With the newly extended tees this really is a fantastic test and for me personally allows my imagination to run wild. Golf shots played into greens which are surrounded by bunkers, stadium style sand dune entrances, shaped doglegs which require strategical thinking and sloping greens, make for a mean test for any standard of golfer. I wanted to analyse how the squad played around a course which required thought and I wasn’t surprised to see so many struggle to high scores. Playing off a near scratch handicap or better, I suspected their youthful exuberance would struggle to create a score and only two of the eight players managed respectable scores. Sixteen year old Caley Mcginty from Knowle, had three birdies in the last four holes to shoot level par and Harvey Randall from Broadstone Golf Club in Dorset, scored two over playing from the new Blue tees. The other six players scored between 78 and 83 and no doubt one of the local members, playing off a fifteen or so handicap may have pipped their scores. It was important for them to understand exactly why they had scored so poorly which is often the case for most golfers playing away at difficult courses. Most of the time it can be to do with lack of preparation, poor strategy, miss-clubbing and poor speed control with the putter that can be the difference between a great round and a poor round. Really poor scores are usually to do with the frustration caused a bad start along with the fore mentioned. After the squad had played their round we spent time thinking back to each shot, one at a time starting from the very first tee shot. I wanted them to consider how they could have done everything better, regardless of the score or result and consider whether it was to do with their tactical, mental, technical or physical element. An example of this was that one of the players made a double bogey at the first hole and had hit a beautiful tee shot followed by a well struck second shot. How could that be? This is where experience plays such a part in creating consistent scores. He completely forgot to bring his course planner from the day before and instead had used his laser to calculate a yardage to the corner of the dogleg. Mistakenly he had lasered the wrong object on the corner, which was thirty yards beyond where he needed to position the ball off the tee. He hit a perfectly struck three wood rather than a hybrid or 3-iron, only to see it land further on than he had expected and roll onto a downslope and into a heavy grassy sloping lie. After the tee shot, he didn’t seem too disappointed as he could just about see the ball and he assumed that its position wouldn’t make too much of a difference.
The ball was sitting nicely in the rough on a slight downslope and he only had 130 yards to the flag which was positioned on the front tier of the green. I was watching standing above them on the dunes and could feel a downwind breeze, which I knew he wouldn’t have felt from where he was playing the shot. He then hit a beautiful shot which landed one yard left and one yard long of the pin, jumped forward, caught a slope and fell into a deep green side bunker. From the bunker he had absolutely no shot and could only play past the flag and hope to two putt for a bogey. He continued to play as good a bunker shot as he possibly could but under-hit his first putt and followed by missing the remaining curling three footer. What a disappointing double bogey! Back at the clubhouse, I talked back through the hole and identified points that he hadn’t considered: 1. Forgetting his course planner is like a runner forgetting his shoes and is poor preparation. 2. The wind direction needs to be identified before starting the round. I explained that when playing competitively, caddies always check the weather forecast to gauge the direction and strength of the wind. They then check and confirm this at the golf course and the direction of the wind is drawn onto each hole of the course planner. Caddies even check that the printed compasses on course planners have been printed correctly and bring their own compasses to check its accuracy during practice rounds. When playing within the dunes or a tree lined course, the wind can often be in the opposite direction to the direction of a fluttering flag and this information can be crucible. 3. When using a laser, he should have considered the elevation drop downwards to the fairway was approximately fifty feet, which would have added 10 yards to his tee shot. The lack of a course planner certainly didn’t help this situation. 4. A practice round should always involve considering areas around the green that should be avoided and safer areas should be highlighted. He wouldn’t have gone directly at the flag, if he had known it was going to present him with such a difficult bunker shot. I explained that during practice rounds professionals often stand at the edge of the green and consider a handful of potential tournament pin positions. They will also identity easy and difficult pin positions for assessing risk versus reward, with the intention of playing the percentage shot particularly to par three and four holes. A professional will hope to pick up between 1-3 shots on the par fives, play conservatively for the par 3’s and 4’s and hopefully shoot a round of three or four under. Do that four days on the trot and they’ll be well into the top half of the leaderboard come Sunday. 5. This player also didn’t practice lengthy putts before teeing off and didn’t consider the dew on the first green when stroking his very first putt of the day.
The professionals cover all potential possibilities and I wanted the squad to consider what they could do better in the future in their quest to become an elite professional golfer. Evaluating preparation, practice, course tactics and thought processes is a valuable task for anyone looking to further improve their scores and at any level of play, should be something that we all consider.
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