Course Management: Fairways and greens
By Chris Wallace
One of the big reasons that golfers of all ability levels, and especially mid- and high-handicap players, don’t shoot better scores is that they tend to play too aggressively and ignore the percentages.
What’s more disconcerting, however, is that many of those same players don’t realize that they’re making such a mistake and believe instead that they’re playing the game the way it was meant to be played, or more accurately the way they see the game played on television by the best players in the world.
But the elite golfers on the planet play the percentages and play conservatively far more often than one might consider, especially when you factor in their talent levels.
And what it comes down to more often than not is the ability to hit fairways and greens, and the bottom line is that if you hit lots of fairways and greens, you’ll shoot more good scores far more often. Period.
So try this approach the next time you play and see what happens.
Pick a club off each tee that with a good shot will put you in the fairway at the 150-yard marker on each par-4 or par-5 that you play. That might mean driver, that might mean 3-wood, that might mean 4-iron. But do the math and make the 150-yard approach shot you goal.
From there, when playing into the green (and on all of the par-3s), forget that there’s a flag on the putting surface and just try to play your approach shot to the middle of the green.
If you do this, and it will take some discipline, you’ll hit more fairways, you’ll hit more greens, you’ll take pressure off of your overall game and you’ll ultimately post better scores.
And not only will you accomplish all of those things, you’ll also routinely beat your buddies who rip driver into the woods off every tee and go flag-hunting on every approach shot and end up short-siding themselves far too often.
So go conservative and play the percentages. You’ll be shocked at the results and what that approach will do for your game.