Tinker
Years ago I was fortunate enough to play the better part of two seasons with a teaching pro who was very athletically inclined back in his high school days. Wonderful golfer (except his putting stroke was suspect on occasion. He missed his share of 3-4 footers when we played). Hit the ball a long way. Hit it crisply with the irons. Nice, rhythmic swing that when you would watch - you knew he'd been playing for most of his life.
Anyway.... We come to the 11th hole, roughly 350 yards. He pulled his tee shot into the left rough, awkward lie with the ball below his feet, the type of "nest egg" lie that makes the shot very unpredictable. Menacing pot bunker to the left of the green, water all the way around to the right, semi-island green... He spent a few seconds judging the lie, had 135 yards to the back hole location. He pulled his 5-iron out of the bag, took 3-4 practice swings. Addressed the ball, made the swing, the ball comes out like a bullet... lands on the front of the green, releases, rolls to within a foot of the hole. That same club was his 190-yard club. So I just chuckled and said, how on earth did you pull that off? He smiled and said, "a lot of luck, Lefty. But you know something - that's how I envisioned the ball coming out from that lie. At that point I'm simply trying to figure out where to land it, the best club for that shot that I'm picturing in my mind, and then trying to stay committed to my swing and then hopefully everything works out."
It was a great lesson. So many times we just look at the yardage to a back pin, and if it's 165 yards - we hit our 165 yard club without thinking in terms of how the ball is going to react out of the rough, or once it hit's the green.
Most really, really good players aren't going directly at the pins. They're thinking in terms of "where on the green do I need this ball to land... what is my carry yardage? How much distance do I need to cover in the air to get the ball to that section?"
Of course, most of us would take middle of the green in that situation 100% of the time. But he just had this incredible skill of knowing which club was needed for every shot it seemed.