Played pretty poor golf yesterday. Was a real hot day and just didn't have a good round.
Some things to work on at the range include:
- Hit driver off the tee, tee up lower, try and consistently hit 200 metres straight, doesn't have to be high and pretty just needs to be straight
- Lay up on longer par 4's, get there in 3 shots, also lay up on par 5's, get there in 4 shots, aim to at worst 3 putt and make double bogey
Longest par 5 is 516 metres: get there with 200 metre drive, 2 150 metre 7 irons, chip on
Longest par 4 is 403 metres: get there with 200 metre drive, 150 metre 7 iron, chip on
- On the harder par 3's (7, 16) don't be afraid to lay up, hit a 7/8 iron short, chip on, make a 4 or a 5 at worst
7 is 157 metres, 8 iron 130, chip on
16 is 164 metres, 7 iron 140, chip on
Some other thoughts.
I think it might be good to make a table of clubs I should be using off what tee and also generally where to aim.
1: Driver, aim left, keep it low
2: 7 iron, get it close to chip on
3: Driver, can really hit it left or right, try and keep it a bit more left
4: Driver, aim left, 2 150 metre 7 irons to the right away from water, making a 7 here is solid as green is also tricky
5: 7 iron, weird hole where there's a lot of trouble, safer play is probably play it safe off the tee
6: Driver, aim left, 100% get the ball left here, leaves you an easy 2 shots to get GIR and make a par
7: 7 iron, get it close to chip on
8: Driver, aim right, you don't need to be that long here, just be in play
9: Driver, aim left, just need to be in play, double is good here
10: Driver, aim right, you don't want to be on the left hand bunkers
11: 7 iron, short par 4, can basically go 7 iron 7 iron and be close to green
12: 8 iron, short par 3
13: Driver, pretty wide fairway, aim left, tricky green so putting is hard
14: Driver, aim left, you hit a big fade here and you're cooked
15: Driver, aim left, also a big fade here and you're cooked
16: 7 iron, long par 3, get it close to chip on
17: Driver, dog leg left, aim more right unless you want to take trees left on
18: Driver, aim left
You can see from that chart that the most integral shots to get right for me to score under 100 are as follows.
- Driver, hit 200 metres straight off tee
- 7 iron, hit 150 metres straight off tee
- Putter, always 2 putt
- Wedges, anything from 20 metres to 100 metres
- 7-9 iron off the deck
- 5 wood off deck (put this shot away for now until I purchase a better 5 wood)
- All other irons
That's the order of precedence I need to thinking about when I'm at the range.
It's probably a bit of a waste of time hitting a lot of 4/5/6 irons.
The other important thing to note here is that you need to try to lose less golf balls. You have more fun playing that way. The strategy mentioned above is playing it much safer but that's a good thing.