Most important aspect of the golf game?

For me it's definitely 20 yards and in from around the green, the last 2 rounds I have been around 10/15 yards from the edge of the green in 3 on a par 5, both times have ended up with a 6, so frustrating.

This happens quite often for me and is the reason that's keeping me from getting my H/c lower.

Should be one of the easier shots and something I would need to practice more.

I don't 3 putt very often so if I get mostly 2 puts with the odd 1 putt I'm ok with that.
 
hovis said:
I'm not saying you don't need good short game skills. I'm saying that this culture of short game, short game, short game is wrong imo. butch harmon said for good golfers the most important clubs are your driver and putter. if you can do well in those two areas then its all down hill.
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Jesus I'm in bigger trouble than I thought!!!! :rofl:
 
Improving course management is huge, the number of higher handicappers you see who can hit the ball well and a long way but when they get out of position it's more often than not a double or treble just because they were chasing pars and birdies when a bogey or even a double would have given them 2pts.
 
For me it's of the tee. I'm not necessarily that bad of the tee but I have noticed that when it goes very well I score very well. Put it in play at a decent distance and bogey is the worst score, assuming you are reasonable in all other areas. Miss the fairway/first cut etc and bogey is mostly the best score you will get. For these reasons of the tee has always been most important. Don't get me wrong - you need to be reasonably proficient in all other areas to take advantage of such a strength.
 
I would say off the tee is most important. Get a couple of hundred yards down the fairway and usually a bogey is the worst you will get with the odd par. Even if you get on the green in one over GIR you don't often three putt as well.

Errant tee shot, either lost, unplayable or needing recovery means any slack has been used up earlier on the hole and can then lead to missing greens and three putt misery.
 
Region3 said:
This question can be answered lots of different ways depending on a) handicap and b) current strengths and weaknesses.

For me, it's keeping the ball in play off the tee and not putting myself in horror situations with approach shots. If my bad tee shots still give me a shot at the green, and missed greens leave me a reasonable chip, then I'll score ok.
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Saves me a bit of typing👍
 
Putting is the most important part of the game, also if you hole alot of putts confidence oozes into the rest of the game. For medal play if I'm honest I don't see the point in playing % golf because you have days you can't miss a fairway with driver leaving much shorter shots into greens hence increasing the chance of going low low. You will have days where you drive it poorly but for me this is about 1 in 4 or 5 rounds so if I can drive a green I go for it what's the worst that can happen? It goes to a double bogey for stableford adjustment and I can birdie 2 holes quite easily. However, if I'm playing in a proper competition I will have a game plan as to when to hit 3 iron off the tee because it's a much safer shot than taking driver to a fairway that's 20 yards wide with thick rough either side.
 
Two things that don't last in this world, dogs chasing cars and pros chasing pars. Lee Trevino. Love that saying as it's well said and very true.
 
To score well everything has to come together. It's a chicken and egg thing and if you can't find the short grass regularly off the tee you'll never score well but if you can't hit greens you'll need a stellar short game to rescue you. Personally I think being able to hole 2-3 footer regularly is vital and takes a lot of pressure off the short game if you can give yourself a margin of error and be confident holing out
 
Parsaregood said:
Putting is the most important part of the game,
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Its important, but fact is we (say moderately competent club golfers) are closer to pros in terms of putting stats than we are off the tee. PGA putting stats......c 54% success from 8'. What would your % be from 8'......could be 20-25% maybe, so not disasterous.

Off the tee, our fairways hit will be much lower than Pros....the best achieve 70% and similar GIRs %. Thats way better than most on the forum, AND they are hitting much further too (apart from the few 300 yard averagers on here :D )

So using the earlier analogy of that round with a pro, if you play tee to green leaving the pro to putt for you, suspect you would not shoot that many less than your handicap. You would need to hit your shots close to make a real difference in scoring.

If I took all the putts and "my" pro played the rest I would probably shave 10+ shots off, as their approaches would leave short putts on many holes and GIR would be way higher than I achieve.

Accept it does vary according to the course too, as some courses will be much more forgiving on wayward tee shots.
 
SteveJay said:
Its important, but fact is we (say moderately competent club golfers) are closer to pros in terms of putting stats than we are off the tee. PGA putting stats......c 54% success from 8'. What would your % be from 8'......could be 20-25% maybe, so not disasterous.

Off the tee, our fairways hit will be much lower than Pros....the best achieve 70% and similar GIRs %. Thats way better than most on the forum, AND they are hitting much further too (apart from the few 300 yard averagers on here :D )

So using the earlier analogy of that round with a pro, if you play tee to green leaving the pro to putt for you, suspect you would not shoot that many less than your handicap. You would need to hit your shots close to make a real difference in scoring.

If I took all the putts and "my" pro played the rest I would probably shave 10+ shots off, as their approaches would leave short putts on many holes and GIR would be way higher than I achieve.

Accept it does vary according to the course too, as some courses will be much more forgiving on wayward tee shots.
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Pros usually average between 60-65% fairways hit, GIR about 70-80% and about 28-29 putts whereas I bet your average amateur struggles to average 36 putts. Sure they're % of fairways/greens will be much lower however it is much easier to reduce the amount of putts you have than to all of a sudden start hitting the ball much straighter and further. also nobody likes to play against a good putter in matchplay
 
Also if I was only making 20-25% of putts from 8' I'd be seriously spending hours on the putting green doing drills lol if I have any more than 29 putts I'm always kicking myself
 
Parsaregood said:
Also if I was only making 20-25% of putts from 8' I'd be seriously spending hours on the putting green doing drills lol if I have any more than 29 putts I'm always kicking myself
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Wow........just looked up the YTD PGA stats. Only the top 69 have averaged less than 29 putts per round, so your putting must be better than the vast majority on tour!!!!!!!!!!
 
SteveJay said:
Wow........just looked up the YTD PGA stats. Only the top 69 have averaged less than 29 putts per round, so your putting must be better than the vast majority on tour!!!!!!!!!!
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Really I think most pro golfers playing well average 27-28 putts per round, also I'm playing on smaller slower greens with less slope than on the pga tour hence why I'm not a tour pro and also the fact I only average 13 greens per round. 24 putts is my lowest and 11 putts is my lowest for 9 holes
 
HomerJSimpson said:
To score well everything has to come together. It's a chicken and egg thing and if you can't find the short grass regularly off the tee you'll never score well but if you can't hit greens you'll need a stellar short game to rescue you. Personally I think being able to hole 2-3 footer regularly is vital and takes a lot of pressure off the short game if you can give yourself a margin of error and be confident holing out
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I think most of us that have been playing awhile on here should hole the 2-3 footers most times, so to my mind there must be other parts of the game that's more important.

But if you can't hole these regularly it would need some work on this.
 
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