Love it when handicap goes up

I play a lot of golf on Pete Dye courses. I wish 150 yard, even 80 yard shots could become automatic but the problem is I can have a downhill, sidehill, or uphill lie in the middle of the frigging fairway! LOL. Plus, there's very few chances of running a ball onto the green as the greens are mostly elevated and well trapped.

Broke my string of good rounds today. Had 3 double bogeys. But finished birdie, birdie, par, 79. Had league tonight and shot 38. I have to get my wedge game in order. Inside of 150 hitting greens needs to be automatic. I missed greens today with a gap wedge, sand wedge, lob wedge in my hands. In league, one of my bogeys, I had 97 yards to center of green which shoos be a baby sand wedge. Missed the green my 10 yards left. Time to spend some cycles getting my wedge game in order. On the other hand I also hit some really great wedges and gave myself good birdie opportunities. One piece of the game that has really improved, my Teton Hybrid Driver has replaced fairway woods and it’s need great. Really increases birdie opportunities on par 5’s. My driver has been much better as of late also. Hitting fairways and getting good distance. New putters have been fantastic. Rolling the ball really well. Have confidence if I read the putt right it’s going in. Overall, things are looking good.

Yeah....looking like low 40's for a 10 am tee today for my league. Ah spring time in Colorado!

Shot 76 today. Cold and windy. Have league in about 30 minutes.

@Steven if I were coaching someone who is a higher handicap, I would 100% subscribe to the idea, get the ball rolling on the green as soon as possible. Take any club where you can use a putting stroke to carry fringe and let it roll. 7i as an example is the same loft as the old “chipper” you might see shitty golfers bust out. For a higher handicapper, putt off the fringe with a 7, 9, p, whatever gets the ball on the green and rolling. It takes virtually no practice to get a reasonable feel for that shot…putting stroke allows the loft of the club to bump it right over the fringe and release.

@Steven you make a good point. In reality, my short game was on point. I had 4 up and downs where it was inside of a foot and two of them were pretty ridiculous saves. That got me feeling like I could save that shot too. In reality, the bigger lesson for me is probably, hit more greens…and have less need for taking medicine. For higher handicap golfers, 100% for sure goal should never be to hit the miracle shot…goal should be eliminate all 2 chip holes and eliminate 3 putt holes. This should make chipping incredibly easy because you should never focus on flag, just chipping to a landing area that will allow you to stay in center of the green.

@Russell Hogue, PhD,

That is the biggest and best and most hardest thing to get into our game. Funny I said almost same thing last week. Play smart golf, especially if you are a higher handicap like most of us here getting under way. Instead of making the smart play and save strokes we tend to think we are going to pull off the big shot when we just made a shot that put us in this position to begin with.

Not that there isn't a time for that. But a realized that time should be when you are on your game and firing on all cylinders and more likely to pull off the big recovery. Other wise like you said, "take your medicine" and would be easier to put bad shot behind us as we should be doing on all shots!

Playing smart golf and managing the round can go a long way to scoring and mental consistency.

Thanks for the info.

Nice playing on a tough track!!

Played Stonewolf today. It’s a Jack Nicklaus design near St. Louis. Played it at about 6800 yards today and posted another 75. Had one clownshow double bogey. It should have been a bogey at the worst. Lesson learned. If you put yourself in a bad spot (short sided going down hill), you can’t compound mistakes. Just take your medicine and move on. I also started hitting the dreaded straight shot expecting the draw and had to play out of rough instead of fairway on several drives. But overall, can’t complain. My only concern is, my short game has to save me too often. I can easily see that a 75 turns into a 79 if I miss some up and downs. Because of that, I don’t want to get too excited as there are still areas that have to improve if I want to achieve my goal of playing to a 3 handicap this year.

Well, that didn’t last long, now it’s dropping again. Back 2 back 75’s. I also won a 1-man scramble tournament yesterday. Starting off with a terrible bogey from 130 yards…I shot -8 the rest of the way. Handicap goes down fast and takes forever to adjust higher.

Just comical. I shot 75 today and my handicap has gone up to an 8. :) I guess I had a low score drop off. Guys were not happy. I took their money today and after posting the score, I didn’t have the heart to tell them I get an extra stroke tomorrow. In reality, the bad golf I played at the start of summer (in Myrtle) has really helped increase my handicap. Over the next month it will get back to normal, especially since greens are starting to roll nicely.

We play half stroke skins, thus a gross birdie beats the typical full stroke "4 for 3". The 4 is a 3.5. Plus we have no double pops. Everyone is fine with the game, whether low to mid to higher cap, and the distribution of skins has been fairly consistent across the board. Lower cappers likely have a better chance of a gross birdie, but not enough to make anyone crazy.

We allow everyone to use all strokes, or we don't stroke off the low handicap player.

@Russell Hogue, PhD - I'm kinda wondering just how much longer they will all be better than you... Anyway, milk that hcp while you can!!