This month, as I was leafing through the current issue of Golf Magazine (Feb. 2008), I came across an article featuring Retief Goosen about how to dominate par three holes. It’s a nice article with some good tips, but there was one bit of information in there that blew me away.

Now, I should preface that by saying that I’m amazed sometimes at what I think I understand but really don’t, at least until something clicks. This article gave me one of those moments.

We all know all the old standard par three course management tips about staying away from trouble and not under-clubbing. What clicked for me in the article was the par three scoring average for Goosen, Tiger, Phil, and Vijay. Going back 1,468 holes (that’s a lot of seasons), Goosen’s par three scoring average is 3.02 strokes per hole.

That’s right, it’s over par. Tiger was the best of the four at 2.97 strokes per hole. You’re talking about the guys on Tour that usually score in the 60’s.

If I had to guess without having a chance to research it, I probably would have guessed about 2.5 or maybe even 2.75 strokes per hole.

Of course, we have to understand that they’re playing the holes a lot further away than we are. Still, they’re miles better players than we are anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter.

I had all the information I needed to figure this out on my own, but it took an external influence to make it click, I guess.

I have to go back to a concept in Dave Pelz’s teaching called the “Percent Error Index” or PEI. Basically, what he does is calculates the percent error by how far the ball misses the hole and how far the shot was. So, say on a 100 yard shot, the player is 5 yards left of the pin. That’s a PEI of 5%.

Pelz discovered through research that the average Tour pro had about a 7% PEI on full shots.

Let’s go to another Pelz concept: the “Golden Eight Feet”. His research shows that after getting on the green, even Tour pros start to miss most of their putts outside of eight feet. All his teachings are designed to get a player to get their approach shots within the Golden Eight more often, and thus have a more realistic chance at making birdies.

Now, let’s put the two concepts together.

Assume a Tour pro has an average PEI of 7%. Also, assume we’re talking about a 200 yard par three. That means that on average, most Tour pros are going to be about 14 yards, or about 42 feet from the hole after teeing off! Of course, sometimes they miss the green and sometimes they’re really close (or make it once in a great while). But, the long term average puts them at about 42 feet away.

Put another way, they need binoculars to see the Golden Eight. Birdies from that range are more luck than anything (though, on average Tour pros are much more “lucky” than we are). Goosen adds in the article that this is where tournaments are won and lost. The players that perform on the par three holes have a leg up on the rest of the field.

Applying all that to my own game, it exposes a flaw in my basic course management style. I would never say I approach a par three with the mindset that I’d be satisfied with a par. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should have a negative mindset when approaching a hole, letting stats make us feel as if we’re already beaten.

What it should do, however, is make us adjust our course management strategy to take this reality into account. The fact is, based on PEI and the Golden Eight and on our actual abilities, that par is an excellent score on a par three hole.

Personally, when I play these holes, I do all the things I should do like steering from trouble and making sure to take enough club. But I also get fixated on firing at the pins sometimes, when that might not be the best play. I’m not saying not to have a very specific target, but understanding that my PEI isn’t anywhere close to 7%, I should be picking out a target that’s on the fatter section of the green or on the correct tier.

Things like curving the ball for the sake of getting it really close are what cause the big mistakes. I did it myself last week. I had 195 yards to a par three with the pin left and the wind coming out of the left. I tried to fire at the pin and turn the ball a little left, holding it up in the wind. Well, I overcooked it and ended up way left in a bunker.

I should be very satisfied when I walk away with par, and elated when I manage the occasional birdie. For most of us, playing the par threes very conservatively is probably the best plan. Even when big gambles pay off, only a couple of strokes per round are saved, but when those gambles don’t pan out (which is most of the time), then we’re putting big numbers into play.

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