Here’s an interesting scenario that will no doubt have happened to you many times on the course.
You’ve hit a nice drive, nicely positioned in the middle of the fairway, a great position in which to play your approach shot from.
Trouble is, you’ve landed right between clubs and now you’re undecided.
Do I take less club and hit it harder?
Do I take one more club and hit it easy?
Do I use the club I might use if I was ten yards further up the fairway and take a bit off of it?
So many questions.
As always when you’re playing this game, too many options for a shot leads to confusion, and confusion leads to doubt and doubt is the kiss of death for any shot you want to play.
Play a shot with doubt in your mind and it almost always ends in disaster.
As the old golfing saying goes “far better to be decisive and wrong than indecisive and correct”.
So let’s clear this up once and for all, here is some sage advice you can take to the golfing bank.
First of all, you have to decide where the ideal miss is. I.e. if you’re wrong, where is it ok to finish up?
For example, if the pin is cut towards the front of the green it will be ok to hit past the flag as there is plenty of green behind where the hole is cut.
If the pin is up towards the back of the green then it would be wise to err on the short side for reasons opposite to those just mentioned.
This starts to crystallise your thinking and many a time, just thinking like this will give you the answer to the question of which club to hit.
Something else you could use to help decide what club to hit when your right in between clubs is your ability level.
The better a player you are, the more clubface control you will have. If you have good swing technique, I would urge on the side of taking less club and hitting it harder as the extra speed will help stabilise the clubface through the hitting area but it also allows you to be fully committed and aggressive.
If you’re a higher handicap player who will generally possess less clubface control, I recommend the opposite. Take more club and swing easier, this will help you control the face better and hit straighter shots.
The reality of the game for higher handicappers is that you should be concerned more with direction rather than distance, the need to finish pin high is negligible.
Anyways, lesson for today over with.
Whilst on the subject of improving, “9 Ways to Lower Your Handicap & Shoot Your Best Round Ever”, has been responsible for losing many a stroke from a players scorecard.
If your looking to drop a few strokes then this little gem will shed those strokes faster than lies flow from politicians lips.
Play easy.
Bob James PGA