So in your opinion, Doug, where does a detailed dissection of a golf course's angles and options off the tee really become worth attempting? There are probably a few zero-handicap amateurs who can drive the ball like Fred Funk but don't have his short game or overall consistency. Do you think someone like that can execute the angle thing? Or how about a +2 kid that plays college golf or qualifies for the US Amateur, do you think playing away from trouble and aiming down the middle is still the smart play?
My guess would be that there are certain courses with enough width and undulation and well-designed greens where even a straight-hitting three or four handicapper might be able to gain some advantage from playing the angles. There are certainly penal type courses where even Lee Trevino or Corey Pavin are just aiming to keep the ball in the short grass.
Obviously a straight hitting scratch or good plus handicap is going to be able to take advantage of the angles. The question is how much help is it? The key will be the width. I don't see very many TOCs for every bowling alley I see. Even for Fred Funk, faced with a 28 yard wide fairway with a water hazard hard to the right, I doubt he's going to be aiming to be 5 yards away from that water hazard to get a better angle of attack unless its the 18th hole on a Sunday and he needs a birdie.
If a player of just about any handicap hits it straight enough, they have the skill to take advantage of the angles. They have to also have the knowledge and course management skills to plan ahead and do so correctly, and I suppose length since a guy hitting it 170 off the tee won't have to worry about hitting many par 4s in two. Those scratch and +2 handicaps you are talking about probably make pretty good contact most of the time, so a bunker front right isn't necessarily going to make them want to aim left unless the green is really hard or the bunker is really nasty. Such situations tend to be more common in the UK, with occasional exceptions in the US (mostly at consensus top 100 courses -- they earned that ranking for a reason)
If a player is skilled enough and knowledgeable enough to make use of angles of attack in a plan from tee to green on any consistent basis, I think almost by definition he can't play poorly enough to be a "higher handicap player" unless he's got a world case class of the yips.
Agreed[/color]
Therefore angles of attack are a non-factor for the higher handicap set.
How do you jump to that conclusion ?[/color]
Until this season I've been a 4 for a number of years, and if I putted like I did this season anytime in the last few I'd probably have been as low as a 1, and I've never been skilled enough in terms of straightness off the tee to make use of angles of attack, versus the relatively better gain I'll get from just playing away from whatever the most risky side of the fairway is on a given hole, or aiming down the middle with my fingers crossed if both sides are bad.
You don't get to a 4 by being incompetent with a driver.
What are the landing areas like at your home course ?[/color]
I "jumped" to that conclusion because I posited that any players with enough skill and knowledge to take advantage of angles of attack are good enough golfers that they won't be high handicappers, and you agreed with that. It logically follows that the high handicappers who remain do not have the skill to take advantage of such angles of attack, and therefore they are irrelevant. The strategy may exist, but if the player doesn't have the skill or knowledge to take advantage of it, it doesn't come into play for him except through luck.
As far as my home course, it is a poster child for "tree removal program needed here". How I get to a 4 by being incompetant with a driver is that is that first of all I'm a pretty long hitter (the Shivas "a SW from the rough is never a hard shot" theory) Second, being wild really doesn't hurt on par 5s (I can punch out and still make an easy par) and I hit 1 iron off the tee on par 4s more often than not when the driver's acting up. Where it kills me is on the type of courses where a wild drive means a lost ball, I can easily get up into the 90s on such a course if my driver's not behaving. If I played a really penal course with lost ball penalties on every hole all the time, well, I wouldn't have ever got down to a 4
