Strokesaver in the bag

[Niall C]

When I play a course for the first time I always try and buy a strokesaver and ballmarker by way of a memento of the course. The quality of strokesavers can vary from the very basic or indeed plan on the back of the scorecard type to the more elaborate books you get with the better funded clubs. Mostly they are a nice souvenir but some of them make interesting reading.

However when I step onto the course, the strokesaver goes in the bag and gets forgotten about. Rarely do I have to refer to it and when I do it usually on newer courses and only then because I can't make sense of what the holes about or where the green is or whatever.

I appreciate that a golf hole needn't show all its secrets first off but would architects agree that what the hole is basically about should be self-explanatory without the aid of a course plan ?

Niall

[Mark_Rowlinson]

If I buy one I use it. I need all the help I can get!

[Mark Pearce]

I always buy one at a course I haven't played but I do use them.  Indeed, I'll take one from my collection to a course that I have played before, even if I know it well.

[Brent Hutto]

I find I don't refer to them very often on most courses but if possible I like to have one with me. When I'm traveling and visiting new courses I'm not all that concerned about specific yardage indications but I certainly want to know if there's a ditch over the the ridge that has to be laid up or carried or if I'm looking at a flagstick on the correct green. It's not unheard of on a links or heathland course to have an "obvious" direction of play that in fact is directed toward the green for some other hole.

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

It's not unheard of on a links or heathland course to have an "obvious" direction of play that in fact is directed toward the green for some other hole.

I hear ya Brent, back in '99 when I went over to Scotland the first time I was asked to go through a group of gentlemen in front of me at Panmure, almost immediately after I played off a tee box to the wrong fairway.  I didn't notice until I got to the green on the hole that I had played it before.  When I went backtracking to find where I had gotten off track I found myself behind those guys again who quickly waved me up.  They immediately said you took a wrong turn off of X tee didn't you?  And I admitted yes.  They said everyone one does that and asked if I would like to play with them.  Embarrassed I joined up with them and played in together the rest of the way.

Another time at another course I hit a tee shot from an elevated tee to what was obviously (I thought) my next fairway and absolutely hit it down the middle.  When I wound my way down and around through some dunes to the fairway I couldn't find my ball.  I was dumbfounded being absolutely certain I saw it finish in the middle of the fairway.  After wandering around in a daze a worker saw me and came over, after explaining the situation he said did you play from the top tee, I said yes.  He asked if I hit to the left or right of the fairways I could see.  And I said I only noticed one fairway.  After walking back to the tee I noticed that indeed you had two options about 45deg apart and I hadn't even noticed the other one.  Sure enough my ball was right in the middle of the fairway for a different hole.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I use them on courses that are new to me.  It help me understand where hazards are in relation to the tee shot or shots into the green.  Many of them also show the slope of the green, which I find helpful as well.

[Greg Tallman]

I can tell you very few people use them.

We provide one to each golfer and upon completion we probably recover 75% for future use.









Yes, from the carts.

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

I use them all the time.  Primarily for jotting notes about the hole on, observations as I walk along that I can refer back to later.  I thoroughly enjoyed having my one from last summer at Lytham & St. Annes in one hand with a beer in the other last weekend.  It was cool seeing places (bunkers) I had been shown on TV effecting play, and nuances I noted during my round visible (or sometimes not) on the HD coverage.

So I will almost always avail myself of one if available but probably more for notes after the shot than for grinding over pre shot.  It is nice to see if there is something hidden out there before your shot though from time to time.

[Tony_Muldoon]

I like them a lot for new courses and as a memory jogger.  Like Mark says it can be a real pleasure to dig the old one out a few days before a return visit. 

I do wonder if I use my eyes and brain less but...

The first time I played Deal there wasn't one available. I found it hard to pick lines on 2 & 3 & 6 and impossible on 5.  A few years later and I spoke to two friends on the 6th green who were both novices, again plying without one.  "Having fun?" I asked "No” came the reply. Later I discussed it with them and they admitted feeling clueless upto that point, and their mood was too far gone to be recovered.  This is something the long term members of a club forget and I think it’s important if you want people to return. I am always surprised when you ask for one and are told it’s being reprinted.  At a guess this happens about 5% of the time.

Some are better than others and it can be hard to identify distinguishing distance features on a links map.  Thankfully the practice of putting the fairway markers at distances that can only be determined by purchasing a “strokesaver” appears to be dying out.

 I will single out the new guide to the courses at Ballybunion as being particularly inept. The Cashen course must be one of the most bewildering in the world  to the first time player.  Yet
1 the Overview of the routing is printed on the back cover (a great idea) but being on one side only results in  numbering so small that my 50 year old eyes couldn’t make out the next hole! (I don’t bring reading glasses on the course).
2 The whole thing is printed so dark you can’t discern anything but the strongest feature.

I did spend some time spelling this out on a Customer Comment form they have. But despite asking for my contact details this has never been acknowledged. The really bad news is the Pro informed me that they’ve just had thousands of them printed up!

[Dan Herrmann]

What would Melvyn say? 

[Tony_Muldoon]

What would Melvyn say? 

Carts are the workof the Devil...the ball goes to far....

[Niall C]

Thanks all for responding. It looks like we all mostly use, or rather don't use, strokesavers the same way. However perhaps my OP was a bit misleading on the question I was trying to ask, what I was really getting at was if you are on a hole and you don't have an inkling which way the hole goes (as per Daryl's examples), or whether it dog-legs left or right, or where the green is hidden, such that you are forced to refer to the strokesaver, has the architect done a bad job ?

To give one example, perhaps not the best but I recall playing Cruden Bay on the long par 5 (14th) and having hit two pretty decent shots up the fairway, I couldn't see the green or the flagstick. I knew I must have been less than 100 yards away and had to go for a walk about to try and find it. It turns out that with the course being fairly dry and the green melding into the surrounds, and with the hole position being stuck behind the mound on the right. Perhaps not the best example.

Usually, even where everything isn't laid out in front of you there is some indication of where a hole goes, whether its the way the ground falls, the shape of the fairway, the bunkering (eg Simpson's lighthouses) or the simple expedient of a marker post. Usually there's something that helps you intuitively work it out. In the absence of those signs, either by design or neglect, has the architect done a bad job ?

Niall

ps. anyone notice that when they play a course for the first time, they play better, as they engage the brain more ?

[Jeff Tang]

I like the strokesaver and when I get them I do use them.  They are also a good way to remember the course if it's one you haven't played in a while.  As for the question as to if the architect did a bad job if you need to refer to one to determine the way to play the hole I would think that it's almost the opposite for me.  I don't think the optimal line of play should necessarily be obvious from the first play.  I think courses that reveal themselves after repeated plays are the most interesting. The holes I find myself needing to refer to the strokesaver for are often times the most interesting holes to me.

[Wayne_Kozun]

TOC would be an obvious example of what Jeff just described.

[David Davis]

I always try to get a stroke saver or if it's a great classic course and they have caddies both. I can think of one round I played at NSW near Sydney where they were out of strokesavers and had no caddies available. It's a course that helps to know the way or have some guidance as there are a few blind shots. One of which I think the 2nd or 3rd hole if memory serves me was blind shot over a dune with a hard dogleg left, ha ha a bit tricky if you are playing blind. I can imagine Royal County Down would be impossible without a stroke saver or a caddie as well. In answering the question, no I don't think that means the architect did a bad job at all but I do think that if the course is interested in having guests (some are not) then it should be important to them to have a good guide or at least the option of caddies or even a clear routing map sign on the tees.

[Duncan Cheslett]

Where the lay-out is confusing or there are multiple blind drives I find a Strokesaver invaluable on a first visit. I spent a week at Tenby earlier this year and there is a course which scores on both counts! Playing alone early in the morning I must have played to half a dozen 'wrong' fairways or greens on my first round. The Strokesaver I bought at lunchtime made everything fall into place.

If only a Strokesaver had been available at Sherwood Forest this week I might have had an inkling how far the carry was over heather to the invisible fairway, or where bunkers were lurking unseen.