I'm Not So Clever After All

I wrote an article the other day about the virtue of playing conservatively and missing it in the right places. I was feeling pretty good about myself after having done just that to secure the win in our Men's League.

Well, not many people should be teachers in this life. And clearly, I'm not one of them. Yesterday, I played a match with Radar as a partner against Peter Cole and Paul Gentile. Radar and I ham and egged it pretty well, ending up three up with four to play. I played well early until my back started giving me grief, and I rode Radar the rest of the way. 

We lost fifteen to a nice birdie by Peter. And it was then that things really started to unravel for us. On sixteen Paul pushed his drive to the right into the fescue and had to take an unplayable. Peter hit his second into the fescue on the left and never found the ball. Radar and I were, or should have been, quids in. It was then that I failed miserably in terms of practising what I'd just been preaching about playing conservatively. 

I had hit a fairly good drive and had just seen Peter hit his second shot in the weeds on the left. Given that Paul had also taken an unplayable, a par on sixteen would have likely been good enough to leave us dormie, if not give us the win. I was sitting on a bit of an upslope. The wind was coming fairly strong off the bay which would push my ball left. Off an upslope, the usual miss is left as well. So, having seen where Peter ended up, playing from about ten yards behind me, you would have thought that common sense would prevail.

I could have taken a six iron and knocked it safely down to within 120 yards of the green. But I took my usual club, a 22 degree fairway wood, that would have got me inside 100 yards. It would have got me inside 100 yards had I not pull hooked it off the uphill lie. The ball would have followed Peter's ball into the thick cabbage had it not hit a tree.

I was now lying two about 150 yards from the pin in jail behind a couple of trees. Paul had hit his fourth shot just short of the green and was likely to make a six. All I had to do was pitch the ball out and knock my fourth on the green and we were almost certainly going to be dormie. Instead, after consulting with Radar, I decided to try the perfect shot; a low hook through a small gap in the trees. I hit the ball almost perfectly, but it hit the tree and almost hit me as it bounced back. 

I now had another option. I could now just chip it out and then knock my fifth shot on the green and have a putt for bogey. But, in for a penny, in for a pound, I tried another miracle shot. The ball didn't hook out of the rough and I hit across the fairway and behind another tree. And so it went. When Radar hit his fourth shot over the green and then duffed his pitch, Paul was able to win the hole with a bogey six.

If I had just pitched out with my third shot I'd have almost certainly made six for a half. But, as the saying goes, if my aunt had had nuts she'd have been my uncle. That's what often happens when you try to be too clever by half and attempt to play the miracle shot. You often end up looking like a mug. The biys won eighteen to halve the match. Radar and I had managed to blow a three up lead with four to play. And, the way we played coming in, we were lucky there wasn't five holes to play, because we'd have likely lost the next hole as well.

Hitting dumb shots really makes you feel stupid. It saps your energy, because you realize that it all could have been avoided had you simply exercised some common sense, taken your medicine, and got the ball back in play. Unfortunately, in my game, common sense isn't always that common. So, this story comes as a sort of confession, after my having talked about how smart I was the day before. I guess I'm not so clever after all.

What Club Do You Usually Use?

We have an interesting fifth hole in Picton. It's about 345 yards long, straight up a hill that has been named "heart attack hill" for it's steepness. There is a mound, covered in fescue, directly in front of the men's tees that has been known to catch many a mishit tee shot. I've thinned the odd one into it myself.

Radar told me yesterday about an incident that occurred there between Scott, our Pro Shop manager, who was about a two handicapper at the time, and Mike Pero, who won either the Canadian, or Ontario Amateur championship--I forget which one right now--had played the Canadian Tour, and had a few starts on the PGA tour. Scott was playing with Mike and somehow managed to hit his tee shot into the dreaded mound in front of the tee on number five. There was a certain amount of embarrassed silence between them, as you can imagine. You want to play well when you're playing with someone like Mike Pero.

But Scott is not one to be too embarrassed. He found his ball buried in the thick fescue on the bank, looked over at Mike and calmly asked, "What club do you usually hit from here, Mike?"

That Scott is a real piece of work.

Missing It in the Right Places

Jordan Spieth said--I believe it was at the start of the Masters this year--that his plan was to make committed swings to the right targets. He didn't manage to win the Masters, but his approach was the right one. Successful golfers make committed swings to the proper targets. And picking the right target is something the best players are the best at.

Bobby Jones said that he never did any amount of winning until he learned to play more conservatively. He was once told by an older, wiser player that "the best shot possible was not always the best shot to play." And Bobby took that advice to heart. 

In his book on The Elements of Scoring, Raymond Floyd wrote about the way a good player approaches every shot. He said that they first identify the places they absolutely don't want to hit the ball. They want to know, on every shot, on every hole, where not to miss it. Once they've identified the danger areas, good players then pick a shot that provides them with the widest possible margin for error.  Good players know how to play the odds.

It may not be very exciting, or sexy, but if it's your score you're interested in, you would be wise to play conservatively most of the time--to make committed swings to conservative targets. Tonight, in the Men's League was a perfect example. We were playing Randy Coates' team and had come back from two down to be all square playing our last hole, which was number one. We were playing a scramble format with four-man teams, where everyone tees off and you select the best of the four tee shots and everyone plays from there, and so on. 

Both of our teams hit a good drive. Randy's team had about 95 yards left to a back left pin. The perfect shot from their angle had them coming in over the pond on the front left of the green and landing it short of the pin with spin. There wasn't much green to work with and long was no good because the green slopes steeply from back to front. All four guys went for the pin and not one of them hit the green. They were forced to choose a third shot from the back of the green in fairly thick rough.

We had 75 yards. Johnny Carson hit first and went right at the pin. He hit a goid shot, but it went long and into the rough over the green. George also went at the pin and again went over the green to the back fringe. I decided to play a conservative shot to the middle of the green and my ball settled about twenty feet from the pin. Levi then went for the pin and again bounced into the rough at the back of the green.

Randy's team chipped four shots from the back of the green down the slope to the pin. The closest chip finished about eight feet from the hole. I got to see Johnny and George putt our twenty-footer and stepped up and managed to hole my putt for the win. Now, it was a good putt to make. But the putt was set up by a conservative shot to the middle of the green when everyone else had tried to get close to a "red light" pin. 

I had a good yardage, and I might have got my approach within ten or fifteen feet of the pin or better perhaps fifty percent of the time. But I knew that long was no good and there was very little green short of the pin. So, I played it safe. And, as it turned out, a good putt took care of the rest.

If you want to score, you need to make committed swings to the right targets; just like Jordan Spieth. And, the right target is not always going to be the pin. You should only shoot at "green light" pins where the penalty for missing is not going to be too great. When you start "missing it" in the right places, you will start to see your scores improve. 

The Obvious Way to Play

Bobby Jones believed that there was an obvious and uncomplicated way to play golf. Unlike many teachers of the game who espouse finespun theories about how to swing a golf club, Bobby felt that the uncomplicated way to play was to focus on the strike instead of the swing.

The best swing in the world is of little use if it doesn't produce a proper strike. I know I've quoted this information from Bobby Jones before, but I think it bears repeating in view of the fact that there are so many golfers out there who could save themselves a great deal of work, and no small amount of heartache, if they could only convince themselves of its truthfulness. Bobby, in his book Golf is my Game, wrote:

    "Golf is played by striking the ball with the head of the club. The objective if the player is not to swing the club in a specified manner, nor to execute a series of complicated movements in a prescribed sequence, nor to look pretty while he is doing it, but primarily and essentially to strike the ball with the head of the club so that the ball will perform according to his wishes.

     No one can play golf until he knows the ways in which a golf ball can be expected to respond when it is struck in different ways. If you think this should be obvious, please believe me when I assure you that I have seen many really good players attempt shots they should have known were impossible."

The simple fact is, a golf ball only reacts to the way it is struck. The golf ball cares nothing about your backswing or your follow-through. In his book, Bobby provided diagrams to illustrate how the ball must be struck to produce a straight shot, a hook, a slice, a push, and a pull. 

Too many golfers are fooled in to thinking that it's their swing that produces the hooks or slices that ruin their scores. But it isn't their swing. It's the strike that causes the slice or the hook. I think, and, more importantly, Bobby Jones thought, that golfers would immediately improve if they learned to think a whole lot less about their swing, and a whole lot more about the strike. 

If you don't know what causes a straight shot, a hook, a slice, a push, or a pull, I suggest you read Bobby Jones' book, Golf is my Game. If you don't have the book, I have covered that information in my featured article, entitled The Wisdom of Bobby Jones: Striking the Ball.

Spieth Doesn't Know the Meaning of the Word

I know I am prone to constantly referring back to Bobby Jones whenever I talk golf. I'm not sure whether others find it annoying or not. Certainly, my buddy Steve didn't find reading Bobby's books as illuminating, or as easy to read, as I did. 

But writing style aside, Bobby Jones, as much as any other player in history, understood what was most important in playing golf, and just how much the game of golf mirrors life. Bobby's most important lesson came from Harry Vardon, who said, "No matter what happens, keep on hitting the ball." This, Bobby learned to do as well as any player who ever lived. He used that approach to golf to do what was, and continues to be, almost the unthinkable in winning the Grand Slam.

It's perhaps easy to get carried away in the wake of a performance like we saw from Jordan Spieth on this Open Sunday. It was a performance for the ages. And what did Spieth do best on this magic Sunday? He didn't drive it well. He didn't strike his irons as well as he can. He didn't even putt very well, at least for the first dozen holes. But what he did as well as anyone ever has is keep on hitting the ball in the face of great adversity. 

If you want to succeed at this game you can't be a quitter. And golf is the sort of game that often tempts you to just quit. It can be the most infuriating game in the world. You can be at the top of your game one minute, and suddenly have absolutely no idea what you are doing, and vice versa. Golf is like that proverbial box of chocolates. You just never know what you're going to get from one day to the next, from one hole to the next, even from one shot to the next. 

Golf cannot be subjected to control. You cannot make the putts drop by sheer force of will--although the great champions sometimes make it look that way. You have to accept the vagaries of the game. Look at Spieth's opening tee shot today. He striped it. He hit it as he wanted to, and on the line he wanted to. It should have bounded off the bank into the fairway. Instead it hung in the deep fescue. 

Spieth was clearly upset with his bad luck. A good shot had been punished. He was visibly distressed. But he did all that any golfer can do in the face of good luck or bad; he kept on hitting the ball. Today that patience and persistance was rewarded. And in that victory, I think, is a message for all of us. Good things can happen if we just refuse to give up. And believe me, sometimes even really good players give up, or let up. But if we have learned anything at all, in watching Jordan Spieth in action, we have surely learned that there is no quit in him. He doesn't know the meaning of the word.

Jordan Spieth: Desire and Determination Personified

Once again, Jordan Spieth helped remove any doubt, if in fact there were still any doubters, that he is a very special player, the likes of which we have rarely seen. I could brag that I picked him to win this week at Royal Birkdale, but it's really nothing to brag about. This young man is going to be a favourite to win at every Major he enters for years to come.

The inevitable comparisons will be made to Jack and Tiger. And the fact that we are legitimately comparing Spieth's record to date with those two giants of the game just tells you how special a player he is. He is rewriting the record books in an age where most of us probably thought we had seen the best players we were ever going to see. For me, it was Jack. For many others it was Tiger. But Spieth has accomplished things even they hadn't managed to accomplish at the same age. That's just how good Spieth is.

To think, especially after last year's phenomenal Open championship, that Johnny Miller, a guy who knows a little something about historic final rounds in Majors, would state that this was the greatest finish to a Major championship he's ever seen. Some may not necessarily agree with Johnny. He does have his detractors. But you have to admit that we have probably never been taken on the quite the ride we were taken on today by Spieth. After losing his lead, and looking like anything but a champion, Spieth stood up on the next tee and almost holed a six iron from 201 yards. 

I won't bother recounting his incredible finish. Others will do that. All I think you need to try to imagine is how it must have felt to relinquish the lead at that stage in the championship; how psychologically deflating that would have been for any normal person. Few final round leaders in Majors are able to lose their lead and then come charging back to reclaim it. I'm not a good enough historian to tell you when, or how often, it has happened before. But I am certain it is a rare achievement.

I am constantly reminded of Bobby Jones and his assessment of how he was able to win the Grand Slam. He didn't have his best stuff in any if those four victories, but he said that he was able to win because he was willing to take more punishment and tried harder than everyone else. Royal Birkdale was not there for the taking, and she administered some severe punishment to Spieth in the early going. But Spieth simply refused to give up. It was his determination to just keep on hitting it when just about anyone else would have given up that is the reason he is the champion golfer of the year, and why he is already headed for the Hall of Fame at 23 years of age.

We can now, as we always do, look forward to the PGA championship. And I certainly won't be betting against Jordan Spieth to win that one as well. The level of competition in professional golf has never been so high. But there just aren't very many players out there who have the desire and the determination of Jordan Spieth. In fact, I don't think there are any. And that desire and determination, as much as his skill, is what sets Jordan Spieth apart from the rest of the field.

Nae Wind Nae Rain

It was a very unusual day at Royal Birkdale. The conditions were balmy. The course was green and relatively soft, and birdies abounded. It was an easy day for many of the players. But, as any Scot worth his salt would say, "It was nae golf!"

That's one of the things I really appreciate about Open championships; they let the conditions dictate the score. There is no effort by the R&A to shave the greens, or trick things up by silly pin placements, to protect par. If the sun shines, and the wind lays down, Old Man Par takes a beating. And, once in a while, it's not such a bad thing.

I also like the fact that the boys continue to play the same iconic courses in the Open. This seems to be something the US Open is moving away from. And I don't think it's a particularly good thing. I like a bit of tradition when it comes to golf. 

We shall see what the golfing gods have in store for the players tomorrow. It's looking like it could be another two man race like it was last year, with Spieth being chased by Kuchar. There are a few others that could find themselves in the mix should those two stumble a bit; particularly if it's another soft day from a weather perspective. But it rather looks like I should have put some money where my mouth was at the start of the week, because it looks like my man Spieth just might be the champion golfer of the year come tomorrow evening. 

Let's hope for some wind and some rain tomorrow. Because, nae wind, nae rain, nae golf!