Quote:
Originally Posted by REDeYeS00
Porter_did you implement your own course management advice from a few days ago?
if you did, care to share how it went?
Definitely. In fact, I had nearly the exact same situation as this:
Quote:
Short par 4. I was only 115 out, but was on the right side of the fairway and hole was tucked behind an elevated trap. From my angle you couldn't safely hit it left of the pin, as it's another highly sloped right-to-left green. I stupidly went right at the pin, but missed by a foot and hit a downward slope that shot my ball all the way back and into the fescue. I could have easily purposefully hit a ball short of the green, and no matter where it ended up, would have had a chip up and decent shot at up and down.
A bit different in that the hole was left-center of the green, but from my angle to the right, I would have had to hit it over the corner of the trap and land in the PERFECT spot for it to catch the hill and roll near the cup; anything different rolls off the green to a difficult up and down. So I played it smart, purposefully hit it short of the green with a good leave, and got up and down.
My driver was on, so most course management decisions came down to something pretty simple: don't go right at the damn pin. Unless I was 60 yards in or closer, the goal was to "aim for the middle of the goal post," and the goal posts were set by the "safe shot" (that's a helpful visualization trick I learned from my pro). My irons miss is a push, so I orient with that in mind based on trouble left or right.
This is course-dependent, but I also thought a lot about club selection and how, at my course, it's almost always best to be short of the green. Up-and-downs at my course are generally much easier and straightforward if you're short.
I did pat myself on the back (but didn't deserve because the decision should have been easy) for one decision. I hit it long but pulled it left. "In theory" with my shot shape I could have hit it left of the giant tree between me and the green and faded it down towards the green. But there's a lot of junk in between, and not much room for error. So I took my lumps and pitched it down to 70 yards. Didn't get up and down so still bogeyed, but that's better than the double or worse that could have happened.