Common Knowledge Golf Strategy

[Ben Sims]

The angles thread seems to have run its course. It brings me to a different idea on a related discussion.

What are some common knowledge golf strategy aphorisms and anecdotes you’ve heard or used that turned out to be unhelpful? For the architects, has common knowledge golf strategy ever led to a design decision you regret?

I’ll go first. “When it’s breezy, swing easy.”

This more often leads to a duck hook into gunch for me. I’ve learned to make the same swing in the wind that I do when it’s calm. Just use an extra club or change aim if needed. Swing differently? Not for me.

[Tim Martin]

“Never belittle a shot in the middle.” Without going down a rabbit hole not always the best place to be.

[Matt_Cohn]

That uphill putts are always easier. It depends on the situation. A straight putt is easier to hole going downhill, although as you introduce break the downhill ones quickly become more difficult. An uphill putt is usually easier not to three putt, but often more difficult to make.


That you should lay up to 100 yards if you can’t reach the green. Decade has pretty much disproven this one (absent trouble around the green of course).

[Mike Bodo]

"If stuck between clubs, take the smaller number and swing easy."


While I agree with taking more club, I don't agree with changing one's tempo in hopes of executing the shot. Unless you practice this on the regular, better to choke down and take your normal swing to achieve the same result. That was always my "go to" with good players I caddied for, as rarely do amateurs consistently practice or play 80% or 90% shots, unless your talking inside 60 yards. But if you're undecided between a 7 and 6 iron or 8 and 7, take the lower number, choke down and play the shot with your normal swing tempo. You can thank me later. LOL! 

[Tom_Doak]

That you should lay up to 100 yards if you can’t reach the green. Decade has pretty much disproven this one (absent trouble around the green of course).

This is as good an example as any that "common knowledge" is irrelevant to some segment of golfers because everyone's skills are different.


For me, laying up to 100 yards is still much better than leaving myself 70, because I don't carry any club less than a pitching wedge, and I have a mental block to the extent that I'm very likely to miss the green entirely from 70 yards, which I won't do as often from 100.  And I promise you I'm not the only one who has trouble from that distance.


Sure, I should get new wedges, and practice.  But until I do, avoiding 70 yards is good strategy.  If I can get myself within 30 or 40, and chip, that's another story entirely, I'm really good at that.


But the most common knowledge of all is that "a man has to know his limitations".

[Erik J. Barzeski]

That you should lay up to 100 yards if you can’t reach the green. Decade has pretty much disproven this one (absent trouble around the green of course).

Scott is, at best, THIRD in that line. The list of who "disproved" that starts and ends with Mark Broadie… and IF you extend beyond that, sorry, Scott's not even second.

My own addition to this list will be how players allot their practice time: the majority should NOT be on the short game. GIR is King, and absent a glaring weakness, you should work on the skills that leads to more GIR. In the short term, short game is the quickest way to lower scores, but on the whole, the best long-term strategy is to improve the driving and approach shots (with customization for the length of typical approach shots you face) and to hit more greens (and hit it a tiny bit closer, too).

[Kalen Braley]

I'll second this notion by Tom with a big thumbs up.

My par 5 (and long par 4) scoring improved when I started laying back in these situations because my 25-75 yard game is general has always been sketchy with half swing wedge shots off tight lies.  Then add in the reduced risk of not getting into bunkers that are 30-40 yards shorts of the green and it was a no-brainer for me.

[Mike Bodo]

My own addition to this list will be how players allot their practice time: the majority should NOT be on the short game. GIR is King, and absent a glaring weakness, you should work on the skills that leads to more GIR. In the short term, short game is the quickest way to lower scores, but on the whole, the best long-term strategy is to improve the driving and approach shots (with customization for the length of typical approach shots you face) and to hit more greens (and hit it a tiny bit closer, too).

I'll second that, Erik! I'll never forget, when someone from the media queried Jack Nicklaus' back in the 70's as to what the solution was to solving his short game struggles, his reply was to "hit more greens in regulation."

[Tom_Doak]

I'll never forget, when someone from the media queried Jack Nicklaus' back in the 70's as to what the solution was to solving his short game struggles, his reply was to "hit more greens in regulation."

Yeah, but that was also sort of an admission that he didn't have that great of a short game and didn't have confidence it would improve that much.  And a realization that sometimes the way to improve is by strengthening your strengths, not eliminating your weaknesses.


Also, a couple of years after that, Jack went to Phil Rodgers to work on his short game, and won a couple more majors.  I wonder if he hit more greens in regulation?

[Mike Bodo]

Yeah, but that was also sort of an admission that he didn't have that great of a short game and didn't have confidence it would improve that much.  And a realization that sometimes the way to improve is by strengthening your strengths, not eliminating your weaknesses.


Also, a couple of years after that, Jack went to Phil Rodgers to work on his short game, and won a couple more majors.  I wonder if he hit more greens in regulation?

Agree with your first statement and would add to your second the reason Jack won the U.S. Open and PGA Championship in 1980 was due to the time and work he put in with Phil Rodgers on his short game. I don't think he wins either without that, as his confidence hit a low point in 1979.

[Jason Topp]

Also, a couple of years after that, Jack went to Phil Rodgers to work on his short game, and won a couple more majors.  I wonder if he hit more greens in regulation?

This Sports Illustrated Article from April, 1980 (Before Jack won his US Open and PGA) provides an interesting glimpse:


https://vault.si.com/vault/1980/04/07/a-little-help-from-a-friend-when-jack-nicklaus-finally-saw-that-his-short-game-needed-work-he-called-in-phil-rodgers-who-even-as-a-fellow-rookie-in-1962-had-more-shots-than-jack-did

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I'll second this notion by Tom with a big thumbs up.

Statistically, you're both in a fairly small minority. Most golfers (and I don't mean 51% or anything like that, I mean a LOT) hit it closer on average and score better on average when they hit it closer to the green. It doesn't matter how thin you slice it (so long as it's still statistically significant): "10 handicaps from California who are 40 to 45 years old," etc., it holds up.

If you both played enough golf… you should spend 30 minutes sometime figuring out how to hit a 70-yard shot. It'd serve you well. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

I thought the invention of gap wedges, etc. sort of took the "a full swing from 100 yards is better than a partial swing from 70" idea back out of play.

[Charlie Goerges]

It's funny because 30 years ago the common knowledge was that you should lay back to a full wedge distance (say 100 yards) and analysis proved otherwise (first for tour-level players and then for others as well).

[Kalen Braley]

I'll second this notion by Tom with a big thumbs up.

Statistically, you're both in a fairly small minority. Most golfers (and I don't mean 51% or anything like that, I mean a LOT) hit it closer on average and score better on average when they hit it closer to the green. It doesn't matter how thin you slice it (so long as it's still statistically significant): "10 handicaps from California who are 40 to 45 years old," etc., it holds up.

If you both played enough golf… you should spend 30 minutes sometime figuring out how to hit a 70-yard shot. It'd serve you well. 

I've tried a variety of options including lob wedge, sand wedge, but I've found full swings with those clubs very problematic off tight lies with both fat and thin shots.  So I settled on partial swings with pitching wedge or 9 iron with lower ball flights, but that's where angles really come into play as attempting to hit those shots over bunkers or water get very dicey

Probably not coincidentally, I don't mind that distance near as much when I'm in light rough with the ball sitting up a bit, but i'll admit i find it difficult to intentionally aim to miss the green to find it! 

P.S.  To your data, I have two playing buddies (also high cappers) who excel in that range with those shots..

[Jim_Coleman]

   The closer the better for me. I don’t have a “perfect distance.” I don’t even have a good distance.

[Tommy Williamsen]

When a caddie points to a spot on the green and tells me to aim there, it only helps marginally. I have to see the putt curve in my head. So aiming at a spot isn't that helpful.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I've tried a variety of options including lob wedge, sand wedge, but I've found full swings with those clubs very problematic off tight lies with both fat and thin shots.  So I settled on partial swings with pitching wedge or 9 iron with lower ball flights, but that's where angles really come into play as attempting to hit those shots over bunkers or water get very dicey

Yeah, the thing about averages is… that it alone doesn't tell how wide the spread can be, or what the standard deviation is. You might be a few out, and that's to be expected of course.

[Ira Fishman]

Never up, never in…as I ram my rare decent birdie putt 6 feet by.

[Max Prokopy]

I could be mistaken but I thought the USGA commissioned a study which indicated that the grain of the grass did not affect putts.

[V. Kmetz]

I'm going to gadfly a few of the things that have come up here... in no particular order...

When a caddie points to a spot on the green and tells me to aim there, it only helps marginally. I have to see the putt curve in my head. So aiming at a spot isn't that helpful.

TW, as a lifelong looper just about finished with his trade, it took me more than two decades - from teen youth to my 30s - to understand and bring together the correct, particular visualization that a particular golfer needs. That starts/started from my internal process for any putt on any course which was/has been to read the putt from the cup backwards...eg. "how is the flat entry spot on the cup situated, in relation to the general slopes feeding towards it?"...once I see that, where it goes in perfectly straight, then I just build the "putt" backwards to the player...eg...how does it get to this spot...back to this spot...back to the player...?  The only thing I think I ever was really doing for a player on green reading is matching that path/arc (of spots, from cup back to player) to a mind meld of what the speed ought to be. 


How do you do that; translate the subtleties that you know from 5000 samples into a speed for today's player X?  For a tradesmen like me, it IS the practical magic and only green reading property worth anything...and so when I would read a putt for you, I might have indeed pointed to some spot, short, long or near the cup, but I would've told you what description of foot-speed it should've have been..."it should be slowing down to a foot here...almost out of gas here... it's got to have enough to beat this hill and 5 more feet...you've got to have the courage to roll it firmly up here, so it can swoop down to a place where it can go in..."


There are literally 101 reasons why, though sometimes a poor mans grind/hustle, I have been remarkably and uniquely enriched by my activities lo' these 42 years, and one of the last remaining of those reasons is to genuinely meld with a player, familiar or new guest stranger - on translating the aesthetics of the putting feel to any particular putt by any particular player on a golf course, no less one I know well.  And that green reading, no what its objective quality, is what drew me deeper from merely golf to its architecture and all that goes into the delightful, amusing recreation that culminates on that putting green.


Last thing TW, how about putts that aren't read to a spot outside the hole, but are nuances (verbal, pointed or both) of something aimed to one small edge of the cup...like "inside right"..."right/left of center"... "right edge"?  Are such indications also of little use to you...or is it just the bigger breakers you're referencing?

[jim_lewis]

Here is one that I think I made up...
The wrong club hit well is better than the right club hit poorly..  So, don't overthink choosing the right club. Just hit whatever club you choose well.

[Mark Pearce]

Here is one that I think I made up...
The wrong club hit well is better than the right club hit poorly..  So, don't overthink choosing the right club. Just hit whatever club you choose well.

I very rarely think that when I realise that I have just hit 6 iron well when I intended to hit 9 iron.....

[Matt_Cohn]

I'm very likely to miss the green entirely from 70 yards, which I won't do as often from 100.

Tom, do you think this preference ever shows up in your designs? Maybe that explains the lack of 70-yard par 3's on your courses.    But really, do you think you have a tendency to make sure there's always a layup spot at 100 yards while being less concerned about what happens from 50-70, or something like that?

[Steve Lang]

I could be mistaken but I thought the USGA commissioned a study which indicated that the grain of the grass did not affect putts.

the study also noted don't play on bermuda during late afternoons...