Planning Course Strategy Helps Meet Scoring Goals

I frequently play Austin Golf Association tournament rounds on courses I’ve never seen before. I always prepare for these and all other rounds by pulling up the course on Google Earth and mapping a plan for what club I will hit off every tee and every subsequent shot. Prior to the round, if time permits, I go to the driving range and hit balls as if I were playing holes on the course. I believe this type of mental preparation is why my tournament rounds have consistently had lower average scores than my non-tournament rounds.

I also plan for different approaches to courses. On any given day of play I may choose to play an aggressive, riskier game, using my 3-wood and hybrids more off the tee and aggressive hybrid off the deck shots to get close to the green. Or I may play the middle risk play of limiting long tee shots to safer 3-hybrid and only hitting irons off the deck, or I may play a purely conservative irons-only round where the goal is to keep the ball in play at the expense of distance. When I play my home course at Avery Ranch, I decide in advance which approach I’m playing and preview the round on Google Earth accordingly.

Avery Ranch is a tough course where being in or near the fairway is required. Stray too far left or right and it’s guaranteed a lost shot or more to recover. My last round there I scored a very pleasing 96, yet still had too many blow up holes. I played that round with the mid-risk 3-hybrid strategy but hit too many bad balls off the tee leading to those blow-ups. I posted the game to the Scoring Method facebook page and a fellow SM member noted that my inconsistent 3-hybrid lead to scoring issues and he suggested I look at playing some rounds with the 7-iron as my go-to club. I decided to analyze my Game Golf stats and see if that advice holds up.

Analyzing Tee and Approach Shots with Game Golf

As a retired engineer with an analytical mind and a desire to get better at golf, purchasing a Game Golf round tracking device was a no-brainer. Digging through the wealth of data has helped me understand my game and helped guide my decisions on course management and strategy. As an example, several months into using Game Golf I learned that I only hit my driver 4 yards further on average than my 3-wood but sprayed it all over the place. After that bit of insight, I took the driver out of my bag and haven’t played it in over a year. I decided that after I lower my average to 90 I will get fit for a new driver and put it in the bag after I gain confidence with it on the range. Before that though, with proper course management, I know I can get below 90 without a driver.

I decided for this blog to dig a little deeper in the data and tackle two areas to evaluate how to approach my next round. First, I looked at my effectiveness on approach shots for each club from Sand Wedge up through 6-iron. Next I looked at my effectiveness off the tee with 3-wood, 3-hybrid, 6-iron, and 7-iron. The following Game Golf screen shot shows graphically my success at hitting the 50° Gap Wedge within 15 yards (45 ft) of the pin.

I have been working on wedges a great deal lately and the 82% result shows a payout for the work. This was taken over the last five rounds and this value is an improvement compared to last 10, 15, and all rounds. The below table shows the last 5 round results for the clubs I use for approach.

Approach Effectiveness By Club. (Last 5 games)

*Note: for 6 and 7-iron I often lay up for wedge shot to green – this shows up in the stats as short shots so the percentage hit is distorted. Also some 6-iron shots are categorized as both short and right or left (ie sprayed…)

Although I show a high percentage of getting within 15 yards with both the SW and GW, this can be misleading as it is possible to be off the green but still within 15 yards of the pin, including in a bunker! In fact, my most common double bogey score is due to hitting a 50-plus yard wedge shot that misses the green, then an inadequate chip requiring two putts to get down. Two areas of practice are indicated by this all-too frequent double bogey score – 1) I need to practice harder to get those wedge shots on the green, and 2) I need to work on getting close in chip shots closer to the pin for the one-putt bogey (or up & down par!)

Below is the Game Golf screen shot of tee shot results for my 3-wood over 10 rounds.

Because I can usually advance the ball well enough for Scoring Method purposes, for the clubs in the below table I expanded the acceptable percentage to include most (but not all) of the shots that land to the left and right of the fairway. The red shots are goners! Game golf doesn’t ping short shots but on the 6-iron I added a short category because I don’t find 110 yard 6-irons acceptable.

I don’t hit the 6 or 7-iron off the tee often so I expanded the sample to last 15 rounds. In fact for all rounds I’ve only hit my Ping 7-iron to a fairway on 9 shots with an amazing 100% acceptable result. Hmm, that’s news to me!

Crafting Course Strategy from the Data

My plans for the next full round will require a conservative approach as it is likely I won’t be fully recovered from my broken collarbone surgery. Fortunately, the data above shows that the irons-only conservative approach may indeed lead to a nice low score round. (But I must temper my expectations on the initial rounds.)

I have played irons only rounds before but I always chose the 5 or 6-iron as the go-to club off the tee. I always felt the 7-iron would be too short to use off the tee. However, the primary tenant of The Scoring Method is to keep the ball in play. Given the perfect 7-iron tee performance and 141 yard typical distance, I have nothing to fear. I must admit though that on Avery Ranch there are four holes with 110 to 120 yard carry over hazards for which I will tee up the 6-iron to reduce the stress of needing to hit perfect 7-irons to carry the hazard.

One article I read about breaking 90 described a simple math exercise to show how, conceptually, choosing to play one iron could lead to lower scores. For example, from the white tees, Avery Ranch plays 5724 yards. If I take the average of tee and fairway 7-iron shots as 135 yards, and divide that into the total course length I come up with 42.4 shots to cover the distance. Factor in standard 36 putts and it’s conceivable to score 78! Of course that is over simplifying what is a hard game but it shows how different ways of thinking about scoring can help us understand that there’s more than one way to lower your score.

So the recommendation by the fellow Scoring Method member stands up to evaluation of my Game Golf data. I can take the conservative route of 7-iron (or 6-iron for troublesome carry holes) to keep the ball in play down the fairway. In addition, what pops out from the approach data is that if I have the opportunity to lay up in regulation to 50 to 75 yards from the green, I increase my chances of getting on the green for a two putt bogey. At 24 handicap, if I can play a bogey golf round, I’ve knocked 5-7 shots off my normal score. Thus, my next round will apply the conservative irons-only approach with the 7-iron as my go-to club. In a future blog I will explain how I use google earth to plan out a round with this game approach in mind.