Meeting an old friend again

Greetings!

Over the past year, I've seen my golf game improve. I can see it in my scores, and in the far fewer times when I get angry over some stupid swing of the club. But there's a way that I can see it which may not be apparent to those who aren't as addicted to it as I am.

Because you are called upon to hit a golf ball lots of specific distances, with the ball on the ground in many different combinations of grass, dirt, and sand, blocked by shrubs, rocks, and trees, a golfer learns how each of the clubs in his bag can be used to do what is needed.

What I'm beginning to learn, and be fascinated with, is that your relationship and understanding of each of your club's capabilities and value should be revisited as your overall golf game improves. As an example, let me tell you about my nine-iron. When starting out, most golfers use it to hit a distance of between 80 to 110 yards. It's a comfortable club in your hands, and hits the ball in a high arch which stops in a relatively short distance. When first starting out, there are lots of times when you have opportunities to hit those distances. Short tee shots with a driver, followed by reasonable fairway shots, often leave the ball in that range to the green. And during that period, just getting it on the green is satisfying. Few can explore any other capabilities of the club.

With improvement comes a change in the routine of reaching the green. Far more often, the combination of drivers or hybrids off the tee, followed by hybrids or fairway woods, will reach the green. The distance to the green from the last, long fairway shot gets shorter. There becomes less need for a nine-iron to do its 100-yard pitch. It gives way to wedges for 70-yards, then 40 yards, then 0.

But with improvement to the green comes a concentration on getting more quickly to the pin. The excitement of constant greens in regulation (reaching the green in two strokes less than par) sours if the ball lands so far from the pin that it takes three puts to sink it. In addition, those times when your approach to the green lands off of it, you want your next shot to end up as close to the pin as possible.

The edges of a green are the most varied territory imaginable for a ball to land. I've chipped out of tall grass, over sand traps, and across thirty yards of up and down surfaces. For those short shots which need to go straight up and stop quickly, 56 and 60 degree wedges do well. But I have found that my old friend the nine-iron is coming back into use for those low arc pitches to long, well-controlled rolls to difficult pin locations. If it leads to 1-putts on half of the holes, it's going to deliver even more pars.

One of the joys of golf, an there are many disappointments, is that it isn't a static game. A good lesson is to keep re-evaluating your skills and resources as often as possible.

Gregory