Less (Aggression) is More (GIR)
It is extremely difficult to not focus on outcome in a sport that is so incredibly outcome oriented. I went out to Lincoln today to plunk down my money and play 9 holes, more if the course was moving quickly. I figured that anyone interested in golf who had the free time would be watching Rocco & Tiger duke it out for the US Open championship, and I was right. I managed to play all 18 holes in 3 hours 7 minutes, a new personal record at Lincoln.
I tried to focus on feeling the swing and not being interested in the outcome, but had a hard time separating the two. I let my own doubts creep in on hold #4, and wound up taking an 8 because of a series of bad shots, and a little voice saying “last time you blew up on this hole” in the back of my head.
I was trying a new focus on approach shots, trying to focus on being aggressive and knowing that I could reach the green. It resulted in a lot of tension in my wrists and forearms that completely threw my swing off. 100 yards and in was my weak spot today, until the #17th hole where I nearly sank an approach off of a drive that hit trees.
I did find that being confident on putts, and visualizing picking the ball up out of the cup yielded good putts. And a little anger seems to help my putts. But I’ve been putting for far longer than I’ve been playing the rest of this game.
Still, I managed to put together a solid round, shot 97 and took one stroke off of my previous PB at Lincoln. This also marks two rounds in a row under 100, a first for me.
Relevant stats:
Fairways hit: 9
Greens in Regulation: 2
Ups & Downs: 1
Pars: 1
Putts: 38
Handicap before round: 33.1
Handicap after round: 32.6
June 20th, 2008 at 9:03 am
From what I see from your stats this could have been an even lower round…..Too many putts - goal should be 29-32 per round - more than 35 and you are really throwing away easy opportunities to lower your handicap. With a conservative 35 putts you shoot a 94.
Also with only 2x GIR, you should be getting more u/d’s in order to shave the strokes….now this can be a factor of how close your approach shots are to hitting greens. If you are in the 1-20 yd away range you need to make u/d’s at least 60-70% of the time - if approaches are farther than expectations can be lowered.
If you managed to get up and down just 2 more times in the round in addition to lowering the putts to 35 you would be looking at a 92.
Fairways are fine, and at Lincoln you don’t really need to be on the fairway to score anyhow
June 20th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Yeah, I had four 3-putts: get rid of them and I’m at 34 putts for the round, shooting a solid 93. Up and down just two more times, and I’m nearly breaking 90…
I need to start making more 1-putts. I had just two 1-putts. Same thing as up & down, I guess.