What's the one shot you need to take your game to the next level?

[Railroading13]

fairway finder off the tee, I have it with a 4 iron but it only goes 215-220. I need a fairway finder shot with the driver, trying to develop a go to fade at the moment

[dpark]

If you are a 12hdcp and can break 40 for 9 holes, there probably isn't a single "shot" you are missing. You probably need to eliminate your "big miss" (not a pun about the Tiger book).

 

You either need to eliminate the "duck hook left OB", the skulled shot over the green, and/or the chili-dipped wedge from 20 yards off the green.

 

IMO, at your level, it is about minimizing the penalty (not necessarily a penalty stroke) from your worst shots. You can obviously hit fairways and greens, and while you say you want a better 20 yard chip shot, I would look at it a different way. Why do you end up with a lot of 20 yard chip shots? Are your approach irons poor? or do you hit wayward drives, but even with a great iron recovery shot, you still can't get to the green?

 

I would look at what is the reason you find yourself 20 yards off the green, and if there is a "miss" that you can work on minimizing, versus grooving a better wedge game (which takes a lot of practice BTW).

 

Have you considered playing shorter tees? If you play a couple of rounds from a forward set of tees, do you still find yourself facing a bunch of short chip shots, or do you find yourself with a bunch of long birdie putts (and maybe you start 3 putting more). Then you might think you need to improve your lag putting instead of working on your 20-yard wedge shots.

 

It could be that your issue with 20-yard chip shots is a symptom of the problem, and not the problem itself. Don't get me wrong, "getting up and down" is a good skill to have. but without knowing your fairways hit and GIRs, fixing a 20-yard chip shot issue may be masking the actual problem that is inhibiting your ability to go low.

 

To me, if you are constantly chipping to the green, you are already in trouble because you have no chance to make a birdie, you are hoping to save par, and probably make a lot of bogeys. But if you are on the green in 2, you have a chance for a birdie, which you don't have when chipping your 3rd shot.

 

 

[Justsomeguy]

Consistent fairway wood off the deck. And a little more speed. Just enough to elevate 5 iron and lower a little better.

Putting is good, still 3 putt but hole some hard ones too. Chipping and pitching my best area. Irons to 6i are good for handicap. 5i is good, but better off the tee bc this is where my carry distances bunch up. Skip 4i and go to 3h, which is a good club for me. Driver is good for handicap and getting better.

If I could hit my 5w and 3w better I could play the longer holes and recover from the shorter drives better.

Had the 5 wood for a minute there. Adapted swing which really improved irons, but now it's a ghost.

[AP76]

A fade, especially with the driver. Been plagued with a hook for years!

[betarhoalphadelta]

On 10/22/2021 at 2:24 PM, vbb said:

I understand that perspective and agree with parts of it. You have to hit better irons and wedges to hit more greens in reg, and you have to hit more fairways to have irons and wedges into greens, so you have to be decent off the tee. But I don't think I'm analyzing my game incorrectly either. My "next level" would be a mid-upper single digit, and while all aspects of my game could definitely be improved, I also know that hitting 18 greens and 14 fairways is totally unrealistic, so I'll have to miss less bad and less often. And my truly bad misses are usually around the green, where I've hit a good tee ball, a decently good approach leaving me AROUND the green, and then instead of getting up and down or at least on with a look a par, I proceed to turn it into a double. Landing your approach in your run of the mill greenside bunker or 10yds left of the green shouldn't be a double bogey...not if you want to be a single digit.

 

So, if I could just take away two or three of those absolutely stupid doubles caused by horrible chipping, I'm gonna shave 3 or 4 strokes off of my average round, even without changing anything else. Boom, I'm an 8.

 

That's my logic.

 

You may want to try something I've started doing... I'm just on the right side of a 20 index right now (woo! I'm a teens golfer!), so I'm a ways worse than you, but I have that similar issue of seeing potential pars with an up-and-down or what should be worst-case bogeys turn into doubles due to short game.

 

I track "wasted shots" for my rounds. Essentially it's similar to the Broadie "awful shot" metric in strokes gained, which is any shot with an SG of -0.8 or worse. Since I don't actually calculate SG for my shots, a "wasted shot" is any shot which basically leaves me the same number of expected shots to hole the ball. 

 

I think like you say, we're all able to hit the shots that much better golfers hit, and it's a matter of consistency. Even as a 19.7 index, I can string together 3-4 pars in a row because it's not that I'm incapable of playing well, I just hit bad shots too often and it blows up my score. What I find is the difference between a round where I'm playing at or within bogey golf and a round where my differential is 27 usually isn't the number of good shots I hit, it's the number of bad, or wasted, shots. 

 

So, wasted shots... I.e. I'm 20 yards off the green. From there I can't get reliably up and down, but I should be able to get into the hole in an average of 3 shots or less. I.e. assuming I've missed on my approach, at this point I should have about a 10% chance at par and a 90% chance at bogey (rough numbers--maybe the par is SLIGHTLY higher). But then I flub my pitch/chip shot and it only goes 9 feet. I'm now 17 yards from the green and I still have 10% chance of getting down in two and 90% of getting down in 3, but that's now for bogey/double instead of par/bogey. I've wasted a shot. 

 

Much like SG, I categorize where my wasted shots are, whether it's tee game, approach (or tee on par 3), short game, or putting. 

 

For me, I determined that my "wasted shots" are far more often in that same area as you, the pitch/chip distance. Sure I hit bad tee balls and terrible approaches, but it's that area around the green that is currently hurting me the most. As you might expect, it's also the area I practice the least, so that's no surprise. 

 

Do you regularly practice those shots?

[dsmil]

16 hours ago, Railroading13 said:

fairway finder off the tee, I have it with a 4 iron but it only goes 215-220. I need a fairway finder shot with the driver, trying to develop a go to fade at the moment

 

Same here.  My course is tight and my driver is wild so I'm constantly hitting long irons/hybrids off the tee.  I've been locked in on practicing a fairway finder drive, which is a low fade and takes about 20 yards off.  This will give me a clear distance advantage over the long irons/hybrids and it has been very accurate in my range sessions. 

 

Shotscope has me at about a 12-13 handicap level off the tee, but 6 handicap everywhere else.  I'm losing 2.5 strokes off the tee compared to a 5 handicap and 100% of those strokes are due to penalties off the tee.  Distance is not an issue so if I can develop this fairway finder and raise my off the tee game to a level that the other parts of my game are at, I could see a handicap drop of a few strokes.

 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by dsmil