Tips and Strategy
Tips for Beginning Links Golfers
Part 2: Environmental Awareness
By Alex McLain
In Part
1: Risk Versus Reward, we talked about the importance of
weighing the risk of a shot versus the possible reward.
In Part 2: Environmental Awareness, we'll cover the importance
of understanding your surroundings. A golf course is
literally a living, breathing entity, and both its natural and
man-made design will dictate your tactics.
From the Tee
Your shot from the tee will set up the rest of the hole for
you. While it's tempting to grip it and rip it, I
implore you to take a more patient approach and take a gander
at your surroundings first. Here are a few things you
should keep in mind before you tee off.
First, take note of the wind factor. Which way is it
blowing and how fast? This is something you'll want to
take note of on almost every shot (except chipping, pitching,
and putting), but it's most important on your drive from the
tee. Your tee shot will (hopefully) be the longest shot
of every hole, so it will be most affected by the wind.
Make sure you adjust appropriately; for example, if the wind
is blowing 5 mph to the right , try setting your aim a few
yards to the left of where you would normally hit the
ball. Also, you can use a "punch" shot to hit your ball
low to the ground, so it spends less time in the air and more
time rolling on the ground.
Next, you want to take a look at the slope and height of
the area you're aiming at. If you target an area that
slopes to the left or right, your ball will end up rolling
along that line when it hits the slope. To keep your
ball from rolling into the rough, make sure you aim farther up
the slope so that your ball will come to a rest before it
enters the rough. For height, you'll simply need to
remember that your ball will travel farther to targets beneath
you, and they'll roll short of targets above you. Keep
these factors in mind and adjust appropriately.
Don't forget to look out for fairway hazards. Things
like creeks, lakes, and fairway bunkers (a.k.a. sand traps)
are designed to look innocuous, but somehow balls continue to
find their way into these menacing maws. Make certain
that you examine your target area for any nearby hazards, and
any paths your ball can take to fall into those hazards.
Second Shot
Your second shot retains many of the same features and
concerns as the tee shot (Par 3s excluded), but there are a
couple extra elements you'll need to be aware of: the lie of
the ball and your strategy for approaching the green.
The lie of the ball determines a lot about how you're going
to approach your shot. The ball can be, among other
things, covered in the rough, buried in the sand, or sitting
on a slope. Any one or a combination of these factors
will affect how you play the ball. Here are some tips to
keep in mind when you encounter these situations:
- If your ball lands on a slope it will affect the
trajectory of your shot. Let's say your tee shot lands
on a slope that slants severely from the right down to the
left. If you hit the ball straight on, it will launch
itself far to the left of where you intend to land.
Make sure you adjust your shot in the opposite direction of
the hill's downward slope.
- You have a couple of different options if your ball
lands in a sand trap. You can use a "punch" shot to
smack it low to the ground and sacrifice airtime for
accuracy, or, if the ball is really buried, you can use the
"flop" shot to pop it out of the bunker and back onto the
fairway. However, if the ball is just "sitting" on the
sand you can probably use a standard swing and be just fine.
- When looking at the green and the area around it, it's
important to try and take all the factors into
account. Your approach shot to the green will
typically be the most complex shot of the hole.
Two-tiered (sometimes even three-tiered) greens, water
hazards, sand traps, different cuts of rough, severe slopes,
and awkward hole locations are just some of the things
you'll need to watch out for. My suggestion for
planning this shot is simple patience. Take a
comprehensive look around, take in all the variables, and
make the best decision you can. Each approach to a
green is different, so be careful when deciding which shot
to try and make.
Maintaining an awareness of the environmental pitfalls that
a course holds is one of the fundamentals of golf. There
is no surefire step-by-step approach to explain exactly what
to look for because every hole is different. However, if
you keep the above core elements in mind, you'll be well on
your way to discovering all of the unmentioned little things
as you continue to play the game. Look for Part 3 of our
ongoing series soon.
Until next time, this is Insider, out!
