SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Counting up the number of fairways or greens hit per round can be good barometer of how well you played and where you need to focus some of your practice, but it doesn’t always tell the whole story.
Take this example given by Joey Wuertemberger, an instructor who works with juniors at The Crown Golf Academy in Arlington, Texas. He recently had one of his players finish a tournament round and report back the results. He said he played pretty well, and that he was happy that he hit 10 fairways.
“Where did the other four go?” Wuertemberger asked.
“Well, I hit one O.B., and one in the water,” the student replied.
Now here’s Wuertemberger to explain what that all means.
“It doesn’t matter about the 10 that you hit that are great,” he said on Monday from GOLF’s Top 100 Teachers Retreat at The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa. “That’s where stats can get you a little bit flawed, because it says you hit 75 or 80 percent of them, but at the end of the day the misses really cost you more than if you hit five fairways but all the misses are a foot into the rough.”
So what’s the point here? Great ball-striking with big misses isn’t always better than good ball-striking with marginal misses.
As Wuertemberger says, it’s more about where you are missing and avoiding the big numbers.
“For the junior golfer, it’s not the 10 fairways they hit. It’s the four that they miss — were they in play and can they make par?” he says. “Or on approach shots, are they missing it in a spot where they can get it up and down right in front of the green, or are they short-siding themselves?”
Wuertemberger adds that although it depends on the skill set of the player, hitting more than 50 perfect of greens in regulation (so about 10-11 greens per round) would be a “really good” goal for competitive junior golfers. He also mentioned Scott Fawcett’s Decade Course Management System as a helpful tool, which you can read more about here.
In short, understand your misses. And rein them in.
“If the trouble is on the left, and you miss it on the right in the rough and can wedge it on and make 4, then you are ahead of the game,” Wuertemberger says.
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