For the golfers in the house: What is your Achilles heel?

What's keeping you from shaving those last three, four, five strokes off your index? Gagged three-footers? Bunker play? A few too many bladed/shanked chips? Can't hold a green with a long iron? Lagged 30-foot putts pulling up 10-feet short all the time? Anemic distance? Two-way miss off the tee? Other?

 

My Brain, play great til I start thinking too much about how I am playing. Need to go with the flow that day if I am fading, drawing, or worm burning just keep doing and quit trying to change it mid round. Sometimes no thoughts are the best thoughts!

 

For me it is the 100 yard shot and closer,,i am better from 150 with an 8 iron than 100 with a wedge,,,

 

For me it's confidence! The days I feel confident I play much better than those where I overthink and am under confident on the shot I'm about to hit. Where I need the most work overall is chipping.

 

more pars, fewer bogeys

 

For me it's definitely my putting. I'm not a terrible putter by any means but if I were going to shave a few strokes off of my game the easiest would definitely come from more time spent practicing my putting. I play with some pretty good players on a regular basis and I can usually hang with them tee to green, but once we get on the green that's where they surpass me.

 

short game

 

Overall most likely my age has been catching up. Dont drive the ball as far,and if we play afternoons I find myself getting tired out and losing interest.

 

It's those damn greenside chips out to about five yards. Typically one or two per round I get in hurry and blade it across the green. I'm much more comfortable further out where I can take a longer stroke.

 

The confidence that consistency breeds !!!
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I'll go a couple rounds where my putting is outstanding -- then, it's gone......
I'll go somewhere + practice some chipping for an hour ( in past seasons )......the results will show up
in my game........then slowly leak away.
I absolutely have zero time nowadays - to practice ANYTHING.
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But again,.......to have confidence standing over the ball ( whatever shot ) +
and having that feeling "Yes...I got this, baby !"
That would help me knock off 4 or 5 strokes a round.

 

I can't putt for crap! I am VERY deft in handling my short-irons and am surprisingly competent comin' off the beach.

 

I still gak my share of 2-footers and am very competent at the Tiger-at-his-own-tourney chili dips. But those aren't guaranteed two-stroke wasters. Going lumberyard off the tee, now that's a ticket to Doubleville or Tripletown, and I find a way to do that a few times most every round.

 

Driving accuracy....I mentioned it before but I really need to take some lessons with a swing coach. I love playing and while I don't get to as much as I'd like to (that's why I haven't invested in any coaching/lessons) I manage enough rounds to keep me happy.

I have a bad slice. It shows up on iron shots sometimes but it is mainly on my drives. I have lowered the tee placement and changed my grip a bit and that helped a little...but not enough. It is bad enough that I need to face pretty much a 45 degree angle to the fairway and let my slice work for me.

 

Rocky, tee that ball higher and it will -- give it time -- straighten out some of that sidespin. A low tee promotes a steeper angle and that leads to more cut spin.

 

Rocky + Ken -
I developed a slice this past season.
I couldn't believe it !
It wasn't on every tee ball - but enough to question "Where the hell did that come from ?"
About halfway thru the season
I realized ----
I had begun teeing the ball midway between my two feet ( of my stance )
I then, moved the tee ball closer to my front foot -- inside the inner heel ( where it belongs )
BINGO !
Slice was gone.........and i thought......"How stupid of me not to see this before ?"
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I also slice sometimes when I get sloppy and fall slightly away as I swing - instead of coming forward
thru the swing + ending at 11 o'clock.

 

Bingo. A lot of this goes to that "golf is a game of opposites" thing and oh so freakin' mental. I mean, why do I slice a closed-face driver and hit draws with my gamer, which is set 1.5* open?

Most average players slice because of just that -- inconsistent ball position -- and flawed body mechanics (too weak and too inflexible to hold posture, turn, etc.) which lead to a host of slice-related problems (including pull hooks).

There is no magic ball position for all, but there is one for each of us. Go ahead and use some alignment tools, even on the course when time allows.

 

16 good or great holes (pars or better).
However almost without fail there will be 2 holes where everything goes wrong (double par or worse - much worse). Same course same day it will be different holes.
Without those 2 holes I would be a pro - well that, and if I had 50 yards more off the tee! :Þ

 

Short game. I sometimes just lack the touch. Ironically, I tend to play much better on faster greens. Also, I have an issue with hitting wedge shots from 50 to 75 yards out.

 

Losing so much distance which leads to much longer approach shots. The knee operations on both legs probably didn't help the flexibility either.
I was still ok after turning 60 and then out went the left knee. Never really got all the way back.

 

That's it in a nutshell for me. One bad shot (why in the hell did I just do that?!!) that leads to disaster. Just takes two of those a round to totally screw it all up. I play mostly at Wolfdancer, a fairly tight course with lots of trouble, so the shot doesn't even have to be that bad to find big trouble.

So maybe more concentration on EVERY shot is needed.