What is wrong with a straight shot!

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

What is wrong with a straight shot is the question I ask. Tiger had a few incredible shots like on 4 Friday as did many in the field. It seems their batting average is very low compared to where they would be with an old fashion straight shot in most situations.  I know many of the shots they were trying to shape and there was no reason for it and certainly no reason to end up in jail after missing them.

[Doug Siebert]

They probably all listened to Nicklaus' bull about a straight shot being the hardest shot to hit in golf, so they think they need to have some shape to everything.

[Jon Wiggett]

Everybody hits the ball with a slight movement one way or the other. What is important is hitting it the same most of the time. Also with a shape you have double the margin of error as with a straight shot.

Jon

[TEPaul]

Tiger:

While watching the US Open yesterday, I was wondering the very same thing myself.

[Jason Thurman]

Tom, I know you were a very competitive amateur player. We also have several other forum members who played at a high competitive level.

Before the 90s, it seems like conventional wisdom advocated for working the ball to increase your margin of error. Is that idea dead now? Was it always a fallacy?

[TEPaul]

Jason:

Those are both very good questions. It's sort of hard to say but I could sure tell you a lot of interesting stories about that kind of thing going all the way back to my father beginning in the late 1940s and going forward (he was a pretty good national amateur competitor), and then going into my era and beyond. Back in those early days those good players could really move the ball around on call but they were also playing with a very different type of ball than is available today.

I think that kind of thing sort of gets down to any individual and what they feel most comfortable with in competition. I know when I was playing my best I pretty much just tried to hit it straight but I had a teeny little natural fade and it seemed like I could really depend on it (I really didn't have to even think about it). If I was having to go over something (particularly approaching greens) I just basically tried to hit it a little higher or a lot higher so it would land soft without much bounce and run out.

And I can also tell you that as my tournament career went on I got into trying to hit draws simply to pick up distance and take my approach shots up a club or two. That basically got into my body rote over time and started hurting my game and scoring. My draw wasn't really a draw like one should ideally hit a draw, it was more like an over-the-top pull and it was a whole lot harder to control than my natural teeny fade with which I might have to use a club or two more than that over-the-top pull draw.

[Mike Hendren]

Tiger, the straight shot only works when the runway's long enough and wide enough.     

Bogey

[Doug Siebert]

Everybody hits the ball with a slight movement one way or the other. What is important is hitting it the same most of the time. Also with a shape you have double the margin of error as with a straight shot.

Jon

This "double margin of error" stuff is often repeated but I just don't buy it.  If you are hitting a 20 foot fade into the green and it doesn't fade, or you pull it a bit and it negates your fade, that's the exact same thing as a straight ball hitter hitting a 20 foot draw/pull.  If your ball fades 40 feet instead of 20, or you add 20 feet of push to it, that's the same as the straight ball hitter hitting a 20 foot fade/push.

This whole logical fallacy is based on an assumption that if you are trying to work the ball in one direction your shot spread will be narrower than if you are playing it straight.  There's no reason for this to be the case at all, though I can totally believe this is how it works in practice for those who have a natural shot shape and have to do something different in an attempt to hit a straight ball.

Technically, every shot may have some curve (even if only an inch) but if it doesn't curve enough to see the curve its the same thing as straight as far as where you choose to aim.

When I'm hitting the ball well, it goes straight as a string.  Makes it easy to know where to aim.  It's also easy to know where to aim to maximize my margin for error, because when I'm swinging well, my misses are always left (typically pulls rather than hooks)  I really only ever miss right as a direct result of worries about missing left, so as long as I'm swinging well enough that I'm not really worried about a big miss left, I don't have to worry about what is on the right at all.

Now if you are actually trying to curve around an obstacle, and your ball will roll after landing, THEN working the ball is without question superior to playing a straight ball.  And the greater the amount of roll the greater the relative benefit for working the ball.  Thus working the ball is a lot more useful for our friends across the pond, but for those of us in the US, it is of little benefit on the courses most of us play.  There's little point in trying to curve around a dogleg rather than just flying it if your ball is only going to roll 10 feet, ditto for trying to work an iron approach around a front bunker to a pin on the same side if the green is soft.  (I guess I should add that if you hit the ball as high as I do, the percentage of courses where your drives only roll 10 feet or approach shots stick where they land will be far higher than they are for those playing a lower trajectory)

Yes, if I try to fly a dogleg and I mishit the shot I won't clear it and I'm in trouble, but that's no different than a guy trying to draw around it mishitting and having his draw crash into the trees on the corner.  In such a circumstance, I think the odds of me coming out OK are better than the guy playing the draw, because his ball is coming into the trees at more of an angle, and thus if both of us managed to hit only leaves my ball has a better chance of getting a lucky break and coming out OK on the other side.  On the other hand, my straight ball mishit on the green approach has a better chance of burying in the lip of the bunker than the other guy's mishit draw, so in reality it's probably a wash.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

When I say the straight shot I include slight fade or draw. The 5 yard movement shot is grooved by the better players as their set shot to play when it is money time. The US Open is a money shot day if there ever is one. It looked like more often than not that sort of shot would be safe and put the player within 10 to 15 feet for birdie. I know the course and had a good game at one time.  These guys are moving the ball 15  plus yards. I mean it is nuts in my opinion to start a ball in or outside a trap and move it to other side of a green. Those are not normal grooved swings shots. they are maybe practiced hard but it is not the swing that player goes to war with except for maybe Bubba. Of course Bubba is at home with rotten egg on his face. Oh and the players did not really have much if any wind to deal with. Notwithstanding tigers comments.

[TEPaul]

"When I'm hitting the ball well, it goes straight as a string."


Doug:

When I'm hitting the ball well these days (which is rarely) mine generally go straight as a string too but usually not even remotely in the direction I intended.   

[Joel_Stewart]

Listening to G-Mac last night he said all week he hit cuts.  When they came to the 16th he needed to hit a draw and couldn't do it.

Playing with Geoff Ogilvy last Tuesday he hits the ball dead straight.  I thought it might work at Olympic but then again with the length and doglegs it might not?  He missed the cut by 2.

[Rick Shefchik]

When the greens are very firm and not holding well, wouldn't a lot of world-class players try to hit high fade approach shots in an effort to have the ball land softly? Similarly, fading or drawing a ball into a fairway that slants the opposite way should give you a better chance of staying out of the rough.