puttnfool" a couple of feet off fw but with brumuda rough here you'd have to step on your ball to find it"...
This is why I made that statement.
Still though, a huge % of courses are not lined with sparse rough, which is what your courses must have. Most courses around my area will have you chopping out as best you can, unless you are a damn good striker.
And, any time you put grass between your clubface and ball, you'll lose distance, and sometimes accuracy to boot.
Pine Creek GC is where I'm going mostly of late and it has high cut on its brumuda rough. In winter it's not issue but now it is. Mostly wide open fairways are friendly to high index folks like me and there's lots of us here. Conducive to swing driver harder mentality but if it strays off fw just a little, good luck. It's what I'd expect for tournaments but sure slows us public course hackers down. Trying to convince manager/owners to reduce height of rough to get pace of play faster. It is best draining course in my area and with monsoon this year it's been a good choice.
I wonder what % fw hit average would be for a mid- high 80s level player? (That's been my goal for a long time now)Same question for average putts per round. My approach up until now has been to try to limit 3 putts to absolute minimum but not worry much over anything else putts wise. like I've noted, big blowups have been my biggest score killers, for example: 3 putts, lost or wet golf balls, poor ball contact, inability to string together 3 good shots in sequence.
Just solving one of these would drop me solidly into high 80s, I believe.
There are several holes at my club where one is better off missing a fairway by 20-30 feet versus 5 feet. Some of my worst lies this season have occurred no further than 3 feet beyond the fairway cutline.
PS - the bermuda rough doesn't kill me when I travel south. It's the tight bermuda lies down there in the summer months from about 60 yards from the green that makes my asshole pucker up.
Shot a "ho-hum" 84 yesterday in the heat. I think I drank 2-3 liters of water and a 32 oz Gatorade just to keep from dying.
I was burning the edges with the putter again. Must've missed 2 or 3 that just snuck barely by. Had two back to back triples that killed the score. One was a hooked 3wd resulting in a lost ball that I assume was buried in a pine tree and the other was just a pushed 5wd off the tee on a short (290ish) yard par 4 that ended up in an awful spot by the base of a tree. Probably should have declared it unplayable and dropped it straight back about 20 yards to get over the tree. Still probably would have had only about 130 to the pin. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.
Still yet, I bogey'd the last 3. One was a tough 3 putt that I just left myself too far from the hole get realistically get it close. The other two were 2 putt "routine" bogies. I'm not too upset actually with the one on 18. That's the hole on this course that has cooked my goose more times than one. I hooked a drive and had about 188 left. Hit a perfect layup GW to about 104, then hit my GW again to pin high, but about 15' right. Just missed the putt.
All in all, a decent day. I can live with 84's for a while. I know if I keep playing like this, then one day I'm gonna settle down, play a little smarter, make better decisions (declare unplayable when it's in my best interest), and get some putts to drop and get one more 70's round.
puttnfool
Mid 80s sounds wonderful to me! You must have had a birdy or two? Be like Steve and just remember the good shots, eh?
Nice to read about your games. Take some phone pics for us if it's not too distracting . I might try same to give some zip to posts.
A high light my last outting was good play on longest parr 5, #7 hole, 3rd handicap hole, 440 yds (don't laugh ,I'm old). I was practicing with 2 balls , two drivers, since course was pretty empty behind me . I had really nice strike on my first drive right down middle with my old G15 about 200-210 or so. So I hit my 2end driver , Cleveland 270 ultralight , same results about 15 yds left almost Same distance 
. A quick player came up behind , so I picked up second ball and hit a decent 3 wood, with my ball way above my feet and up slope, just into right rough leaving ~115 to flag, 9 iron just behind hole ~ 15 ft., 2 putted . But I'm smiling. Missed my birdy put on a parr 5. Only my 2nd time to parr the hole in lots of attempts. Only gir for the 9. Lost ball just few feet off fw on next hole, after letting Jimmy play through.
@#$&! Whatever, it's golf!
Provisional I definitely remember the good shots, but I feel it's necessary to remember the bad ines, too, so I don't repeat them. Case in point, the reason I even had a shot at par on 18 is because I remembered the debacle on that same hole (from nearly the same spot for my 2nd shot) just a few short weeks ago. I laid up perfectly, executed a fine 3rd shot, and had a decent shot at par.
puttnfool your course #18 sounds like how our #8 is for me. 402 yds 1 handicap, parr 5 steep drop off to pond on geen approach with green back up high above pond on other side of it.
A " good" drive leaves 180+ so I have to layup unless I'm feeling stupid, which is also problematic with down slope right where layups are. I hate down hill lies.
I lucked into a ~115 yd halfway decent lie on my layup and caught ok 9 iron just above hole. 2 putts darn it again and lost ball penalty for bogy. I'm pretty happy with that on this hole. I even parred it two rounds before on my bday round. That card is on my refrigerator 
M
The pic here isn't it
Provisional That pic is of the course you normally play?
PA-PLAYA I will enviously attest to the man's putting. I will also say that with some of his assistance and certainly modeling he's had a positive effect upon my own putting. And yes, I totally agree that every effort is to be made! Years back I'd heard about a goal of lag putting to putt within a trashcan lid. Now, I've been to several 8 inch cup outings but, I've never seen a hole the size of a trashcan lid. Pick you line, commit to it, and all the remaining focus is on pace.
I'm glad putting is getting some more attention here. What percentage of your strokes are with the flatstick? Exactly!!
professor What percentage of your strokes are with the flatstick?
Unfortunately, I use more than half of my strokes getting to the green. My percentage of putts relative to my total strokes seems good when you consider the course is setup for half of your strokes to be putts. I'm normally around 30 putts each round out of 82-95 strokes. Just looking at the percentages, that'd look good, but it's not.
I'm getting to the point now where my short game is gonna save me more strokes than the long game. It took a few months, but I've finally gotten a little control over my tee game and now it's game time. I'm gonna start hitting the range... mainly the putting/chipping areas... and start shaving some strokes off the score.
Provisional
Nice, huh?
Read last sentence in the post
We're more like Jeff Foxworth said
Richest guy here bought a new home and we had to go over and help him take off the wheels.
puttnfool Of course your 'using' more than half getting to the green. I've not read to many posts from scratch golfers here so, that's quite normal. Regardless, it wasn't the point. It's a lot of strokes with the easiest of clubs. As far as scoring, it bears some investment. And, a putting stroke ages better than a driver swing. LOL
Formula I refer to is 14 GIR and 28 putts gets me a 68 on a par 72.
Typhoon Perhaps your formula accounts for only 14 of 18 holes? Or, I'm not getting your "formula".
rsvman No kidding. I get that. 14 GIR's + 2 strokes per GIR still leaves 4 holes. What's the assurance all four are up/down's? Oh, wait, four chip-in's for birdie gets you four under par. Huh?! Typhoon is clearly playing a game of which I'm not familiar. LOL
Looking for positives, missing fairways does allow for lots of scrambling practice.
I think I've improved my hybrid and iron play from deep rough. If I could only drive further, I'd be bomber-gouger, instead I'm bunter-gouger.
"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone."
Bought another golf help book. Lots of correctional tips for flaws. The tip for topping driver shots like I've been doing was to avoid changing spine angle or standing up on back swing. My Barkley impersonation.
It seems to work at the range for me if I can avoid relapse into old habit.
Next outing will tell. Hopefully I'll find more fairways. Maybe even help the abysmal gir stat? We'll see. Looked back at old cards where I kept stats , my worst score , lately I hit most fairways. Putting and approach shots killed me. I've been working on improving both since then, and now hope to see driver behave better too. Come on 80s
If this doesn't work, I'll have to buy more clubs!???
corner pocket'
