Turn Three Shots Into Two

Whether your skills are strictly amateur or allow you to keep pace with any single-digit handicapper, you'll never reach your true potential as a golfer unless you learn one of the game’s great tricks: turning three shots into two around the greens. In other words, you must find a way to become a scorer. Scoring is what separates the better players you know from everybody else. Taken to a higher analogy, it’s what separates the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh from the rest of the players on the PGA Tour.

Every golfer is bound to miss a green or two (or three or nine) during the course of a round, which always presents a challenge to your scoring ability. Regardless of your driving and long-iron skills, if you can't get the ball close to the cup (and sometimes in it) when you do miss a green, your scores are going to skyrocket like a popped-up lob wedge. However, if you can make the most of a green missed, you'll keep bogeys at bay and maybe produce a few birdies, and that’s when scores really begin to plummet. The key to turning three shots into two is assessing the lie and selecting the right shot. The Automatic Swing Trainer helps you turn 3 shots in to 2.

By Chuck Winstead, PGA

How can I hit one short game shot per hole?

Let's talk about the Memorial golf tournament, the field and of course the winner, Kenny Perry. A brief review of the tournament statistics and their averages show this:

• Driving distance-280 yards,
• Driving Accuracy-74%,
• Greens In Regulation- 59%,
• Scrambling- 50%,
• Putts Per Round- 28 and
• Scoring- 73 (Kenny Perry 70).

The statistic that really stands out for me is the scrambling statistic. Only half of the world's best players get up and down after missing the green in regulation! The next question that we should ask is what is the other half doing? They are getting on the green and two putting. This brings me to one of the cardinal rules in teaching golf that our PGA Professional staff work on at the Colleton River Plantation Club. One short game shot per hole! I know this may be stating the obvious, but if every amateur could hit one short game shot per hole onto the green and two putt, they should be very happy. After all, they would be doing exactly what half of the best players in the world are doing! Now this doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to get up and down, and I would never turn that down on the golf course. But there are times on the course when you can realistically get on the green and one putt, and there are times when you can't. The old adage comes to mind, "You have to choose your battles" and when the golf course is not being user friendly, such as when the ball sits down with a tight pin placement, cut your losses, get the ball on the green, two putt and move on. The whole goal here is to avoid two short game shots on one hole and then two or three putting.

In my opinion, this is one of the main areas in golf that professionals understand and execute better than amateurs. The good news here is that these shots are not physically demanding. This tells me that discipline, not physical ability, is what's needed. The Automatic Swing Trainer provides exactly that feedback to the player to hit that 'one short game shot'.

Chris Ries
www.theautomaticswingtrainer.com