Confessions of a Hacker – The Scoring Clubs

As the old golfing axiom goes, you drive for show and you putt for dough. This is clearly an oversimplification, so let’s tinker with it a little – you can take yourself out of the running with poor driving, but your wedges and putter decide whether or not you win. They truly are your ‘scoring clubs’.

Sadly, this point was rammed home to me on Sunday, when some disgraceful short game efforts ruined what was otherwise promising to be a strong round (at least by 17-handicapper standards).

The list of letdowns reads like a veritable ‘Who’s who’ of short game incompetence. Two chips and two putts for double bogey on the first. A three-putt bogey on the third. Three shots to get out of a greenside bunker and two putts on the par-5 fourth that led to a triple bogey (after having a pitching wedge in my hand for the approach shot to the green). A chip and four putts from just over the green for a triple bogey on the fifth. A chip and three putts from just short of the ninth green to make double bogey. Another three-putt bogey on the 15^th. Another ‘three chips/ two putts combo’ for triple bogey on 16.

Now…. substitute the three-putt bogeys for two-putt pars and every other scenario for a chip and two putts – not an unreasonable expectation for someone whose handicap says they should break 90. Do that and you subtract 10 shots from the round, which in this instance would have taken me from six shots worse than handicap to four better than handicap, or from 95 off the stick to 85. I left the course happy that my ball striking was back on track, but ruing the missed opportunity to post a competitive score – potentially my best in over three months.

We’ve already covered this ground to some degree in previous articles about practicing with purpose and how to approach five-foot putts, but how do you mentally tackle tricky chip shots (or long putts for that matter) when you’re coming off a set of screw-ups like the ones above?

More than any other parts of the game, chipping and putting are about touch and feel. There’s no one way to get the ball in the hole. The key is to develop an array of shots that work for you. Ideally you have a low, bump-and-run type of shot, a medium-height pitch and a high, soft lob shot in your chipping artillery.

Visualisation out on the course is important as well – it carries with it strong ties to your work on the practice chipping green. Almost invariably, the best chip shots I hit are ones where I get a good picture in my head of a comparable shot hit in practice. Hit enough of these shots and out on the course it should become almost automatic – a high shot that carries 15 metres and lands softly requires a swing of this length, a bump-and-run that carries three metres and then runs for a further 10 on the green needs a swing of that length, etc.

Course management is also critical to this equation. There are occasions where leaving yourself a 15-foot putt is a pretty good outcome; don’t be a hero in those situations and try to slip it in there closer when trouble lurks for even the slightest of errors. This also applies if you don’t feel comfortable with a certain type of shot, such as the high lob shot – simply work out where you can reasonably hit the ball with a more comfortable shot, then aim to play to that spot.

The final part of the equation is confidence/ conviction when hitting these shots. Tentative chipping and putting is very rarely met with good results. Even for the most delicate of chips or the shortest of putts, accelerating the clubhead through the ball is fundamental to consistent striking and therefore, direction and distance control.

As Dr Bob Rotella says so succinctly in his book Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect, train it and then trust it.