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HOW LOW CAN YOU GO
Michael Grange Toronto -- Early last summer I went out for a game with a long-time golfer and good friend. As I'd only recently taken up the game, it was our first time playing together, and I told him if he had any useful tips to pass on, I'd listen. He said very little all the way around until he came over to inspect my progress as I was getting set to extricate my ball from a stand of trees. My plan was to slap a 3-iron shot 125 yards or so through a bowling-alley-sized gap in the woods, a shot that would pass just left of an imposing bunker protecting the green, and then -- happiness! -- cozy up to the flag. As I stood over my ball, braced against one tree, backswing impeded by another, my friend came to my rescue. "What, exactly, do you think you're doing?" he asked, and I told him. Without a word he walked up to me, grabbed the 3-iron, put it in my golf bag and took out my 7-iron. Moving me out of the way, he stood over my ball, aiming at the fairway immediately beside us. He then chipped it 50 feet and watched it roll another 20 or so, coming to rest safely on the short grass. "You know what's the most difficult hazard in golf?" he said. "The hero hazard," he said, and walked away to play his own ball. My original grand plan for this week called for an article about some swing changes that I've been working on with Henry Brunton, my instructor for this series, but after watching this past weekend's events at the British Open, clearly course management has to be the topic. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Frenchman Jean Van de Velde's collapse on the 18th hole at Carnoustie wasn't the fact that he blew a three-shot lead, but his rationalization after the fact. We all know what happened. Having missed the fairway with his drive, Van de Velde elected to try and make it to the 18th green by hitting a 2-iron that would have to carry a creek 189 yards away. As millions can attest, it carried the creek all right, nailing the grandstand on the way by and bouncing back behind the hazard, from which point he made a triple-bogey seven, blowing his three-shot lead and the championship. "Next time, I hit a wedge, okay?" he said later. "You'll say I'm a coward, whatever. Next time I hit a wedge." Coward? That Van de Velde was concerned that world's golf media might consider him a coward for making the intelligent play and winning one of the most prestigious tournaments in golf says everything about why he didn't. So what can the duffer set learn from this? Well, lots of things, but how's this: The surest way to avoid those scorecard-ruining big numbers -- the sevens, eights and worse -- is to avoid going for the small ones. Brunton and I talked about this the other day, in the wake of Van de Velde's debacle. The French golfer's inability to get the ball to his target with his 2-iron was no surprise, Brunton said. Professional golfers miss that shot as often as they make it from the fairway, even less often from off the fairway, where Van de Velde was. "When PGA Tour players have a 1-, 2-, 3- or 4-iron in their hands they only hit 51 per cent of the greens from the fairway," Brunton said. "You have the best players in the world missing the greens from 200 yards, yet you have mid and high-handicappers trying to hit the greens every time from wherever they are." In essence, we're all trying to be heroes. Forget the water, the rough, the bunkers. The average golfer's main hazard is himself. "Golfers are victims of what they see on golf telecasts," Brunton said. "Their perception is that they should go for birdies all the time and always be firing at the flag." Brunton said perhaps the easiest way for weaker golfers to improve their scores is to improve their decision making. Lying in or just off the fairway from 200 yards out from the green should be an 8-iron for most players in order to get the ball to a comfortable distance for a wedge. "That way you give yourself a chance to putt for par or two-putt for bogey," he said. The last few times I've played, Brunton has had me putting these concepts into action. In a nutshell, my goal on each hole is to get the ball within 50 to 75 yards in regulation (two shots on a par four; three shots on a par five). From there it's just a matter of wedging on the green and making par or bogey. "That," he said, "should take double bogey right out of your bag." When you do get in close, consider your target carefully, he said. Aim for the fat part of the green. If you don't play well out of sand, stay away from it; if the most dangerous hazards are long of the green, play shorter and let the ball run up; if the worst place to be is short, take an extra club. "You have to play to your strengths," Brunton said. "People's expectations have to be realistic. Golf is a game of plodding your way around the course and avoiding mistakes." And when you do make a mistake? Acknowledge it and don't compound it with another. Payne Stewart's strategy on the final hole of the U.S. Open was a perfect example of the benefits of 'taking your medicine' as they say in golf. Like Van de Velde, he missed the fairway on the final hole of a major championship, but with his ball sitting down in a clump of wet bermuda grass he knew better than to try and go for the flag on the treacherous green. Instead it was chip out and wedge on. That he won the tournament with the ensuing 15-foot putt was a bonus. The message is that Stewart was willing to risk a playoff-inducing bogey in order to avoid a tournament losing double-bogey when the stakes were highest. He took the hero hazard out of play. Call it the Anti-Van-de-Velde Technique for Better Scoring. The experiment: Take a high handicapper, set him up with expert instruction for a full season and see what progress can be made.
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