Confessions of a Hacker – Trust the Yardage

Filed in Other by on March 5, 2012

One of the key things every club golfer should be well aware of is where every 100, 150 or 200-metre marker is on their course. Your eyes can deceive you when it come to gauging distances, especially if the ground is undulating or water, sand or other obstacles stand between you and the green. Even something as simple as a front or back pin location can make a huge difference.

Please note: With the big wet sweeping through New South Wales and the ACT in the last week or two, new Hacker material has been hard to come by, and thus I’m digging deep into the vault of old golf stories for this one.

In 1998, my then 15-year-old younger brother Tony made his second appearance at the Jack Newton Junior Golf Championship state finals. As the week-long trip to New Brighton and Liverpool Golf Clubs coincided with winter university holidays, I went along as his caddy for the week.

By the start of the final round at Liverpool Golf Club he was out of the running for any overall prizes. The daily prizes were still well and truly up for grabs though, and when he knocked his 9-iron approach shot stiff at the first hole (his 10thfor the day) and tapped in for birdie to get back to 1-over off the stick, things were looking promising.  The second hole was a much tougher prospect though and after a tee shot into the left trees, the recovery shot found a little valley on the left edge of the fairway, around 50-60 metres short of the front of the green.

As the green sat above where the ball lay, we were unable to see the base of the flagstick from there and thus did a quick wander up the slope and back. The pin sheets said that the pin was cut in the back left corner, 28 metres beyond the front edge, leaving around an 80-metre pitch to get back to the flag. This was his perfect distance for a full lob wedge; at the time, you wouldn’t have been able to get even money about him knocking it within a metre or two.

Yet neither of us could be sold on the distance. We both thought it looked substantially shorter than a full lob wedge and with trouble lurking directly over the back, decided that a 65-70 metre shot was the play. He hit the shot around 65 metres dead into the heart of the green, leaving a slick 50-footer for par. As we paced across the massive green, the folly of not trusting the yardage became apparent. Three putts later, a momentum-halting double bogey was on the card.

It is especially true of a course on which you have little knowledge (such as Liverpool for my brother and I), but even on at your local haunt, understanding the correct distance matters. Many courses these days provide additional information by placing distances to the centre of the green on their sprinkler heads – seek these out to give yourself the best chance of pulling the correct club for your approach shot.

The position of the pin on the green is also of major significance. Consider the case where you’re faced with a 150-metre shot to the middle of the green, but the green is 30 metres long from  front to back. This equates to a distance of 135 metres to the front edge of the green and 165 metres to the back edge. Such a change in distance would almost certainly have you grabbing for a different club, wouldn’t it?

Many clubs use different flag colours to indicate whether the pin is cut in the front third, middle third or back third of a green. In the above scenario, you may want a shot of 140, 150 or 160 metres depending on the flag position. For me personally, those distances would equate to an 8-iron, 7-iron or 6-iron, wind and surrounding trouble notwithstanding.

It is true that for many shots, particularly those from 50 metres or inside, visualisation of how the shot will behave both in the air and after landing is the most helpful tool for putting the right swing on it. However, don’t be afraid to put your trust in the distance markers when they are nearby – after all, they can’t be fooled by optical illusions!

Previous ‘Confessions of a Hacker’ columns:

(1)  Seeking help, (2) Racking them up, (3) Holding your nerve, (4) Five-foot putts, (5) Letting the Big Dog eat, (6)  Slow play

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