So here I am again, after breaking down my round recap and looking back at my goals for this round. I had a few simple ones this time, but apparently they aren’t so simple when I’m not striking the ball quite as well as I could be. The 79 that I posted on September 11th was not only a crazy good round for how I was playing, but also one that featured about 7 more putts that I was aiming for. At first, I thought my putting was the issue, but after a bit more homework, I discovered a much bigger hole in my game.
My approach shots were very inconsistent throughout the day. In fact, when all was said and done, I had 13 approach shots that fell outside of 30 feet. Most of them still hit the green, but leaving yourself 30+ foot putts on every hole is not going to help you score well. Even worse, was the distances in that these shots were left from. When you see yardages like 134, 133, 62, 129, 160, 165, 54 and 137, you would expect to see about 1/2 of those shots in the first or second ring. Unfortunately, those were my outside 30 feet distances.
Enough of that, let’s take a quick look at the goals for this round and see where I ended up. First up, for the last round, I was hoping to hit 70% of my fairways, 70% of the greens and have a 75% chipping up and down percentage. Fortunately, I hit two out of three of those in the GIR’s and chipping percentage. Fairways lagged behind at 57% though. I also had 35 putts in route to a beautiful 74. It was a great round. For my September 11th round, I was hoping to up the ante a bit and pull off the following:
GOALS FOR THE SEPTEMBER 11TH ROUND
Hit 70% of the fairways – 9/14 (64%)
Hit 80% of the greens – 15/18 (83%)
Hit 32 putts or less – 39
That was darn close to plan, but it just didn’t work out for me. In hind sight, had I known that I was so close to making my fairway goal, I probably would have played 17 a bit different than I did, but I had thought the round was too far gone to even think about any of the ‘stats’ that I was posting at that point in time. My putting had me so frustrated I didn’t know what to do with myself. What I hadn’t considered at that point was how long of putts I was leaving myself. This round, I left myself 5 shots inside 25 feet. In the previous round, I had 9 inside 25 feet with 4 of those being inside 12 feet. When you look at the difference between a 74 and a 79, 4 putts makes a huge difference.
It’s also worth noting that this was my first round out with my new FG Tour 100 irons in the bag and I was playing a new ball this round, which definitely had an impact on my play. The other factor, at least it seemed to be, was the weather. The air seemed heavier than normal, which made figuring out distances very difficult. When you think you have an idea in your head, then you get a mix-match of feedback from live play, it gets difficult to plan out the next shot. For example, my 9 iron had shots ranging from a 134 yard fade to a 163 yard draw. That is a two club difference though I’m thinking that the 145 mark is about where it is supposed to be. As I get the rest of the yardages dialed in, it should be easier to plan out rounds.
Moving onward to the next round, I’ll be playing Snohomish Golf Course on September 25th and maybe squeaking in a round or two before then somewhere else. Snohomish is a 6813 yard par 72 layout with some beastly long par 5’s and a 244 yard par 3. From the tips, it looks to play similar to Gearhart, but with more trees lining the fairways. My goals for Snohomish are going to be tailored a bit differently than my past rounds with generic goals, and being my first loop around there, it should be important to nail these for a good score.
GOALS FOR THE SEPTEMBER 25TH ROUND
Hit 70% of the fairways -
Hit 10 shots inside 25 feet -
Dial in club distances -
I’m not going to worry as much about how many greens and how many putts I take this round as I am more worried about getting the 100’s dialed in and ready for the winter. This will probably be one of the last dry rounds I get for 2016, so I want to make the most of it. I am also going to start putting a premium on my fitness goals. Winter is a good time to stay in and ride the exercise bike or maybe do a sit up/push up workout every morning or evening. Light things to get going, but getting things moving none the less. I think a crucial part of scoring going forward will be dialing in the irons and getting my approach shots close. Eventually, my plan is to get everything inside 25 feet and shoot for at least 9 shots inside 12 feet.
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