Re: course management

Yardages are personal. Mine are not yours. However, for the player with an 80 MPH 5 iron swing speed, there will be about a 10 yard gap between your irons.

Also, your swing plays a huge part. A guy I play with fairly regularly now hits his driver just as far as I do (give or take 10 yards). But when it comes to his irons, he stands darn near 30 degrees open and can't understand why he's so inconsistent - or why I'm pulling 8 iron and he's between 6 and 5 - even with modern strong lofts on his clubs.

That said, as you play a course, once you get to the green, turn around and look at the tee box. You'll see where the safe landing areas are. Course architects are suckers for making holes look narrow by putting trees and bushes close near the tee box, but opening up the fairway (where you can't see) to the sides. A very good golfer I know said to walk a course backwards some day and you'll see all the places to hit. I did on my local course one evening - and he was right. It's much easier to hit shots knowing that if you miss one way there's room for it, or how far you have to go to cut an angle.

Re: course management

As lowpost says, there is no hard and fast rule for iron distance. Even the pros dont have similar distance on irons or drivers. I play with a guy who hits his driver about 170 yds, but can hit a 3 wood off the fairway about 210 yds. When he gets to pitching distance he can judge it to within 2 or 3 feet. The point I am making is that all individuals differ on distance probably due to a lot of differences such as general ability along with correct or incorrect set up, ball position etc. However. if you were to look at low handicap players off 4, or 5, you will probably find very close similarities with the distances they achieve, simply because they have good natural skills and apply the correct set up etc shot after shot.

Re: course management

Best to know the club's distance on the fly. Winter and Summer this will be different.

Course management is much like billards, ie, always planning for the next shot.

VP

Re: course management

For me, course management is all about margin for error.

Forget how long the hole is (par 3's excepted, I guess) and off the tee, pick the safest landing zone. To me, course management is all about giving yourself the best chance of not putting yourself in trouble, and giving yourself a makeable shot next.

Prime example of this is our 3rd. 430 yard par 4. Trees left and water right make up the 240+ landing zone. So many, day in day out, take driver and end up wet, or in the trees just because they're looking for the shorter shot into what is a pretty large green and accessible with the right choice of shot, regardless of the club.

I now never hit driver unless it's wind into the face. I've played 3 iron 4 iron and made birdie on this hole down wind. But usually I'll play a 3 wood/5 wood and have at least a 3 iron, if not a 5 wood into the green.

The green has big bunker front right and trees 10 yards right of that, so right is not good and leaves an extremely difficult up and down. Prevailing wind is off the left too so it's pushing you that way. So if it's a 5 wood from 220 then I start it at the small mounds on the left of the green and slide it in.

Lots to think about but that's two full shots early in the round on a tough par 4 that a) don't get me in trouble and b) boost the confidence a little.

Good course management is all about building confidence. The ol' "conservative strategy and cocky swing".

Re: course management

thanks everyone great tips..

Re: course management

My course management skill dramatically improved after I played "Hot Shots Golf 3." It's a cartoonish golf game for Playstation 2, but the gameplay and course management are pretty realistic. I learned how to evaluate risk/reward better.

The other thing that helped my course management was learning how to read the distance better. It's amazing how many strokes I lost because I didn't know how far the bunkers were in front of me.