Back from the past, an article that was passed around alot back when. Sorry for length, but it offers some interesting insight as well as a possible approach and strategy.
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5 Club
5-club approach keeps game simple
by William Hermann - Jun. 18, 2008
The Arizona Republic
I took up golf at age 56, am now 61, and usually break 85 on a regulation length course - which puts me in about the top 15 percent of male golfers. And I use five clubs.
I am not a gifted athlete, have a "lazy" left eye and so a slight depth perception problem, and have dealt with cancer and a heart attack in recent years.
Yet I pick up my slim Ping golf bag with a driver, hybrid club, 5-iron, wedge and putter and play in the upper reaches of recreational golfers. I'm convinced that I don't play so well in spite of using only five clubs, but because I use only five clubs.
When I took up golf I studied the game and realized many golfers are victims of their equipment. They have 14 clubs - most ill chosen - and don't know how to use a single one of them.
I know each of my clubs like an old friend. Because I use only five, and practice often with them, each comes to hand as readily as did my Sako 30/06 rifle I used in my hunting days. I understood then the rifleman's saying, "Beware the man with one gun." A hunter with seven or eight rifles may never become expert with any one of them. A hunter with one rifle can become deadly with it.
Let's play a hole so I can explain how this five-club theory works in
practice.
We're on the 381-yard sixth hole of Tempe's Shalimar Golf Club, a short but challenging executive course. From the tee box, we look through a 40-yard wide window between two sets of trees. The fairway is about 25 yards wide. You must hit the ball straight.
I take out my driver with confidence because I know I can control it; that is, I haven't bought a driver that's beyond my abilities.
My Callaway FT-I is meant for guys like me, that is, guys who don't need a sophisticated club head that will help them "shape" the ball. I won't live long enough to learn to shape the ball and need a club like the FT-I: a big, blunt straight shooter.
Perhaps most importantly, my FT-I has a full 11 degrees in loft. Experts agree that most golfers use a driver too low in loft and far outside their abilities.
I take my stance, swing easily, and the ball goes through the "window" and lands a little to the right in the fairway. A 220-yard drive, about my standard.
I stroll or lightly jog - this is supposed to be exercise, right? - to the ball and don't agonize over what club I'll choose for the remaining 160 yards. I have only one real choice: my Ping G2 5-iron.
A 5-iron is an older guy's equivalent of the younger man's all-purpose 7-iron. There are tournaments stipulating that only a 7-iron can be used and they illustrate my theory that in golf, less is more. Many competitors are astonished to find they do about as well playing with only a 7-iron as with 14 clubs.
I address the ball, swing smoothly and the ball leaps from the fairway. But it stops about 5 feet out on the apron and 20 feet short of the pin. With my Cleveland 46 degree wedge I address the ball with care, for this shot will make par easy or tough. I make it tough by looking up as I stroke the ball, blading it. It takes off low and fast and stops 6 feet past the pin and about 2 inches onto the opposite apron.
Out comes my secret weapon.
In my study of golf nothing struck me as stranger than the practice of standing sideways to the ball to putt. As a former marksman, I recognized this as pure folly - eyes and body totally misaligned - and I knew that hitting the ball straight-on had to be better.
Sam Snead figured that out in the 1950s and began putting croquet style, straddling the ball. He was so successful that USGA officials changed the rules of golf, which now stipulate that you can't straddle or touch the imaginary line that extends through the center of the ball to the hole.
I approach the ball from 20 feet away, envision a line from the ball to the hole, stand to the left of that imaginary line, then, keeping my head down and staring at the ball, carefully but decisively swing my Merchants of Golf Whiteline XL4 putter. The ball drops for par.
I'm not surprised. My five clubs and I play more holes at par than not.
What if that Shalimar sixth hole were a 450-yard par 4, or a 560-yard par 5?
For my second shot I'd need a club to send the ball 200 yards or so. That's why the Nickent Genex 3DX Ironwood with a 20-degree loft is my fifth club. It's the equivalent of a 3 iron and a lot easier to use. I can choke up on the Genex for a 180-yard shot that's out of reach with a 5-iron, and lean back on my heels for a 200-yard shot.
Five clubs: The driver for 200 to 260 yard shots. Genex for 175 to 200. A 5-iron for 125 to 175. Cleveland wedge for 5 to 125, and even sand. The Whiteline putter for straight-on sharpshooting.
I use five clubs, I practice with each a lot, and I've learned to use them well.
In a year or two, when I've really mastered these five clubs, I'll pick a sixth to further refine my game. When I regularly break 80, I'll add another club. And so on, to the U.S. Open, when I'm about 70.
Everybody should have a goal.
William Hermann only uses five clubs. His theory is that golfer who's an expert with only five clubs plays more effectively.
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