We all know golf is a game of misses. The only shots that come off exactly as we want are the ones that go in the hole, and many times they still didn’t happen exactly as we wanted. Have you ever made a putt that hit the hole so hard, it popped a few inches in the air before falling? Then you know what I mean.
So often, I find myself (and observe others) being fixated on the cup, no matter what it will take to get there. I contend that, sometimes, the best play is to miss on purpose. Maybe calling it “missing on purpose” isn’t the best way to state it. Let’s refine that to mean that we choose a target different from our natural tendency to shoot for the hole, the flag, or the green itself.
Sometimes, it’s an obvious choice and sometimes, it’s not.
Take, for example, your classic sucker pin. Say the flag is tucked way to the side, behind water, just on the green, with a nasty bunker off to that side. I think we would all agree that the play there is to shoot for the safest part of the green. Of course, knowing that and doing that are two separate things.
I’m amazed how many players will shoot at that pin every time. Yet, I do think that we’d all agree that, academically, going for it is the wrong play (in most circumstances) and that we should consider going for the fat part of the green.
OK, so we agree that we all can bring ourselves to miss on purpose sometimes. How about when it’s not so obvious?
Here’s a situation I had to deal with a while back. I was faced with a putt of somewhere between ten and 20 feet, up over a hump and then severely downhill to the pin, which was right at the base of the down-slope. The green was playing very fast that day.
Going at the flag, it was clear that if I didn’t hit the hole, that I would easily be ten or even fifteen feet past. Even if I did hit the hole, at that speed, it could have easily hopped over or hit the lip and shot off to the left or right.
I saw something, though, that gave me a little window of hope: the hump ran perpendicular in front of me and then curved up toward left side of the hole but toward the left it flattened out much closer to me than it did in the area down straight toward the hole.
It occurred to me that if my target was a spot around five or six feet left of the hole, I could safely stop the ball there and virtually guarantee myself a second putt of six feet or less, which I felt confident that I could make because it was relatively flat down on that level.
And that’s exactly what I did. I aimed six feet to the left of the hole, to give myself a second putt that I had a good chance of making. I don’t remember whether I made the six-footer, but I’m confident that I made the right decision.
It occurred to me at that moment that sometimes I have to be prepared to miss on purpose to give myself the best chance to score.
Here’s another example. I wish I could point to a specific course and hole, but if you watch enough golf on TV, you will certainly have seen this.
Every so often there’s a situation where a green isn’t very receptive (it’s firm and fast) and where players are forced to hit long shots into it. Typically, there will be trouble behind, maybe a hazard, or a collection area leaving a tough pitch with not a lot of green to work with.
What you’ll see is a number of players intentionally aiming for a green-side bunker in front or to the side of the green.
Most of us amateurs don’t have it in our wiring to aim for a bunker. However, given the situation I just described, having an uphill bunker shot with plenty of green to work with gives them the best chance to make par or even birdie (for instance, on a drivable par four, a short par five, or a long par three).
Given the alternative of taking a long shot into an unreceptive green with trouble off the back, a simple bunker shot can be quite appealing. It might not be so appealing if you have a paralyzing fear of hitting from the sand, but that’s an issue for another day.
It might not be very often you’re faced with decisions like these. Shooting for the fat part of the green might be an obvious choice, but other circumstances are more tricky. Shooting for the fat part of the green isn’t even a miss, so much, because our target is probably the fat part of the green to start. It’s the times when we’re naturally fixated on going for the hole when this all means something.
To put up the best score possible, we need to be able to creatively think about course management and how we select and play each shot to put the lowest possible number on the scorecard. Sometimes the choices are obvious. Many times, they are not.
We typically mentally allow for some degree of miss, but setting out to miss is not something most of us are comfortable doing when we are naturally resolved to go for the hole or for the green. Be ready to do it when the situation calls for it, and you’ll be adding a little more shine to your course management skill.
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The real question is do you think Tiger missed on purpose? I have to say it was really nice to see the right man win.
There is many a time I have gone for it instead of taking the safe option, only to finish up taking more shots than I needed to
I may have commented already on a similar situation I had. I hit the ball on the top tier of a three tiered green and the hole at the base of the slope where the second tier drops to the bottom tier. I did not have an option of aiming away from the hole left either leaving the ball on second tier and leaving a downhill putt with a severe break or the possibility of putting the ball off the green. My ball had some mud stuck on the ball but instead of cleaning the ball off prior to putting I left the mud on the ball. My thinking was the mud will add more resistance to help stop the ball on the green. My goal was not to make the putt but to give myself a chance to make a par.
DE, I know you wrote this after the Masters ended but what is your opinion of Phil’s decision to go for the green on 13 at the Masters on Sunday? IMO, I thought the ball had to be teed up to give him a chance to try that shot. Even though he pulled the shot off he did not clear Rae’s Creek by much.
Regarding Phil, TP, I’m kind of torn. I kind of have trouble criticizing Phil for that shot because he won the Masters that day and I’m an armchair quarterback. At the same time, it’s not much different from the drive on 18 in 2006 at Winged Foot. Driver was the wrong call and it cost him the US Open. This time, he pulled it off.
Looking at the situation and trying to forget the outcome, I think it was the wrong call. From there, he still could have laid up and still made birdie with the strength of his short game. Given the risk (you’re right – he didn’t make it by much), there just wasn’t that big a reward. I forget where he was sitting in relation to Westwood at the time, but I think he was up by a couple? If he had made the eagle, it gives him some breathing room, but if he makes bogey, then his lead is gone (or maybe he would still have been up by 1). Especially since Westwood had cooled considerably on Sunday.
So, it’s easy to praise the shot. Yes, it was awesome. But I think looking at it in a purely logical manner, it was a bad call. But, in some ways, that’s what separates major winners from the rest of the pack. Sometimes you blow it like 2006, but sometimes you make it and get it done. Really, though, that’s the kind of risk I would expect to see if he and Westwood were swapped on the leaderboard.
After listening to Phil and Bones after Phil decided to hit that shot I figured the lie must have been extremely good. Bones did not even try to talk Phil out of the shot. Even so, I though his wedge game was dialed in and had a couple ways of approaching that pin position that would have set up a birdie.
I agree, at the time I did not think it was the right shot. KJ Choi was -12 after taking a bogey on 13 and Westwood was two shots behind Phil after they finished the 12th hole.
We can be armchair caddies and analyze all we want after the fact. The result was one of the most memorable shots I have witnessed at The Masters