Ball Striking vs. Scoring

[Ezgolfer]

Ball striking...
If you are a better and accurate ball striker . You don't leave work for short game , i.e knock the shot close to the pin on your approaches .
If you hit solid and accurate approach shots ,who needs to chip & lag putt ? I guess, that is the logic of lot of us pounding balls on range . I do n't hit my driver & woods on the range unless i mess up on a given round. 7-PW, is what i work on knocking close to the pin .

[dlygrisse]

[quote name='mikpga' post='325280' date='Nov 6 2006, 11:21 AM']I was hoping some would respond to scoring vs. ball striking...

This is usually one of my first questions with student's who are taking their first lesson from me...

It has been my experience, that the majority of golfers get more satisfaction out of striking the ball decently vs. improving their score...

There is some truth to better ball striking will lead to better scores, but unfortunately that usually applies to the minority who play this game...

The first time I broke 70, I hit 6 greens in regulation...

If you are a relatively new student to the game, your best chance of lowering your score is to develop a solid short game...

If you have a club which you can advance 150yards relatively straight, AND YOU HAVE A SOLID SHORT GAME, you should be able to score in the mid-low 80's consistently...

Far too many golfers get wrapped up in mechanics of the golf swing to search for that incredible feeling of a great golf shot being executed...

I love to compete, and there is nothing more satisfying than slopping the ball around, and still score, and still win!

Why is Tiger Woods so good? Is it because of his incredible ball striking? Think about it...[/quote]
Ding Ding ding we have a winner.........wait can you win your own question?
I shot my best round of the year this summer 72, and hit about 5 greens. Made birdie on 3 of them and saved bogey several times making tough putts. The guy I was playing with was astonished when I told him my score, he told me he didnt think I was playing that well. I told him I wasnt hitting it that well but the short game is where it is at. When it comes down to it do you want to play swing or do you want to play golf. I think this is the key to Tigers success, let's face it Tiger has had some awful ball striking rounds and still managed to win the tournament. Adam Scott, Sergio probably strike the ball better than Tiger day in day out, but I would take Tiger from around the green and on the green over anyone in the world right now, that is why he is the best player in the world. Of course when Tiger is hitting it well he is unbeatable, so ball striking does make it easier, but a good short game can save a mediocre ball striking round.
People forget that before Ben Hogan became the best ball striker in the world, he had to have a great short game to survive, he was a tremendous short putter and wedge player, and then when he learned to hit it he dominated. Of course after the accident he did start having issues with the putter. Point is if you have a great short game when you are young, you can learn to hit it good later on....if you spend all your time at the range looking pretty, it is hard to develop the feel for a short game later on. See Michelle Wie, Adam Scott, Charles Howell and countless others who never seem to live up to their potential. Now dont get me wrong, I would love to have the talent of Adam Scott or Charles Howell, but if they had spent more time on the putting green putting for quarters, and wearing the grooves off a sand wedge I bet they both would have won a major by now, and many more tournaments, true they wouldnt look as pretty on You Tube but if I was teaching someone to play golf I would tell them to focus thier energy on becoming a great wedge player and putter.

[leekgolf]

Mike, that's a great question....I've never thought about that, unless you are alluding to putting/short game vs. full swing. Is that the question?



I take lessons and take more short game/putting lessons than full swing. Additionally, I take a strategy/course management/playing lesson once a year.

I probably take a short game lesson monthly, a long game lesson quarterly.

Sorry- posted this before I read the entire thread.

I would like to add a couple things to scoring:

Understanding what shots you can pull off a high percentage of the time.
Learning high percentage recovery shots.
Learning to manage your game on the course.

Once I played with a friend who had never broken 100. I watched him play the first few holes. He hit a driver on all of them (2 par 4s and a par 5), all of his drivers were big slices or misses that left him dead. I watched his irons and he couldn't make solid contact or hit the ball straight enough with anything longer than a 7 iron. He could putt reasonably well, and his chipping was ok for a high handicapper. He could consistently get down in 3 from off the green.

I asked him if he wanted to try to play a career round, and of course he did. I told him I would club him and tell him what shot to hit. I had him hit 7 iron off of every tee, and play to have his third shot on par 4's and his 4th shot on par 5s around 100 yards (his pw). I read his putts. Yes, he had some short game hiccups but he never put himself in jail. He broke 100, if I remember correctly, he shot somewhere in the low to mid 90s.

[Shaitan]

[quote name='rustyputterguy' post='325506' date='Nov 7 2006, 06:35 AM']Amazing how quickly that question turned from ball striking vs. scoring to ball striking vs. short game.

To the question "When taking a lesson is it more important to improve your ball striking or improve your score?"
Depends on why you're taking the lesson doesn't it? Seems like they'd be two different lessons, though once you reach a certain point in your ball striking it seems a lesson on improving your score would be much more beneficial.[/quote]

There are actually three or four types that I think of, but only really three - Long game (ball striking), short game (the means to score), course management (scoring and working towards consistency), and then there is theory.

Anyways, I generally use a swing coach as exactly that, so that I can perfect my swing and be consistent in my long game. I think that short game is something I can figure out myself generally, or by rereading Dave Pelz's Short Game Bible. Short game and putting can become streaky, but if you practice enough at it you can become solid at it. That is when you can begin working on course management (when your swing and short game are good), because you can begin hitting tee shot to a certain spot in the fairway, then choosing your means of approach to the safest part of the hole if there is trouble and if you miss it, or don't get the shape right, leaving yourself in the best position to get up and down. And if your short game is really good, you can begin taking more aggressive lines at pins (that's called Phil Mickelson, although you need to show restrained aggression).

[ironliver]

This topic reminds me of GolfDigest article regarding Brandt Snedeker:

[url="http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/2007/12/onthetee"]http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/2007/12/onthetee[/url]

Not the best ball-striker on the tour by far but "he just figures out a way to get it in the hole."