Who Among You Is Qualified To Evaulate The "Ground Game"?

[JESII]

I think the intelligant golfer that pays attention is criteria enough.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I am qualified to evaluate the ground game because I refuse to carry a lob wedge! (true story)

Also, I've caddied for just about every type of player:
- the 60+ year old women who cant get her 5-wood 5 ft off the ground
- average member who putts from 40 yards on a parkland course
- scratch player who putts with a hybrid from the rough
- the player who wont stop reaching for the lob wedge!

[Ken Moum]

John,

This is a very cool topic.  I think it's apparent that FOR THE MOST PART, American golfers are scared of the ground game.  They don't know how to play it.  It must be a product of experience.

Where I play, zoysia fairway and approaches are omnipresent, and they make it almost impossible to bounce a ball on the green. Unless it's scalped, the stuff is like velcro, and you can't even putt decently from more than a foot or so off the green.

If there's ANY slope on an approach, zoysia gobbles up speed so quickly that you have to hammer it, then if it bounces a tiny bit too high, it runs way past the hole.

The kide who grow up playing on it have no clue what to do with a tight lie, and the throw every pitch shot on the green rather than take a chance on the bounce.

I hate the stuff.

K

[Carl Rogers]

We are all qualified to evaluate our own games ... but that is the problem.  Is not it self evident that observation of many types of golfers under varying conditions, cold, wet, dry & hot ... wind from multiple directions ... varying pin positions, the game has too many variations and possibilities.

[Bill_McBride]

John,

This is a very cool topic.  I think it's apparent that FOR THE MOST PART, American golfers are scared of the ground game.  They don't know how to play it.  It must be a product of experience.

Where I play, zoysia fairway and approaches are omnipresent, and they make it almost impossible to bounce a ball on the green. Unless it's scalped, the stuff is like velcro, and you can't even putt decently from more than a foot or so off the green.

If there's ANY slope on an approach, zoysia gobbles up speed so quickly that you have to hammer it, then if it bounces a tiny bit too high, it runs way past the hole.

The kide who grow up playing on it have no clue what to do with a tight lie, and the throw every pitch shot on the green rather than take a chance on the bounce.

I hate the stuff.

K

I've only played on it at East Lake, on a rainy day.  You can imagine how I feel about it.  Have you played much on kikuyu?  It makes zoyzia look like The Old Course. 

[John Kirk]

I was away from my computer all day.  Thanks for all the responses.  George Pazin is correct that the third criteria is not inclusive enough.

How about I change it to:

3.  The player with ample experience playing in the wind or on firm turf.

[Sean_A]

John

I don't have a clue who is "qualified" to eval the ground game, but I suspect anybody and everybody, however, some opinions are worth more than others.

I would point out that there is the ground game and there is the ground game. Playing on a non-irrigated course is another world altogether from the bog standard UK f&f conditions and then down to the US bog standard f&f conditions. I realize that the non-irrigated course doesn't meet Tom P's idea of the IMM, but it does offer what golf should be about, the seasons and weather dictating how the game is played on any given day. Its on these courses which we find the real kings of f&f and these are the guys I would listen to first and foremost.

Ciao

[TEPaul]

"I realize that the non-irrigated course doesn't meet Tom P's idea of the IMM,"


You do? Where did you come to that realization? 

[Sean_A]

"I realize that the non-irrigated course doesn't meet Tom P's idea of the IMM,"


You do? Where did you come to that realization? 

Tom

I seem to recall you had some sort of ideal amount of roll in your theory and from memory, it was nowhere near the roll achievable on a course without watered fairways in the summer. 

Ciao 

[Carl Nichols]

I am, because I have a brain.  I disagree that you need experience or skill to be able to *evaluate* the ground game; you just need to be reasonably perceptive and/or imaginative.  I do think you need experience and/or skill to be able to *execute* the ground game.

But if experience is necessary, I grew up playing a muni in Connecticut where many holes (but not all) got rock hard in the summer, so we had to learn how to account for huge bounces and rollouts.  But because it wasn't an incredibly windy site, that was still a different kind of ground game than you'd play in Ireland or Scotland -- we'd just play the same aerial shots but to targets 20-40 yards short of where we'd want to end up.   

[Guy Nicholson]

I think the intelligant golfer that pays attention is criteria enough.

+1 to the above.

[Bob_Huntley]

I think I am qualified as I am old and short but on the other hand Neil Regan is young and long. However we both agree on one thing, go along the ground.

Our Shore course is firm and fast, in fact I would claim that putting from twenty or thirty yards out will be more likely to get you closer to the pin than just about any other shot.

Bob

 

[John Kirk]

I think it's important to possess a certain skill level.  More important are experience and how carfeully the player oberves shots.  Some people are more fascinated with the ball's journey than others.  Some can't see that far.  Playing low shots from long disatnce is much like reading putts; you have to play the break.

In my experience, less talented and less experienced players are often wrapped up in their own shortcomings, and don't watch the balls fly and roll.  The key is to be a talented observer, and have a practical understanding of the physics.

Even if a course is rock hard, if the wind isn't blowing, I think your best bet is to fly the ball, either high or with lots of spin, so it will stop quickly once it lands.

[Tim Bert]

As much as I enjoy the ground game, I prefer the aerial shot with an appropriately visualized ground game encore.

Two examples:
1. Ballyneal #7 - love to watch and approach fly in to the giant mound left of the green, take the right bounce, and then roll down to the green to a middle pin.

2. Kingsley 16 - surely the appropriate attack in not the ground game (though we've all read about Shivas's putter assault.). Instead the best approach is a low flying shot well right of the green which results in a fascinating encore on the ground as it disappears and reappears, hopefully pin high.

As others mentioned, I feel fully qualified to evaluate the ground game despite having never been a low handicapper or someone whose loft has been challenged. I am just not always superb at the execution though I get better with practice.

[John Kirk]

I might argue the "A" play at Kingsley #16 is a high fade that lands on the right side of the green.

Watching high, soft shots is also very interesting.  Anticipation builds ("be right") as the ball descends.

[Tim Bert]

I might argue the "A" play at Kingsley #16 is a high fade that lands on the right side of the green.

Watching high, soft shots is also very interesting.  Anticipation builds ("be right") as the ball descends.

I might argue that if I were right-handed.  For me, the high fade is going left once it hits the ground and it isn't going to stop on the green.  I don't have the high draw in the bag, which is why I go for the low running fade well right of the green.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

John this is an interesting discussion but at the end of the day it is between the best ears from that list.

[John Kirk]

John this is an interesting discussion but at the end of the day it is between the best ears from that list.

Hey Tiger,

Though it is impolitic to say so, you are correct.  However, one must have experience watching balls bounce or different types of grass surfaces.

[Rich Goodale]

One needs firstly experience, and after that strength.  Without experience (both playing and watching others play) you cannot imagine all the possibilities of the ground game.  Without strength you cannot know how to execute those possibilities.

[Doug Siebert]

I learned to play the ground game when I was a teenager just starting the game.  The course I learned on did not have irrigated fairways, and there were a couple of dry years because I remember playing on a lot of baked out turf.  When you are just learning and can't hit the ball too far or too consistently a lot of times playing the bounces is the only way you have a chance to get on the green.  You quickly learn where you can get a 'turbo boost', where you can aim away from the green and still have the ball bounce/roll onto the green etc.  Just because I hit the ball a mile into the air today doesn't mean that knowledge is gone, even if I don't have the opportunity to use it on most of my rounds.

I remember before my home course's 18th hole was redone there was a bunker about 40 yards short right of the green, with a really severe downslope behind it.  Whenever I was out of position and couldn't play for the green either due to direction (trees in my way) or distance (I pushed right on the near 90* dogleg left tee shot) that was my go to spot.  I remember hitting a few 6 irons from 245 onto the green back then....doesn't work anymore since the bunker was removed, alas

And like Michael, I still have to use my ground game even when the course is playing lush because they are still in the "adding more trees" phase and probably years away from catching onto the tree removal thing, so just about any fairway miss leaves one in tree trouble.