p1n9183

76 (4 over | 71,2) on Sunday. Really Good ball striking and chipping, but 5 three-putters ruined my round.

Solid round last saturday. 72 (even) on my home course (71,2 rating, wind 11 m/h, 12°C, really soft fairway´s avg distance 250 all carry). 9 par´s in the front. 6 par´s in the back, 2 birdies on 10th and 16th and a Dbogey on the 18th. Hit water with my driver, 4 iron to the side green bunker, no sand save. 8/14 FIR, 13 GIR. 4/5 up and down, 30 putts (no 3 putts). Better course management and fade/slice shots for more control from tee to green it´s paying of, drop 1 stroke in average for the last 15 rounds, from 4,5 over to 3,5 over.

71 (1 under) on saturday to win fourball match play final on my home course. 14 gir. 3 birdies. 1 ball in the hazard. 78 (6 over)on sunday. Very cold and windy day. Play good but end the round bogey.par.bogey.DBogey.

After 10 years of inactivity i re-start playing this year. started with 4 index, now i´m 1. Im tunning up my game to compite on September in the Argentina Mid Amateur Championship. 3 days stroke play, my objective is to break 80 each round an finish between the best half of players. (Eg. Top 30 of 60 players.) Good luck in your tournament and post your results !

5 over at the last course of the TW 2012 (Agusta edition) 5 Straigth days rainng result in all courses closed for the weekeed. Fortunately the sun comes up again and i will play friday, saturday and sunday at my home course.

On Saturday Played matchplay semifinals of my home course in pairs with handicap. We played with 3 strokes and they with 8 strokes so we gave them 3 strokes. We where 4 under in the front 9. I was playing avg golf (2 over) and my partner where in a bad day. In the back i just focus on making pars and force the other team to make pars to win the match. Amazingly in the back 9 we shoot 1 under (i shoot even par) and we won 7 hole ´s (loose one) to end up winning 2 UP on the 18th. Next Saturday is the gran finale. Shoot 74 (2 over) On Sunday played stroke play at my home course with winds of 25 miles an hour. My regular drive in winter carries in average 250 yards, that day againt the wind i only could reach 200 yards with roll ! With the wind the carry went to 290 yards. Hit an 8 Iron punch down against the wind from 80 yards to the middle of the green (tha was after hitting a normal PW from 80 yards and getting short of the of the green by 10 yards). It was crazy !! Shoot 82, with lots of 3 putts because of the wind. Rigth to left putts break rigth because of a left to right wind, same thing with uphill putts with the wind. Good ball striking with 9 GIR, no penalty´s. Wind gust´s over 30 miles an hour where difficult to handle.

2 weeks ago I bought a new set of irons, the last one where 15 years old so i didn´t know how far i would hit my 9 iron with the new ones. With the last ones i hitted 140 yards with the 9 iron. Here in Argentina I think trackman exist but if it does it´s really expensive to purchase for and hour to check distances. So i went to the course on and try to figure my distances through the round. The result was that i end up shot of my target most of the time and a few short of the green, never miss in the back. I think there is no worst feeling than hitting a really good iron rigth to the flag and ending way short because of bad club selection. Next day i open and excel and start writting down every hole, with distance intended to shot, iron selection and the result distance. well the result was not good at all. In average i hit 9 yards less than i spected. Thats exactly one club less on each hole. That would not be a problem, to solve it I just need to club up. But that´s not the case, some shot pass the hole 5 yards so if i club up there i´ll be off the green too. What worries me the most is that my deeph dispersion was 30 yards long, from -25 yards short of my target to 5 yards past my target. Im a pretty good striker, my misses regulary are rigth or left not long/short of the green. So there was something that i was missing. That´s when i realised i was not taking into account other factors than distance and wind for my club selection. After online reseach i gather more factors and add them to my excel and how they will afect the distance in yards. With that i could see cleary that my club selection was really poor. I group the factors in categories. Ball Factors: Lie (Tee, fairway, flyer, sand, rough..etc) Ground (Dry, normal, wet) Slope (Sidehill,uphill,downhill) Air factors: Wind speed and direction Temperature Height over sea Green Factors: Height Roll Then i set average yardage of impact on every item... for example.. in ball factors: Lie: A tee up ball on a Par 3 will make in average better contact strokes so i´ll need to hit 5 yards less, so Tee = -5. Fairway is the best lie no efect takes 0 yards. Flyer lies will add distance to a shot so a have to hit 5 yards less, so -5. Sand or rough depending on the length of grass/sand deeph i will reduce distance so i have to hit more, so you have to decide how much, from +5 to infinite. At my home course the worst rough will take 20 yards of a shot. So deep rought will be +20, light rough will be +5.. average rough will be +10. Did the same with the other factors, a mix of online research and 15 years of experience playing golf. Now a real example of that round: Hole 5, 145 yards to the hole (to the middle of the green). I was against the wind but it was a little breeze, no more than 5 yards. So what i did then ?? My 8 iron hits 150 yards so was the rigth club to hit to reach my inteded 145 yards. Hit a decent shot and i end up 15 yards shorter into the bunker. What happened? well, didn´t take into account the other factor´s. Lie was ok in the fairway (0). Slope was flat (0). As i said wind was against (+5). Height over sea, im´practically 1 to 5 meters over the sea so no effect (0) Green Heigth was at the same heigth as me (0) and the green are really soft so the ball stops right away even with a 4 iron with the wind, so no roll (0). At that point of the analisis every thing was OK, the count was +5. 145+5=150, it´s 8 iron!. But now let take into account the last 2 factors: Ball Factors - Ground: the day before rains a lot so the ground was way too soft and the club takes a lot of divot in every shot reducing club speed so the math in there told me that this will reduce my distance in 5 yards so i need to hit 5 more yards. 145 yards + 5 (wind) + 5 (wet ground) = 155 yards Air Factor - Temperature: I measured my distances in december when i started to play again and it was summer with 30 to 40 degrees Celsius ( 86 to 104 Fahrenheit) so the ball flew more. That morning after the rain it was really cold 10°C (50°F). As i read ball flying will reduce 2 yards with a drop of 10°F, so 50°F was arround 5 times that gap so 10 yards less. So temporature = +10. So the final numbers are: 145 yards + 5 (wind) + 5 (wet ground) + 10 Temperature = 165 yards to reach my intended spot in the middle of the green. Now i know why i hit it decent with my 8i (150 yards) but leave it 15 yards shorter into the bunker. Instead i yould hit a 7 iron (160 yards) o 6 iron(170 yards) to be closer to my target, maybe a soft 6 iron. The numbers that day were: Average distance related to target(ADRT): -9 yards Longer miss(LM): +5 yards Shorter miss(SM): -25 yards Deep dispersion(DD): 30 yards. Miss average Ratio(MAR): 10 yards Last weekend applyed this analisis before every shot for 2 rounds and the result where really encouraging. Here I compare the 3 rounds Item 1St 2nd 3er ADRT -9 1 -1 LM 5 15 10 SM -25 -10 -10 DD 30 25 20 MAR 10 3 4 ADRT tells me that my shots now average my intended yards, some longer and some shorter. LM/SM how far o short my worst shot was. DD is important because I norrowed my gap from 30 yards to 20. MAR is very important because my average yards from my target in deeph reduces from 10 to 3,5. Thats 6,5 yards closer to the hole in deeph in average. If i hit it right to the ping I´m going to be in average 3,5 yards away of it, thats 10 feet over the 10 yards (30 feet). If i hit it 10 yards left or rigth i´ll be (using math) 10,6 yards to the hole (31 feet) (missing 3,5deeph X 10width) witch is closer than 14 yards (42 feet) (missing 10deeph X 10width) I hit my irons good all three days´s but the result were better the last 2 day´s. In the first round I shoot a 76 with 10 GIR, in the second shoot a 72 with 12 GIR and the last one shoot 74 with 14 GIR(poor putting). All missed greens where left or right, knowing that i could miss +-10 yards away frmo my intended target i always aimed +10 from the front of the green or -10 from the back of it. My greens are 20 to 30 yards deep so i aimed to the middle of the green or 5 yards away from it if the flag were in the front or in the back. That garanteed me to hit the green at least in deeph. Left or rigth missed could happend. Hope this help you hit more greens and make better club selections.

Stroke play last June 5th. Borring round 76. 14 pars, 4 bogeys. Reach front green in 3 Par 5 but chipped very short. First time playing with my brand new Irons (Titleist 716 Ap1). Really nice clubs, leave my old ping isi at home for good. This weekend played a 2 day fourball tournament at my home course too. I´d pair up with a guy i didn´t know. We shoot 144 (Even) and 138 net finishing 3rd making the cut to play quarter finals. My individual score for the 2 rounds was 146 (+2), played well.

Crappy rainny weekend. No golf for me. Purchased a new set of Titleist Ap1 4-W and i´m really ansious to play with them. Just hit a bucket of 50 balls to try them out, pretty nice feel. After 15 years my old ping ISI will rest in peace.

Shot 39-34 =73 ( +1 ) today. 4 over after 8th, good comback 3 under par till the end of the round.

An statistical approach to the question. HomeCourse: Back Tees 6550 Yards, really open course, the wind and greens are the primary defense. Considering Tour Driving average distance of 290 yards to a Safe Spot in the fairway. Avg 1st shot on Par 3 = 170 Yards (Shots Spected= 3,02 - 3 = 0,02 ) X 4 Avg 2nd Shot on Par 4 = 90 Yards (Shots Spected= 2,78 - 3 = -0,22 ) X 10 Avg 2nd Shot on Par 5 = 230 Yards (Shots Spected= 3,39 - 4 = -0,61) X 4 Score Par 3= 0,08 + Score Par 4= -2,2 + Score Par 5 = -2,64 Average Score= -4,76 (Par 72): 67,24 So i vote for the option : 65-70. Note: they will fire in average 67,24 but some good day´s they will fire near low 60´s and not good day´s they will fire arround low 70´s.

Be thankfull if you where allow to play this week ! Im ill, resting in bed for the 5th day now. Last night i also get burn with boiling water, hand, leg and knee. So painfull. Hope that i can play again next week.

First post here. But a 69(34-35) feels greate. Par 72 (71,2 rating). 4 birdies, 1 bogey. 16 GIR. Still to beat my life record 5 under made in 2000, happy to be back on track.

Agreed with everything, but dont undestand why aiming at the flag will leave me with a lot fewer ball in the green if the normal dispersion is bigger than the green width (or dispersion diagonal) ? Aiming at the middle will leave you (just as an example) 60% ball in the green, 20% rigth in the bunker and 20% left in the rough. Aiming left to avoid bunker will leave you 60% at the green and 40% at the rough. Aiming rigth towards the flag will leave you 60% balls in the green and 40% in the bunker. So the 3 options leaves you with 60% shots in the green.

I know the SZ has to be general, it´s a concept. Each player has to mesure it to know their own more precisly like i did. All i said work for me of course, it´s the final goal of the analysis! that´s the idea. but i could work for someone else to, i just encourage not to just aim at the middle of the green like i used to do because I read it or was told to, give it little more thought to it and know when is better and when is not. Totally agre with the 100 yards / 50 yards matter. In general (PGA stats) is better a shot from the bunker 15 yards away (the bunker next to the hole in the picture) average : 2,46 strokes than a shot from the other side of the green int the rough 25 yards way from the ping average : 2,64 strokes. One´s again that´s a generall stat and for the pro, most mortal amateurs are worst from the bunker than the rough and it would be better staying out of the bunker at all cost as you said. But the one´s that are decent from the sand like pro or scratch amateurs benefist from that skill and prefer (based on stats) landing the ball on the sand close to the flag than lading it farther away in the rough. By the way im´not an awsome buker player but im´s worst from 20+ yards shots even in the fairway so for me is better been as close as i can from the flag to increse my chance for and up and down.

I agree with the shot zone shape for a rigth handed player on average. But not for everyone. I have more distance control than direction. I miss a lot more left/rigth than short/long that´s why my shot zone is wider but not too deep. Also always hits fade shot to avoid hitting left misses way to long and rigth misses way to short, not even 1 single straight or draw shot) In the first 2 pictures my landing area past the hole (aiming at the hole) still be in the green or right/left of it. And in the picture with the bunker I really prefer beeing in the sand trap near the hole than on the other side on the rough with twice the distance to the hole. Don´t get we wrong, not saying you are wrong, just that i try to do the best for my game. I i think it´s ok if you think you prefer avoid been on the sand if you think it´s worst than been left in the rough. About my math approach it´s obviusly not perfect, is just a simulation to see from that point of view where i should aim in some scenarios at my golf course. I could get more accurate if i add more detailed information as slopes, short with little green space to work with, deep rough, non-linear dispersion.. etc. But that´s not the point at all, and thats a lot of work too, in the course i have to decide my shot zone without the math.. so it give me tips based on data that where is better for me an where´s not. About aiming to not to miss the green... It´s just what I felt not speeking generally, when i aimed for the midddle of the green my subconsient is trying to not to miss the green. aim big miss big. But when i aimed at the flag subconsisnt aimed to not to miss the flag. Aim small, miss mal. It´s a defect in me that i cannot focus in the middle of the as q target, and star thinking not missing the green, when i aim at the flag, despite i know i can easily miss the green im more focus on getting it closer to the flag. Hate the mental game..

I think a lot of people thinks that aiming at the center of the green is safer that aiming at a flag in the right side (as an example). But no always is the case. If you have a 20 yards wide green and the flag is 5 yards from the rigth edge and your shot dispersion is 15 yards left/rigth. Aiming for the middle of the green will place your shot zone from 5 yards miss green left and 5 yards miss green rigth. Thats an average of 10 yards out of the green inside the shot zone and 20 yards of green. thats 66% of chances of hitting that green. But if you im for the flag you still have 66% chances of hitting that green!! Why? thats because your shoot dispersion will still include the 20 yards of the green and 10 yards rigth of it. 0 yards to the left. That´s 10 yardas out of the green and 20 yards in the green. Same 66% but aiming at the ping. the benefith is that your shot pattern is centered in the flag so the average distance to flag will be shorter. Played at my golf course on sathurday hitting a nice 3 under par. (4 birdies / 1 bogey / 1 chip-in / 15 GIR). Aiming at every flag except i consider that a missing shot in the shot zone will lead to a d-bogey or worst (OB or water hazard). Felt grate aiming for a small target and not aiming for not to miss the green, dispersion was pretty narrow.

Nobody said we aim to miss. We always aims at a target. It could be the flag, the center of the green, a safe zone or every where we want. What we said y that you have to take in cosiderations the sourrounding of the target. Avoiding pensalty hazards or week spot for our skills when we miss a shot. Even the pro know they miss a lot of shots during a round and not always go for the flag. They just pick their targets carefully and try to hit it there whereever it is. Phil was one of the pro that always aimed for the flag, but no majors wons until he changes his mentality and start playing smarter shots.

Exactly thats the beauty off the tool! I take the numbers from the pga averages and twist them a bit to fix my skills. obviously are worst than the pga average but not that much since my handicap is 2 and my strong suit is the short game

Real example of hole Nr2 of my home course using my tool witch calculate every posible outcome of an approach shot. The shot is from 160 yards. (See the image below) Aiming just 1 yard pass the middle with a dispersion of 17 yards left/rigth (total 34) and 5 yards long/short (total 10). GIR= 64%. Shots average distance= 15 Yards (385 differents locations of ball landing) Score average = 0,36. Aiming 6 yards before the middle of the green. Dispersion drop to 16 yards because of a shot 7 yards shorter. Same 5 yards long/short. GIR= 48% Shots average distance = 9,8 Yards (363 landing locations due to lower dispersion) Score average = 0,26. It´s not a mathematical excersize, it a shot i have to deal for real. Like i said before, not always more % GIR means better score. Imagine what happens if the fat part is more in the back, the scoring avg will be worst in the back because of the increase of the average distance to ping. Applying this i can aim for the best spot on every hole to cut strokes at the end of the day. References: Red Dot is the aiming Spot. Black Dot is the flag. Cells with margins are part of the Shot Zone dispersion.

Patch, we all have good days and bad days. The shot dispersion take´s into account our worst shots so when is not our day we still manage the ball to the safe zones we define. Example.. Par 4 OB left. Shot Dispersion 10% over 250 yards. so 25 yards left or rigth. So you have to aim 25 yards rigth from the OB, that could be rigth part of the fairway or sometime a bunker rigth even rough, everything is better than hitting it into OB. You always have to play with that dispersion, even in a good day when you are hitting it between 5% of dispersion, thats because you never know when things are going wrong by hitting a 8..9% shot miss into OB or water. So neither if you are playing the round of your life or the worst when you get near an OB/water use your full shot dispersion and avoid surprises.

Jajaja, that´s true ! Obviusly it all depens in the player skills. Agree with the maths but hey ! 0,10 less per hole it´s 1,8 strokes per round just aiming better ! And it´s more than that for me because of my good short game and bad lag putts.

Hi Saevel! thanks for you reply and suggestion of the book. I disagree with you that you have to encompass the most green as possible and take away all the hazards when it come to sand traps. (OB and Water i completly agree) Sometimes a Shot Zone with 100% of chances of GIR is worst than a ShotZone with 80% of chances of GIR but significanty closer average distance to the hole having just average rough or sand for the up & down. Example- A green with a fat back part and a norrow front part. If the pin is in the front it is better on average to shot to the front part of the green and challenge the narrow part leaving you with short putts for birdie and 5-15 yards ups and downs than aiming at the back fat part and leave you long 30-75 footers putts all the time. More over if you can´t hit the fat part of the green 100% of the time you´ll be leaving you with long 15-30 yards up and down too.

Note: Apologize for my english.. Hi all, here is my method to decide where i yould aim in an approach shot based on my shot dispersion to minimize the average score for a hole in the long-term. Let assume we are on a Par 3, 100 Yards long to the middle of the green. To simplify the explanation let´s assume we hit the Sand Wedge always exactly 100 yards all the time so we can focus in 1 dimension only (left/rigth misses). Now im going to describe a hole with easy referencies. Each letter represent 5 yard of the element . References: G green, F Fairway, S Sand, R Rough, W Water, O OB, H Hole. Hole: RRRRR SS GGHGG F RRRRR So the flag is in the middle of the green, we have 10 yards of green left and 10 yards of green to the rigth. In the left there´s a bunker 10 yards width, and after that just rough. In the rigth we have no bunker, just 5 yards of fairway and rough beyond that. The green is 25 yards width. Where do you aim? well this is an easy one, i assume all of you would aim for the center of the green towards the flag. me too! but why ? Well i know that the dispersion of my shots are abount 10%. What´s this? Is how much i can miss a shot either to the left or rigth. So if i have like this shot 100 yards to the green i can either miss rigth or left a maximum of 10 yards (10% of 100 yards). So if i aim for the flag (H leter) and miss 10 yards left or rigth i will still hit the green both ways. Lets say i play this hole 100 times, 20 times i will miss 10 yards rigth, 20 times i will miss 5 yards rigth, 20 will go around the hole, 20 will miss 5 yards left and 20 will mis 10 yards to the left. This is because yo never know where the ball is going to go. You just can know how far you can miss rigth or left in your worst shot and work with it. (this is asumming equal dispersion) Now let´s apply some numbers, let´s use the average scores the pro does from an specific distance and lie. Let´s say that the balls witch lands in the hole area are on average 2,5 yards to the hole, thats 7,5 feet. From that distance a pro average 1,48 putts. The ones 5 Yards away have an average of 15 feet and 1,79 putts. The ones 10 yards away (30 feet) average 1,98 putts. So we have 40 balls landing 30 feet away, 40 balls landing 15 feet away and 20 landing just 7,5 feet around the hole. We sum up each score per ball and divide ir by 100. (20*1,48 + 40*1,79 + 40*1,98)/100 = 1,8. 1,8 is the average score for all the ball shot to that green, let add the approach shot aand our average for that Par 3 is 2,8. (in this 1 dimensional world) What if im 50 yards to the hole ? my dispersion drops now to 5 yards (10% of 50 yards). 33 balls will end 5 yards left from the flag, 34 will end up around the hole and the other 33 will end up 5 yards rigth. Same math as before: (66*1,79+34*1,48)/100 = 1,68. Now our average from that distance is 2,68 shots. What happens if we aim 5 yards left to the flag?? 33 balls will land 10 yards left, 34 will land 5 yards left and 33 will land arround the hole. Same numbers... (33*1,98+34*1,79+33*1,48)/100 = 1,75 ! yes, our average raises from 2,68 to 2,75 with the same green, flag and distance. To make the numbers easier, as we are hitting 33 balls per letter, let just shot one to each one. The formula of the last hole will be like this. (1,98+1,79+1,48)/3 = 1,75 What happens if the flag is 5 yards left to the middle of the green from 100 yards (10 yards dispersion)?? let´s see the hole: Hole: RRRRR SS GHGGG F RRRRR Now where do you aim ??? Some will say they aim for the flag, some will say aim at the middle of the green. Let try hitting towards the flag. We have 1 ball landing near the ping, 1 landing 5 yards rigth, 1 landing 10 yards rigth, 1 landing 5 yards left and 1 landing 10 yards left. All the analised balls landed in the green but this last one landed in the sand. Same method, a pro from 10 yards to the pin and with a lie of sand scores 2,39 shots. let´s make the numbers.. (2,39+1,79+1,48+1,79+1,98)/5 = 1,89 (2,89)--> Witch is higher than the 2,8 score calculated with the flag in the middle of the green. Yes, generally as the flag is farther from the middle of the green the hole get´s harder. Let now hit it to the middle of the green. 1 wil land 5 yards left, 1 near, 1 5 yard rigth, 1 10 yards rigth and 1 15 yards rigth. A pro from 15 yards / 45 feet scores 2,09. Same formula: (1,79+1,48+1,79+1,98+2,09)/5 = 1,83 (2,83). In this case aiming to the middle of the green (2,83) is better than aimning to the flag (2,89). It´s 0,06 shots better per hole, multiply that by 18 and just aiming a little better will reduce 1,08 shots per round in this easy scenario. Away from the numbers, what we do is to try to hit the green with all our balls avoiding shots that in average are harder to score than a ball in the green. In this case we prefer aim a little rigth and accept to putt from 15 yards if we miss rigth and making our worst left miss still hit the green avoiding the sand trap. This is easy math to understand our chances in a hole a where do we should aim for better score in the long term, but I just talk about an easy shot, with a green with just a bunker an plenty of green to be safe with every shoot. (Moreover i´m just appying this approach on 1 dimension (left/right miss), it´s get harder when we analise 2 dimensions (left/rigth and long/short misses combined)) What happens if i hit the same green from 200 yards ? What if the green is thinner?? what if is guarded by Water hazard or OB or both ??? What if the green is huge ? when is better to layup?? where to aim in any other scenario you can imagine ?? Well there´s a lot to talk about if you want to, i´m open for questions or dabate. Abrazo de Gol! (Goal hug)

Hi all! my first post here. I`m a strategy fanatic. Handicap 4. Next month i`ll be 2 :) I made the analisis of both scenarios. Going for it forces me to hit mi driver (270 yards). Obviously i want to reduce the % of hitting it into the water so i need to aim rigth, but how much ? well i know the dispersion of my driver so i have to aim to the rigth of the green. My worst left miss will no rich the water. my worst miss to the rigth will be on the short grass of the other hole. Short miss will be safe almost all the time. Long maybe will reach the tree but near the green.. it would be no problem to hit the green. Same thing if i miss slight rigth to the threes. (See Strategy pic) Lay it up force me to hit my 5 iron 190 yards to the middle of the farway, leaving 60 yards to the pin (My strong suit). My 5 iron dispersion will leave all my balls in the fairway. From 60 yards my shot dispersion leaves water out of ecuation leaving me a putt inside 30 feet for birdie. (See Strategy2 pic) So what should i do ??? Well i think it deppends. Maybe the rigth choise is to feel the moment. Im confident with my driver that day ? If I hitting my driver all over the place maybe Strategy2 is better. If not maybe going for it is better. But not always, because most of the time my 2nd shoot is going to be a chip/pitch.. im doing ok with them that day ?? Ok, to sum up. let`s say that is not my day i will lay up, easy par and chance por birdie. If not i`ll go 4 it. Bye!