Boop]

I threw away an 88 yesterday because I missed 3 short putts one hand putting.... I didn't realize I was playing as well as I was until I looked at the cumulative score and I was like DAMNIT!! Rofl, oh well. That was with a few lost balls off the tee from pull hook drives.

[Vinny Cap]

19 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

Congrats!  It's a nice feeling to see an 8 in front of your score isn't it?

Thanks!  The best part is when you add the ones column and you don't have to carry a 1 over to the tens column... or as you said, having an 8 in front.

[rkim291968]

Combination of playing poorly, and my better scores coming off the system, my HI is trending at high 15s.   If I don't turn it around, I am likely get into my (this thread's) definition of a bogey golfer.   For that, I promised myself to increase indoor practice time.   

 

What's working now - 3w.  It got me two attempts at an eagle putt which I failed to make.  I birdied them both though.   I am making 1 or 2 looooong putts per round.   

What's not working - driver distance, accuracy, and consistency.   I will hit 260 yard drive followed by 160.  It's hard to rely on how far I'd hit.   I am pushing most of drives to right, sometimes too far right for OB.  

[cutchemist42]

http://www.gamegolf.com/player/cutchemist42/round/1037869

Well what a difference a new (to me) driver made. Got a FT-5 and first time ever hitting it, I can tell Im never going back to my R7.

3-putting 6 times cost me huge......I know LSW says to concentrate on fulll shots, but Im almost at the point where putting is costing me big.

Major screwup on 3 and 4 also cost me, different club selection maybe on the 2nd shots would have left me in better spots.

Edited July 12, 2016 by cutchemist42

[stealthhwk]

I can't believe it, but looks like I have the fundamentals to play golf. All the things I tried last week worked flawlessly. Played today and shot an 88!!! Finished par, par, birdie!!! Greens were aerated and the back nine was closed so had the front twice but I think it still counts. Im hitting my driver in the air and relatively straight and my iron game seems to be holding up. Wish I would have putted better today, needed 40 to get around the course. And thats about six more than my average but Im gonna :) and blame the aerated greens. First time Ive broke 90 this year! Woooohooooo!

[rkim291968]

13 hours ago, cutchemist42 said:

 

3-putting 6 times cost me huge......I know LSW says to concentrate on fulll shots, but Im almost at the point where putting is costing me big.

Ouch!  Poor putting is a low hanging fruit, something you can easily improve with minimum effort.  Improving it now will save you a lot of frustration for years to come.   

 

 

[CR McDivot]

1 hour ago, rkim291968 said:

Ouch!  Poor putting is a low hanging fruit, something you can easily improve with minimum effort.  Improving it now will save you a lot of frustration for years to come.   

 

 

Agreed!

I have been having a fairly good season this year. Improvements in fairways and greens hit have given me more sub 90 rounds than I have had since I was a teen (45 years ago).

However, three putts are holding me back!

Example - Today I shot 84, with 85% fairways and 40% GIR - no penalties!

Yet, I had 36 putts. 4 one putts (mostly from decent scrambling on near GIR). Unfortunately, 4 three putts, all on GIR's most of which could and should have been holed for bird or at least par.

So, my driving and approach shots are getting better, but to capitalize on this I got to kill the 3 jacks! 

[natureboy]

On 7/11/2016 at 11:25 AM, Vinny Cap said:

After a slow week at work and reading a lot of threads on breaking 90 I can say that on Sat I did just that.  I shot an 87!  This is my best score ever!

Congrats. How many drivers did you hit?

[RandallT]

21 hours ago, cutchemist42 said:

I know LSW says to concentrate on fulll shots, but Im almost at the point where putting is costing me big.

Yep, my understanding is that if you're spending more than 35% of your time on short game and putting combined, then those areas would need to be pretty significant weaknesses. 

But if you're happy with your assessment that putting is a huge weakness, then you gotta do what you gotta do. Nobody would fault you there. 

I took a brief look at your putting that round, and here are my thoughts (hope this helps your assessment).

1. IF we have all 8foot putts for a round, and we two-putt everything, we've lost 9 strokes to PGA players. A typical round for us, however, is an average of 17foot proximity. If we two-putt everything from these distances, we've lost only about 3.1 strokes. Big difference due to our average first putt range.
2. Your average proximity looked somewhat long to be honest. Nothing inside 10ft. You had 5 or 6 putts 30ft or longer. I'm guessing a proximity longer than 20ft. Therefore, if you'd two-putted them all, you'd have lost fewer than 3. But you had 40putts this day, so I'll add 4, and my guess is that you lost 6 or 7 strokes to PGA on those distances.

So my guess is that you lost a total of about 18 strokes to a PGA player that round (of which, 6 or 7 putting). All ballpark, but based on lots of experience running numbers against Broadie's information he published. This likely differs from what Game Golf tells you.

On top of that, I'd say that your putting inside 10ft is pretty good. You hit everything inside 5ft. You sunk a 5ft, 11ft, and 18ft putt. You missed only one 5ft, 8ft, and 9ft putt (not unreasonable). The rest were putts from 10ft and way beyond.

On this day, you left yourself long lag putts, and even though you hit an 11ft and 18ft putt, you left yourself a few long 2nd putts that hurt, like you said. 

So with that, it's up to each of us to decide if this is typical for us, and whether bumping our practice ratios can help. If you think this day is typical, then yes, about 1/3 of your strokes lost to pros are on the greens, and you can likely shave a couple of those back with some moderate effort to get your putting numbers back to where people in our skill level are (about 4 strokes lost to PGA players). 

In your case this one round, I think it's a simple matter of you putting 2 of the 5 long lag putts closer to a makable range. Do-able, I'd say.

That'll get you from a +16 on a day like this to +13 or +14. Then you're back in the range where putting is typical for our skill level, and it may be that the 65/20/15 ratios might be appropriate again.

Again, just my 2cents! You're not as far off on putting as you think (to me). 

 

18 hours ago, stealthhwk said:

First time Ive broke 90 this year! Woooohooooo!

Nice!

[Vinny Cap]

7 hours ago, natureboy said:

Congrats. How many drivers did you hit?

Thanks!

I was going to follow one thread I read about hitting irons off the tees and keeping the driver at home but I didn't.  I played it all day long with a nice smooth swing.  I didn't try to crush it at all.  I hit it 12 times and only missed 2 fairways.  One just off the fairway the other took a nasty bounce and went OB.  I did take my medicine (penalty strokes) and played on with a smart shot to get me back in play with a decent shot to limit the damage.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Vinny Cap

[cutchemist42]

2 hours ago, RandallT said:

Yep, my understanding is that if you're spending more than 35% of your time on short game and putting combined, then those areas would need to be pretty significant weaknesses. 

But if you're happy with your assessment that putting is a huge weakness, then you gotta do what you gotta do. Nobody would fault you there. 

I took a brief look at your putting that round, and here are my thoughts (hope this helps your assessment).

1. IF we have all 8foot putts for a round, and we two-putt everything, we've lost 9 strokes to PGA players. A typical round for us, however, is an average of 17foot proximity. If we two-putt everything from these distances, we've lost only about 3.1 strokes. Big difference due to our average first putt range.
2. Your average proximity looked somewhat long to be honest. Nothing inside 10ft. You had 5 or 6 putts 30ft or longer. I'm guessing a proximity longer than 20ft. Therefore, if you'd two-putted them all, you'd have lost fewer than 3. But you had 40putts this day, so I'll add 4, and my guess is that you lost 6 or 7 strokes to PGA on those distances.

So my guess is that you lost a total of about 18 strokes to a PGA player that round (of which, 6 or 7 putting). All ballpark, but based on lots of experience running numbers against Broadie's information he published. This likely differs from what Game Golf tells you.

On top of that, I'd say that your putting inside 10ft is pretty good. You hit everything inside 5ft. You sunk a 5ft, 11ft, and 18ft putt. You missed only one 5ft, 8ft, and 9ft putt (not unreasonable). The rest were putts from 10ft and way beyond.

On this day, you left yourself long lag putts, and even though you hit an 11ft and 18ft putt, you left yourself a few long 2nd putts that hurt, like you said. 

So with that, it's up to each of us to decide if this is typical for us, and whether bumping our practice ratios can help. If you think this day is typical, then yes, about 1/3 of your strokes lost to pros are on the greens, and you can likely shave a couple of those back with some moderate effort to get your putting numbers back to where people in our skill level are (about 4 strokes lost to PGA players). 

In your case this one round, I think it's a simple matter of you putting 2 of the 5 long lag putts closer to a makable range. Do-able, I'd say.

That'll get you from a +16 on a day like this to +13 or +14. Then you're back in the range where putting is typical for our skill level, and it may be that the 65/20/15 ratios might be appropriate again.

Again, just my 2cents! You're not as far off on putting as you think (to me). 

 

Nice!

Thanks for this post, it really helps. It helps to look at it that way, but I was still disappointed in a few things but should I be? Do you have the Broadie putt info?

-Hole3 was essentially a 4putt, as the fringe grass was very close to green quality. since I overshot it by double, I consider 4putting within 34ish feet to be bad.

-Thought the 3 putt on my hole15 was bad.

-Thought the 3putt on 16 was a complete misjudgement by me to overshoot the hole by that much.

-Hole17, 3putt within 21 feet is not great to me either.

So I guess what you're saying is that maybe the  Broadie info and what Gamegolf is saying about strokes gained when it comes to putting is different?

Once again, thanks for your post. Kinda sucks but this round likely gave me a hairline fracture in my forearm and Im not even a big hitter...

Edited July 13, 2016 by cutchemist42

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, Vinny Cap said:

Thanks!

I was going to follow one thread I read about hitting irons off the tees and keeping the driver at home but I didn't.  I played it all day long with a nice smooth swing.  I didn't try to crush it at all.  I hit it 12 times and only missed 2 fairways.  One just off the fairway the other took a nasty bounce and went OB.  I did take my medicine (penalty strokes) and played on with a smart shot to get me back in play with a decent shot to limit the damage.

Nice. Sounds like a good bogey round and with the OB you have potential to go lower.

[Vinny Cap]

12 minutes ago, natureboy said:

Nice. Sounds like a good bogey round and with the OB you have potential to go lower.

Thanks.  I had another bad bounce OB ball on a par three and did the same.  Take those penalty shots out and who knows how good it would have been.

I am going to follow the same formula of smart golf, no hero shots and grind out for bogey golf and hope to keep the scores dropping.

Like your name, are you a Rick Flair fan? Whooooooooo!

[RandallT]

2 hours ago, cutchemist42 said:

Thanks for this post, it really helps. It helps to look at it that way, but I was still disappointed in a few things but should I be? Do you have the Broadie putt info?

-Hole3 was essentially a 4putt, as the fringe grass was very close to green quality. since I overshot it by double, I consider 4putting within 34ish feet to be bad.

-Thought the 3 putt on my hole15 was bad.

-Thought the 3putt on 16 was a complete misjudgement by me to overshoot the hole by that much.

-Hole17, 3putt within 21 feet is not great to me either.

So I guess what you're saying is that maybe the  Broadie info and what Gamegolf is saying about strokes gained when it comes to putting is different?

Once again, thanks for your post. Kinda sucks but this round likely gave me a hairline fracture in my forearm and Im not even a big hitter...

Ok, I went ahead and filled out a strokes gained sheet for you. I made hole 3 a 4-putt (technically not, but I get that we could consider it for an analysis of the same skill).

On hole 17, the first putt shows 21ft was the length the first putt travelled, but you left it 8ft short from what I see visually. That's why I gave an initial putt of 29ft. If the initial putt was 21ft, then I can change that, obviously. But if you look at the GG visual, that would need to be changed there too.

Note to all: GAME GOLF shows lengths of shot TRAVEL distances. For putts, that can be confusing. To see the initial putt length, you have to look at the lengths and geometry of the remaining putts. Can get confusing.

Anyway, by making hole 3 a 4-putt, that put you to 7.2 strokes lost (my estimate of 6 to 7 lost wasn't too bad- since I considered that a 3-putt). You can see the strokes lost for each hole in the 2nd row. For the 3- and 4-putts you lost the most, obviously.

Does this help? I find this analysis more clear than the GAME GOLF strokes lost putting graph. It is a simple calculation against this chart: 

FYI: Your average proximity calculates to be about 24ft. From my experience doing these calculations for people, that is longer than a typical round that we bogey golfers have. With short game shots, we usually put a few near the hole, lowering the average proximity to 17ft.

In fact, I recall reading once that Broadie says that 17ft seems to be a magic number of sorts. Even as you get better, the average proximity stays around 17ft. You just get there with your long game, not your short game! Odd that it would work out like that.

[natureboy]

52 minutes ago, Vinny Cap said:

Like your name, are you a Rick Flair fan? Whooooooooo!

Nope. Don't enjoy wrestling.

[cutchemist42]

59 minutes ago, RandallT said:

Ok, I went ahead and filled out a strokes gained sheet for you. I made hole 3 a 4-putt (technically not, but I get that we could consider it for an analysis of the same skill).

On hole 17, the first putt shows 21ft was the length the first putt travelled, but you left it 8ft short from what I see visually. That's why I gave an initial putt of 29ft. If the initial putt was 21ft, then I can change that, obviously. But if you look at the GG visual, that would need to be changed there too.

Note to all: GAME GOLF shows lengths of shot TRAVEL distances. For putts, that can be confusing. To see the initial putt length, you have to look at the lengths and geometry of the remaining putts. Can get confusing.

Anyway, by making hole 3 a 4-putt, that put you to 7.2 strokes lost (my estimate of 6 to 7 lost wasn't too bad- since I considered that a 3-putt). You can see the strokes lost for each hole in the 2nd row. For the 3- and 4-putts you lost the most, obviously.

Does this help? I find this analysis more clear than the GAME GOLF strokes lost putting graph. It is a simple calculation against this chart: 

FYI: Your average proximity calculates to be about 24ft. From my experience doing these calculations for people, that is longer than a typical round that we bogey golfers have. With short game shots, we usually put a few near the hole, lowering the average proximity to 17ft.

In fact, I recall reading once that Broadie says that 17ft seems to be a magic number of sorts. Even as you get better, the average proximity stays around 17ft. You just get there with your long game, not your short game! Odd that it would work out like that.

This was really informative, thank you.