FULL IRON OR WOOD SHOTS TO THE GREEN
(FOR PROFESSIONALS AND STAR AMATEURS)

While all golfers need to measure and record performance, this amount of detail needed here is suited to the more motivated golfers, those on the pro tours and top amateurs, though all golfers benefit from it. For them, saving one shot in a tournament can mean the difference in winning or losing a major tournament. Phil Mickelson and his caddy enter some of this data into his laptop on each shot. One other favorite statistic: his large number of tournaments wins.

To select the correct club for the shot at hand, all golfers need accurate yardages on how far they hit their shots in relation to the yardage required and the shot, target and weather conditions. These distances are affected by the type of ground condition, the slope of the lie, the target height, wind direction and speed and even the height above sea level and the temperature.

Golfers almost never record data on what the shot condition was, how far the pin was away and how far they hit the shot. As a result, they make club selection errors that can be costly.

Professional golfers playing with amateurs state the number one mistake amateurs make is to choose a club that does not hit the ball far enough for the shot at hand.

By recording accurate information on exactly how far they hit a shot and how far it went to the landing point under different shot conditions, players begin to make better club selections. Their average score tends to decline.

Prior to a lesson, a 24-handicap player told me how far he hit his average shot with each club. During a nine-hole observation, I observed him and recorded how far away the pin was and how far he actually hit the shot. He stopped the shots an average of 20 yards short of the pin, with the ball stopping in sand bunkers and two water holes. In the first application of this feedback, I showed him his estimates and the actual performance. With this and other changes, he dropped his average score by six shots quite quickly.