Most golfers will never experience the thrill of playing golf in Scotland where the game was invented. Fortunately the TV coverage of The OPEN at Carnoustie (or CarNasty as it’s nicknamed) was extensive. It not only covered the treachery of the course but it also gave us many insights to improve our games.
Oh yes, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
On The OPEN Leaderboard website they displayed a continuous update of the most important stats for each player: Fairways Hit, Greens in Regulation, Average Drive and Number of Putts. We should all be paying attention to these scores on every one of our rounds too. Tommy Fleetwood improved has scores dramatically on Day #2 when his percentage of fairways hit jumped from 40% to 67%. You can’t win if you don’t give yourself a chance to hit a clean shot to the green from a great fairway position. Of course you have to have the Golf Gods on your side to sink more putts.
Carnoustie lived up to its CarNasty name. The leaders kept their emotions controlled regardless of the hazards that they landed in.
Keep your emotions under control. There were so many times that balls rolled into the rough or a bunkers and the players should have become frustrated. The leaders just kept their cool, accepted the fact that they would end up in hazards and just put their effort into their next shot. Francesco Molinari won by averaging drives over 300 yards every day, and hitting 78% & 67% of GIR and avoiding any bogies on the final 2 days.
Blasting out of deep sand traps and hopefully you never have to do it sideways. It was wonderful to see the skill that some used to blast out of the very deep bunkers. They took very open stances with the ball forward of their leading foot to blast well under the ball for extreme height. They also accepted the fact that some shots were impossible so a side or back exit was the only solution.
Ripping through the rough takes brute force but the dry grasses had a limited effect on many of their shots. It was still impossible to control the direction and distance from any shot out of the rough. Had the rough been green and thick, that course would be impossible.
Choosing the right club. Knowing that you hit a a 6 iron 150 yards is not necessarily the correct club when you consider the extra where you may get an extra 20 yards of roll on the green or a dry fairway. A driver just exaggerates the problem. Use your 3 or 5 wood on a short par 4 to land on the correct side of the fairway for an easier shot into the green.
Keeping your focus. You may never hear your buddies yelling “in the hole” but we all need to ignore distractions.
Control the flight of your golf ball. There are 110 bunkers on Carnoustie. Controlling the flight of your golf shots is the only way to miss the out of bounds, bunkers and rough. Draw and fade control are the only way to manage every shot.
Enjoy the good days. Think of those wonderful days as an opportunity to improve your shots for the windy and rainy days. Practice with your GOLFSTR+ to control your game. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com
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