Struggling....

[kid2]

Evening all,
Just been wondering has anyone been cut enough shots to struggle to play to their handicap....
Im playing 2 yrs and started with a handicap of 21....Within 2 months i was at 19 and then a few months passed wher it satayed static....

Then out of knowhere i shot a nett 64 and a nett 65 as well as a nett 71 over the course of 12 months and had heaps of 0.1's in between....
Is this a measure of how well i " CAN play or am i placing too high a level of expectation on myself....I know i have the ability but i cant seem to make it click when i need to.

Im currently off exact 16.2 after getting 3 0.1's back this season already.....

For the most part i think that im knocking it round in the low 90's...(91-92) mostly and im just finding it hard to break into the 80's.....

Im a little worried that if everything starts to click again sometime this season then i may struggle to play to that handicap again after the cut.....

Iv tried playing conservatively and aggressively on seperate rounds but i can say for sure that no one way is the right way...

They both have Pro's and Con's.....
Iv trie hard to hit fairways and greens playing safer for the sake of it but this doesnt seem to work either...
I leave all swing thoughts out of my head but when your standing over your ball expecting it to shape one way it invariably goes the other ....

Iv tried hitting 3 wood off the tee's for safety as the driver ways getting me into all sorts of trouble but this will only work for so long...

The only positive thing for me lately has been a tip i got from Bob Mac....
Iv been playing my long irons and my woods with a closed stance which has helped me to hit far straighter shots than i had been and im getting great confidence from this but then ill go on and leave myself a handy distance of 100mtrs out and miss the green left or right at times with a short iron.....

Any tips kindly welcome

 

[chris661]

leave myself a handy distance of 100mtrs out and miss the green left or right at times with a short iron.....

Any tips kindly welcome

Go see a pro for a lesson?

I did this and it was as basic as my shoulders were out of alignment with the rest of me causing all sorts of problems

 

[HawkeyeMS]

Just been wondering has anyone been cut enough shots to struggle to play to their handicap....

My 1st h'cap was 9 and I struggled to play to it for 2 1/2 years with a card in my hand, didn't get a single cut and not many buffers in that time.

You're h'cap is a measure of how you can play, not what you should do week in week out. In my case, my failing was putting too much pressure on myself to play to my h'cap and beating myself up when I didn't.

 

[G_Mulligan]

How about mixing you strategies during a round. Go through hole by hole before a round and come up with a strategy for each hole and stick to it on the course. Nominate some as aggressive scoring holes and others safe conservative holes depending on length, hazards, SI etc.

Might be worth a try.

 

[Whee]

Not sure how often you're supposed to play to your handicap. There was a thread a while back where common answer seemed to be every 4 or 5 rounds you should match it?!

For me, i've always been told your handicap should reflect your BEST round of golf, so if you got within 2 or 3 shots in any given round, then you hadn't done badly.

Some of the lads I play with here believe that once your handicap has settled, you should only beat/hit it ONCE a year?!

Now obviously with your scores you have got a good round in you, it's just a case of finding consistency (as it is with any of us) which in time i'm sure you will do.

Play each shot at a time. If there's a reward to be had by being aggressive, get your head down and commit to it. I'm not a believer of having a set approach in mind for each hole, as you never know whether the weather, or your form, will allow you to achieve it on the day.

 

[HawkeyeMS]

If you're h'cap is accurate you should beat it maybe 3 times a year, not by miles, maybe 1 or 2 shots.

 

[Whee]

If you're h'cap is accurate you should beat it maybe 3 times a year, not by miles, maybe 1 or 2 shots.

Cheers, that pretty much matches what I had been told, in comparison to what i'd read a lot of here.

 

[User 105]

One tip that really helped me last year was just play the shots you feel comfortable playing.

You don't have to go for every green, even if you're in the middle of the fairway !!!

If you don't feel comfortable hitting a 4 or 5 iron, just hit a confident 6i up short of the green, or even a 7i, and give yourself a chance of a chip and a putt for your par.

This made such a difference to me last year. Kept the ball in play and out of trouble. AND it takes a lot of pressure off you.

 

[Whee]

One tip that really helped me last year was just play the shots you feel comfortable playing.

You don't have to go for every green, even if you're in the middle of the fairway !!!

If you don't feel comfortable hitting a 4 or 5 iron, just hit a confident 6i up short of the green, or even a 7i, and give yourself a chance of a chip and a putt for your par.

This made such a difference to me last year. Kept the ball in play and out of trouble. AND it takes a lot of pressure off you.

Fully agree mate. My putting average when missing the green is 1.7 - when hitting a GIR, it's 2.6

I had 4 GIR's in my last round, and 3 putted on 3 occasions. It's because high handicappers usually don't have the accuracy to be able to put a 100-170 yard approach to within 1 (2 at worst) putt territory. If i'm short, i'm confident of chipping close for a tap in.

 

[Yerman]

I'm in a similar position with a handicap of 16(15.7) as a result of a couple of decent rounds this time last year but only getting close to playing at that level now. But I've come to realise that the low handicappers are there not just because they have a great swing its more about consistancy, when you think a category one player can expect to be cut by 0.1 a lot of times to get to that level, it shows that low handicap is about consistancy as much as anything else. So don't lose heart its all 2 steps forward and one step back.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

If you're h'cap is accurate you should beat it maybe 3 times a year, not by miles, maybe 1 or 2 shots.

Unless you play at Royal Ascot and go under the pseudonym of Kerching, Sundance or Billy the Kid