"Take Dead Aim"

[Patch]

From off the tee, and most of my approach shots, my dead aim is not necessarily my actual target. I look at a general area I want the ball to land in, that will give me a decent next shot. My major way of aiming is where the line though my shoulders is pointing, during my address, which is left of my intended landing area.  Now I may sometimes use an object to align my shoulders with, but my main focus is still landing the ball in a chosen area in the fairway.

On putts, and chips I do focus more on a precise target, which may, or may not be the cup, depending on how ball will roll. 

 

[rehmwa]

Driver....."only 12 to 14 times a round" 

This makes me smile.  If I typically score around 80, and of that putts are, say, 30 of them.  That leaves me with 50 swings.

If of those 50, I "only" hit drive 12 times, then that leaves 38 shots hit with all of the other 12 clubs combined........

 

Dead Aim - are we just meaning "Aim Small - Miss Small" - then I'm a big fan of it.

[mdl]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

The driver is the single most important club in the bag, @uitar9. It's surpassed only by "the irons" if you lump all the irons into "one club."

What about if lump the irons into the groups where they hit pretty much the same.  Say, long (3i-5i), mid (6i-8i), short/wedges (full swing 9i-SW)?  My guess is driver then still wins, as you hit it 10-14x/round and mistakes are generally much more penal with the driver than with mid or short irons, and you don't usually hit long irons 10-14x/round.

[DaveP043]

11 minutes ago, mdl said:

What about if lump the irons into the groups where they hit pretty much the same.  Say, long (3i-5i), mid (6i-8i), short/wedges (full swing 9i-SW)?  My guess is driver then still wins, as you hit it 10-14x/round and mistakes are generally much more penal with the driver than with mid or short irons, and you don't usually hit long irons 10-14x/round.

We're getting a little bit   with this part of the discussion, but I'm going to agree with this.  You hit more drivers than any other full-swing club (or groups of clubs), and mistakes with the driver generally have greater consequences than mistakes with the shorter full-swing clubs.  That said, if we want to continue talking about Most Important Clubs, we might want to start a separate thread.

[Hacker James]

refining taking dead aim to the shorter clubs, you can be more precise. Also it should not take as long to gain proficiency as most of the time, you are not taking a full swing and therefore it becomes easier to maintain control and have a more critical view of the target. As was stated by another poster, you can then have actually holing a chip as a goal or get close enough that a one putt is pretty much guaranteed. At the same time, more precision with driver can get you into a position of using the scoring clubs more effectively otherwise you really do not have much of a chance. This would strengthen the argument that more time should be spent on taking aim with the driver and fairway woods but not ignoring the others.

[DaveP043]

3 minutes ago, Hacker James said:

 As was stated by another poster, you can then have actually holing a chip as a goal or get close enough that a one putt is pretty much guaranteed. 

I agree almost completely with @Hacker James, but I look at chipping a little differently.  My "aim" with a chip is really focused on the spot I want the ball to land.  Sure, I visualize the trajectory, and the roll, all that in order to select a club and determine where I want it to land, but when it actually comes down to aiming, I'm looking only at the intended landing point.  

[Hacker James]

Just now, DaveP043 said:

I agree almost completely with @Hacker James, but I look at chipping a little differently.  My "aim" with a chip is really focused on the spot I want the ball to land.  Sure, I visualize the trajectory, and the roll, all that in order to select a club and determine where I want it to land, but when it actually comes down to aiming, I'm looking only at the intended landing point.  

those views are not mutually exclusive. You can certainly have the goal of holing a chip by focusing on the landing spot accounting for trajectory and roll out as a means of achievement.

[mdl]

11 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

I agree almost completely with @Hacker James, but I look at chipping a little differently.  My "aim" with a chip is really focused on the spot I want the ball to land.  Sure, I visualize the trajectory, and the roll, all that in order to select a club and determine where I want it to land, but when it actually comes down to aiming, I'm looking only at the intended landing point.  

 

8 minutes ago, Hacker James said:

those views are not mutually exclusive. You can certainly have the goal of holing a chip by focusing on the landing spot accounting for trajectory and roll out as a means of achievement.

Not only not mutually exclusive, but necessarily joined together.  The only way to try to hole every pitch/chip is to read the green, lie, layout, etc, choose a club and trajectory, know how that shot is likely to react on the green from a landing spot, and then pick a landing spot such that the roll out will hole out with the right speed to stop very close to the hole if you don't hole out.  And having your mental "dead aim" at at the hole when you know you need to land your shot 20 feet short and right of the hole seems to me obviously worse in terms of likely results.  

[Hacker James]

Specificity is crucial.

[DaveP043]

19 minutes ago, Hacker James said:

those views are not mutually exclusive. You can certainly have the goal of holing a chip by focusing on the landing spot accounting for trajectory and roll out as a means of achievement.

We're on the same page, I was just pointing out a difference between the goal and the aim.  This is analogous to what @Patch mentioned earlier, about aiming at the left edge of a fairway, with the goal of having his normal fade (or maybe normal push) end up in the fairway itself.

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, DaveP043 said:

We're on the same page, I was just pointing out a difference between the goal and the aim.  This is analogous to what @Patch mentioned earlier, about aiming at the left edge of a fairway, with the goal of having his normal fade (or maybe normal push) end up in the fairway itself.

I just read this again, and was reminded of my first visit to Ireland.  We were playing in really heavy winds, 30 and 40 mph with gusts even higher, the remnants of a hurricane that had come up[ the east cost of the USA and across the Gulf Stream to batter Ireland.  I remember saying that it felt like I was aiming at Canada, trying to land somewhere in Ireland.  And this is totally off topic, so I promise to stop.

[Blackjack Don]

On 2/15/2017 at 7:07 AM, iacas said:

If the drive is terrible, sure. But if the drive is just in a position where you're just scrambling a bit, that's where golf can be some of the most fun.

THAT'S where I want to be!!! 

I appreciate the tee shot being more than 20%. It's huge. For me, it's overwhelming, but I'm working diligently to improve. 

[uitar9]

On 2/15/2017 at 9:44 AM, rehmwa said:

Driver....."only 12 to 14 times a round" 

This makes me smile.  If I typically score around 80, and of that putts are, say, 30 of them.  That leaves me with 50 swings.

If of those 50, I "only" hit drive 12 times, then that leaves 38 shots hit with all of the other 12 clubs combined........

That was the point I was trying to make. Sorry for not saying what I was thinking more clearly. I have a 22 HCP. I often play a course where I hit driver 10 times. I will putt a few singles but worse case, thats 36 shots. Say an average 94 score, less 46 shots, thats 48 more shots. Yes, for the rest of all my clubs.

All I was getting at is that as a hacker I spent way more time flailing a driver on the range than the other clubs, and, I just flailed, no aiming . 

This winter I'm spending the majority of my time on those 48 shots, dead aiming on targets, the same targets to learning how to use those clubs, wedges and irons.

This coming season will determine if I'm wasting my time. Hopefully it will bale me out of the situations where driver fails me, which isn't as often as it used to be. and hopefully it puts me closer to the pin on the green.

As a hacker, I don't play driver , 60 degree, single putt for 3 on every hole.

I wasn't trying to start a mathematical debate. 

[mistermuhl]

You should ALWAYS take dead aim. With every shot you take. Aim small miss small. In baseball, your target as a pitcher isn't the glove. Your target is the "r" in Rawlings. Or a single rivet on his shin guard. Just like in golf. Your driver target should be that tree. Or that branch. Your iron target should be something similar. That chimney. Anything small and distinct.