Steve:
1. What's the worst score you've ever made on a hole in competition?
2. Tell us five courses you haven't played but which you'd cancel a tournament to visit.
3. Do you focus squarely on each swing when playing a competitive round OR are you distracted/inspired by the architecture? Many of the best competitive players I know couldn't care less about the golf course while they're playing; they simply get a yardage, figure a shot, and work to execute it.
Thanks.
WW
In a high school match I made a nine on a par four. I still managed to shoot 39 for that nine hole match. It is rare that I will make more than a double. You can recover from bogies but recovering from doubles in a tournament is tough. You have to learn to limit the damage to a bogey.
Five courses I would cancel a tournament to visit...Well I decided to not play the Ohio Mid Am this year because I got an all expenses paid trip to Bandon thanks to the printer of my magazines. Since I had not played Pacific or Old Mac I decided to bag the Ohio Mid Am which is being played at some soulless Nicklaus course in northeast Ohio. Of course this depends on the tournament I would be skipping but I would skip any local tournament for Cypress Point, NGLA, Shinnecock, Augusta, or Sand Hills (the top 5 on my buxket list). It would be harder to skip the state Am and there is no way I would ever skip a national USGA event. My one taste at that was too awesome and I like the competiton too much.
I am certainly not "taking in" the architecture while playing a tournament. But I think you have to do that to shoot a good score and hit the right shots. How else would you know where to bail out, what slopes you can use on greens to get to certain pin placements, which side of the fairway to be on to access certain hole locations, etc. I think every good played is doing this but may not be realizing that they are playing off the architecture. Why else would the pros be playing all these practice rounds? There wold be no point in playing a practice round if all you needed was a yardage and you hit your standard shot like a range robot.
For example, today I played in the Ohio Am qualifier (shot 2 under 70 with two missed three footers and a double on 16 and made it easy). With any club more than an 8 iron I am always looking where I can leave the shot if I miss for an uphill pitch and easy up and down. I also look for slopes that I can use to work the ball to the hole. On the 8th and 9th holes I had the opportuntiy to use backboards behind the hole to spin my wedge off of. This allowed me to elminate a short miss that would not have been on either hole. And on a par 5 I went for in two my second shot was 214 yards to the pin. The ball was slightly below my feet and the pin was on the back left with a bunker on the front left. The wind was blowing left to right and a little helping. The lie and wind seemed to call for a fade 4 iron. But, there was the bunker short left and a bunker long right whixh seemed to dictate a draw through the gap to a back left pin. I decided to draw a 5 iron and hit it to three feet, making an eagle.
I would to hear your friends talk out the shot they are going to hit before they hit. i bet they are processing more of the architecture into the shot than they realize. I just do not see how you can shoot good scores without using the architecture to your advantage.