Questioning conventional wisdom.

[wirehair]

Conventional wisdom says to improve your scores, improve your short game.

I'm a bogey golfer. A 220-250 yard drive is pretty good for me. On a 375-400 yard hole, it's drive, get close, chip on then 2 putts. I'm going to probably 2 putt from outside 8 ft most times. It seems to me that If I could be accurate to within 30 ft. with mid/long irons then I could lose the "chip on" shot & drop about 10 strokes pretty fast. I think I need to work on 4-6 irons between 180-150.

Does that make sense?

[JEFF4i]

Well, for a scratch golfer the basis is on in regulation, two putt. Of course, on average, even your scratch golfer only hits 16-18 Greens, so how do they keep scores low, even on a bad day? Short game, of course.

Now, yes, ideally from 180 and in you want to be able to get it on. So yeah, at your point I'd started working on the iron game, but still keep grinding out those chip shots and working on different sorts. Bump and run, a stopper, downhill chips, etc.

[DouginGA]

Wire,
I think the thinking there is that a good short game will put you within about 5' or less if your chipping from 10 to 20 foot off the green. I would also say that decent (not great but decent )putting should have you sinking at least 1 out of 3 from 8 foot if not better.


You might want your goal to be to both get a little better with the long/mid irons and improve the short game. Getting up and down saves more strokes and gives you a better feeling than anything else in my opinion. Even if your irons have you hitting 50% of GIR, that still leaves nine holes that you need to get up and down on. Do it better than 50% of the time and you got five strokes saved right there.

[warbirdlover]

Your game sounds alot like my game was. Now with my new Pings I can do exactly what you describe and drop a couple of strokes. Part of your putting problem might be in simply "reading" the greens. I had some help with that and started dropping most inside 8 feet and some much longer.

[ezra76]

It's all about chipping for me. 9 out of 10 pars are 1putts from a good chip. I have a variety of shots and trajectories I work on with my PW,GW and SW. I also gained a lot of confidence in my 5,6 and 7iron when I played with no driver for a month. I am just as confident with a 5iron as I am with a 9 now. BTW shouldn't you be dropping more putts with one of those $700 Scotty's.

[wirehair]

You guys all make sense to me. My driver swing speed is in the low to mid 80's. Last 4-5 rounds I've been consistent hitting fairways, but about 220 is all I can reasonably hope for. Not only that, but 220 with a 82 mph swing is pretty darn good. Since I'm so short with a driver, I've gotta be more accurate with long irons if I'm gonna drop my regular round from mid 90's.

As far as putting, Warbird's right. Reading a break is a crapshoot, but I still almost always come in around 36 putts.

To a surgeon, a scalpel is a precision instrument, that same scalpel in a butchers hands just becomes another knife. With a Scotty, i'm really more butcher than surgeon, but dang they're nice!

[JEFF4i]

Well, I did play with this kid and I must say he was extremely talented, but he had one huge flaw in his game that cost him at least 2 strokes.

Long irons. He was 200 out with an open pin and hit a fairway wood. Now as a reference I was 180, so he could drive close to me. In the end he put it in the bunker, twice in fact, because he wouldn't take out an iron from over 175.

[Augster]

If that is all you know you can drive it, you should get an array of clubs to help you get on greens from 180+.

No irons over a 7 or maybe a 6 I would say. Go with hybrids or fairway woods.

Work on the range on the shots you most likely will have in.

Most importantly though, make it easier to get to, and on, the greens from your usual distance in. I suggest hybrids, but some folks find they hit woods better. There are easier to hit clubs out there in every length and loft.

The more headcovers you have in your bag (woods and hybrids), the better.