Short of the Green is Better?

[cutchemist42]

Read an article about amateurs hitting it short of the green as they misjudge their max distance. With a lot of greens having fairway conditions infront and rougher stuff behind the green, isnt it better to be short most times??

Really dumbed down example, but would someone be better with 50/50 split for short and long? Or something 75/25?

[Aguirre]

"Yes."

--Harvey Penick

[iacas]

Most greens also slope back to front.

At the same time, though, most hazards are in the front (bunkers, mostly).

[JonMA1]

I think it depends on the green, of course. But on the courses I play, the majority of holes would favor missing short.

58 minutes ago, cutchemist42 said:

Read an article about amateurs hitting it short of the green as they misjudge their max distance.

I hear or read this a lot and maybe I'm missing something. For the life of me, I can understand why anyone would regularly use their max distance - real or misjudged - to hit a green.

There's another possibility. Maybe missing short has less to do with a misplaced ego and more to do with the fact that we don't always hit the ball cleanly.

My opinion is that we play the club that will most likely get us to the center of the green with the assumption we are going to hit a clean shot... which is much different than assuming we're going to hit our max distance.

Another way of looking at it is just because we duff a 7i and it goes 110 yards, doesn't mean that 7i should become the club we pull the next time we're 110 yards out. 

[Marty2019]

The courses I play here in Jacksonville, it is much better to be short than long.   If you're long, you very often have to chip back downhill, or you're very often in the woods.  

On the courses I play, the greens never slope to the back.  They often slope to the front. So chipping is easier from short of the green than from over the green.

Plus, there is often a water hazard to the right or left of the green, and landing short, even if you hit a bad shot, a draw or a weak fade, will often land you in the fairway or the rough, where landing pin high and left or right will often land you in a hazard. 

So, where I play, short is almost always safe.  Long or left or right is often severe trouble.  When I say "short," I mean short of greenside bunkers.  Really solidly short.

Now that I think about it, if you're a bogey golfer or worse, down here there is a often a strong incentive to simply play short of the green on purpose and try to get up and down for par. 

Edited November 26, 2017 by Marty2019

[Papa Steve 55]

I don't think I like the swing thought that if I'm going to miss, miss short. Most bogey golfers are not going to get an up and down, that's why they are bogey golfers. From 130 and out, my swing thought is middle of the green. My home course is a big part of it, its a Cornish design and he seemed to favor false fronts. On many holes, if your short, you will be a lot shorter after the ball stops rolling back.

[JonMA1]

2 hours ago, Papa Steve 55 said:

I don't think I like the swing thought that if I'm going to miss, miss short.

I don't think anyone would advocate applying this to every hole. I think the thought is "if I'm going to miss, miss away from the trouble". That applies to trouble in any direction. On most holes, center of the green is smartest. But there are exceptions, IMO.

2 hours ago, Papa Steve 55 said:

Most bogey golfers are not going to get an up and down, that's why they are bogey golfers.

Right. But we will take a bogey over a double any day. Figuring out what shot or club will give us the best chance for par (or birdie) without putting ourselves in a double bogey situation is what strategy is all about. For high cappers, bogey isn't the end of the world.

It would be dumb for me to expect to land a 130 yard shot on a specific half of the green. That distance would call for a 9i of an 8i. Trouble in front means I pull the 8i knowing I have a better chance of hitting over the hazard while accepting possibility I might hit over the green. The desired result is a putt from the middle or back half of the green, but an acceptable result would be a short chip or long putt from behind the green.

On a different hole with trouble behind or on either side, THAT'S when I might tell myself better to miss short, and pull the 9i. The desired result is a putt from the front half or middle of the green but an acceptable result would be a short chip or long putt from off the front part of the green. 

[Shindig]

As has been said, depends on what's in front of the green.

There's a par-3 at a course I play sometimes.  That hole vexes me.  I hit short of the green last time I played, as there's no hazards short, just fairway.  Unfortunately, I had a sprinkler head between me and the pin and didn't know what to do.  One of these days, I'll find a way to practice the "putt from off the green over a sprinkler head" instead of relying on chipping over it (since my first chip landed on).

There's a hole on my home course that, for a while, I couldn't reliably hit my tee shot in such a position that I'd have a decent shot at the green except with a long wood.  There's a sharp drop-off from short left all the way around the left side (they since added a bunker, yay!) to the back right.   And right is another hole.  So I'd hit short and take my chances at up and down, often making 5.  I was fine with that.

In general, instead of relying on where the location is relative to to the pin, look at it for your chances to get up and down:  short grass, tall grass, sand, in that order.  Tie breaker is closer to the pin.

[Piz]

It is always better to be below the hole rather than above; whether that is long, short, left, or right.  A "good miss" is often more advantageous than finding the green.  There are a couple holes, on my rota, on which putting the ball out of bounds is a common occurrence and it is advisable to station a designated "goalie" on the low fringe.

[MarvChamp]

42 minutes ago, Shindig said:

As has been said, depends on what's in front of the green.

Right...If no trouble front, I generally will shoot for front of green yardage because MOST of the time my ball will release forward, depending on the club. Plus I am very comfortable with my chipping. I also think a back pin may take a bit more club but still short. I have only played one course last year where greens sloped to the back or back-side of the green. But I do remember that last tournament, in SC, I changed my usual because I was playing a high-spin ball into soft greens, a lot of them downhill. Interesting, thoughtful topic for me as a HHC. Thanks, -Marv

[Yukari]

11 hours ago, cutchemist42 said:

Read an article about amateurs hitting it short of the green as they misjudge their max distance. With a lot of greens having fairway conditions infront and rougher stuff behind the green, isnt it better to be short most times??

Really dumbed down example, but would someone be better with 50/50 split for short and long? Or something 75/25?

It's always better to be ON the green.

[Fourputt]

12 hours ago, cutchemist42 said:

Read an article about amateurs hitting it short of the green as they misjudge their max distance. With a lot of greens having fairway conditions infront and rougher stuff behind the green, isnt it better to be short most times??

Really dumbed down example, but would someone be better with 50/50 split for short and long? Or something 75/25?

I tend to agree that most of the courses I play will punish you more for being over the green, or even on the back edge, than they will for being short.  Obviously, that isn't an absolute, but it's the most common scenario.  I will always try to evaluate my chances when playing for the middle of the green, but when I have to favor the odds of being a little short with one club or a little long with another, I'll usually take the shorter one. 

That is a conscious decision, and it will certainly result in more misses being short that long, thus I fit right into the statistics for the typical amateur.  However I don't do that because I don't know or don't acknowledge my distances in the real world.  It's a tactical decision made at the point of playing for the green on each hole.

[iacas]

People seem to be overlooking the fact that most often bunkers are short of the green, and rarely long.

I'm not saying that completely changes the discussion, but if 20% of the time you're short you're in a bunker, it may very well change it.

[Lihu]

Almost every course I've played is better at the back. Not saying to fly the green, just aim long for the center hoping the worst miss is on the far fringe.

Also, most people miss short anyway.

Did anyone answering short in this thread read LSW?

Edited November 26, 2017 by Lihu

[billchao]

3 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

I think the thought is "if I'm going to miss, miss away from the trouble". That applies to trouble in any direction.

Yea I don't know how or why anybody would try to generalize something like this. It literally needs to be evaluated case-by-case.

[Fourputt]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

People seem to be overlooking the fact that most often bunkers are short of the green, and rarely long.

I'm not saying that completely changes the discussion, but if 20% of the time you're short you're in a bunker, it may very well change it.

I'm far less afraid of a greenside bunker than I am of trying to pitch up over a mound from the back, and then land the ball on a downslope where I could have trouble even keeping the ball in 2 putt range.  That said, I'm usually pretty good at avoiding bunkers while still keeping the ball from going off the back.

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

I'm far less afraid of a greenside bunker than I am of trying to pitch up over a mound from the back, and then land the ball on a downslope where I could have trouble even keeping the ball in 2 putt range.  That said, I'm usually pretty good at avoiding bunkers while still keeping the ball from going off the back.

You shouldn't be, not for the least reason that you seem to have conjured up one of the worst scenarios: you've not only got a mound over the back of the green, but you've conjured up a green so severely tilted and fast that you can't keep a ball within two-putt range!?!?!

Bunkers hurt the average golfer more than having a chip shot with a green stimping at 9 or 10 running at 2% away from them.

[JonMA1]

Here are example from my home course that work pretty well for this discussion. Yellow circles are center of the green with red circles intended target (illustrations are not to scale). Faded areas are lost balls or unplayable lies.

On hole 2, there is room to miss short while missing long results in a lost ball or unplayable lie - not just directly behind, but also because trouble starts to tighten left and right. In addition, it's an "easy" putt from in front of the green. I still think the 135 yard club is a better choice, but my <130 club would be an option - especially with a front hole location or on a windy day.

Hole 8 is a different story. Similar distance but no real safe miss. While there's room in front, there's also a bunker and no additional room left or right. Even though the shorter club would have a tighter shot zone, using a longer club to carry the bunker seems to be only option.