by Jaacob Bowden
While I know that there are times where you may feel like it's okay to fire at a pin, if you are at all interested in having the lowest possible scoring average over time, I think that you should ALWAYS have the discipline to aim to the fat part of the green (or the part of the green that gives you the most room for margin of error) with ANY full swing shot. This includes Professionals!
How many times have you been sitting in front of the green in the fairway with a wedge in your hands and you end up making double bogey or worse by taking a chance at getting one close to the pin and end up in the bunker or someplace similar? It's happened to me more than once. A few weeks ago, I had a gap wedge in to a green, got a bit too greedy going for the pin, and just missed the green and went in to a horrible spot in the bunker. Had I played a safer shot, I would've eliminated the bogey...likely making par and maybe even dropping in birdie.
The other day I was following Tiger on ShotLink and I saw that he was in the fairway in a similar situation with only about 110 yards to go to the pin. I was expecting to see him nestled up close to the pin, but rather ShotLink showed that he ended up in the greenside bunker! Oops! He still managed to save par...but even Tiger's sand save percentage thus far this year is only 50%. I assume he was shooting at the pin and missed like I did, causing himself a lot more heartache than necessary. Had he just got it on the green, even far away, you can bet that he would make par more than 50% of the time.
Let's look at the numbers in order of the PGA Tour Leader, the PGA Tour Average Winner, and the PGA Tour Average:
Greens in Regulation 70.76% 72.41% 63.49%
Scrambling 64.82% 62.85% 56.03%
Scoring Average 69.12 67.14 71.04
Notice that to score low, the winners get the ball on the green at a
higher percentage than the highest individual green in regulation percentage...and they get up
and down when they miss the green at better than the Tour average.
When you aim to the middle of the green, not only will you hit more greens and ensure yourself of pars...but your misses will also be closer to the green, and thus your scrambling percentage will also improve because your short game shots will be much easier. Plus, when you aim to the safest part of the green, you'll experience less stress over your approach shots, less stressful chips/pitches/bunkers shots, and less stressful lengthy par putts. What can all this lead to? Lower overall scores!
Give it a try. Pars win money...even at the professional level.
