Would you sacrifice distance for consistency?
 

Played 36 holes last Saturday and had one mission in mind, "stop trying to kill the ball off the tee."

Result... lost about 40 yards off the tee but walked away with an average of 80% FIR for both rounds.

I'm pretty impressed with the results, but the ego maniac in me is having trouble coming to terms with the loss of distance..

My average FIR for the year is around 35%.

Which would you rather have? Increased FIR and reduced distance or the opposite?

I would gladly take yardage off my drives to be consistanly in the fairway. Not a doubt in my mind. As a matter of fact I am going to try what you did today when I go play, and see what happens.

Accuracy, no contest. I've got a much better chance of hitting the green from 170 out in the fairway than from 140 out in the trees.

Awesome, good luck with it! I'm curious to see how it affects your drives.

It took 100% of my focus just to maintain a consistent swing speed and tempo from start to finish. Usually I have a very smooth backswing but then muscle it in the follow through, causing some out to in action and opening the clubface, causing the "lefty power-face (IE: slice :))."

Most of the time I would rather have the accuracy. Especially at my last course (Westchase) and my new course (Boca Royale) where missing a fairway means a lost ball, or extreme trouble. But some courses have little trouble and short rough so missing is not the extreme problem it is elsewhere.

I went through this change about 4 years ago and it saved my game. Changed to a nice controlled cut on the ball rather than trying to force a draw for extra distance that was resulting in 1-2 snap hooks a round. For me, it dropped 4-5 strokes off my index and dropped me into the single digits at the time.

Now I have taken that controlled swing and added new elements such as moving the ball to either side without fear of losing it. Plus with some of the newer drivers (last 3-4 years) the hot faces and different weighting can add distance. Add to that finding the proper shaft for my game has really helped getting my distance back up.

Boy does that sound familiar http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ananadance.gif

That was going to be my follow up question, how to keep the consistency but add back the distance.. My plan was to maintain the consistent swing speed and try to make up the distance by working out. Think I'll still go this route but look into a different shaft for the driver.

For me it was just consistency and range time. Once that controlled swing got "grooved" the other elements fell into place. Then hitting up a good fitter and fine tuning the shaft for my game. However the shaft change is only in the last 3 months for me. The first thing for me was fine tuning the new swing to make sure the old one did not creep back in.

Probably not. I am pretty long and consistent right now. I hit 50% of fairways last season and the fairways I missed, were typically not missed enough to get into any trouble. I can probably count on one hand the number of balls I lost off the tee. I like having the extra distance to get the shorter irons in my hand. Whether that is from the fairway or the rough, doesn't make much difference on the courses I play. The rough just isn't that hard around here.

If I were to play a course that was tree lined with narrow fairways, or a course that has the 6-8" rough, I would probably adjust my game to try and hit more fairways. For now, I will keep bombing away and take my chances on an approach shot with a wedge than lay back and hit 7-iron.

I would do this mid round as an emergency tactic, but would drag my rear to the range asap and figure out why things were going awry...IMO distance is a tremendous asset to have, and I'm not going to accept bunting the ball and giving up 40yds...practice and lessons and keep swinging hard...

yes yes and yes. Unfortunately I lose strokes to Par 3's n short Par 4's. I press and go for the shorter holes instead of playing safe or using what's been working for me during the round

Accuracy and consistency is almost always going to trump distance unless you are short and wild to begin with. I'm not especially long now, but I'd still sacrifice some of my meager length for increased accuracy. When I get the chance to play in the winter, I rarely use my driver. My 4H added to frozen fairways gets me enough distance to reach most holes in regulation. (Home course is par 72 - 6500 yards from the middle tee)

I have even teed off with the hybrid, then used driver for my 2nd. Somehow, I seem to be more accurate with it out of light rough or fairway than I am off a tee. Wish I could figure out what I do differently when I hit it off the deck... I'd do it on the tee and then I'd have that consistency that I crave. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...s/banghead.gif

Playing from the short grass is always pays off.

Fairway's in Regulation is a nice stat, but unless the Greens in Regulation stat goes up as well, then all the fairways in the world won't amount to a hill of beans.

Greens in Reg. is (arguably) the most important stat in all of golf.

If sacrificing some distance served to increase my GIR, then by all means, start cutting! But if cutting distance allowed me only to hit more fairways and made it harder to reach the greens, then it's not worth it.

Again, this isn't an either/or proposition because less distance means longer approaches which can end up being just as problematic as being too long or inaccurate off the tee in the first place.


-JP

I agree, I can't even hit a GIR on a Par 3 course...only a few :(

That's an excellent point.

I agree. I see most average golfers struggle mightily from more than 160-170 yards from the green. Get her down the fairway/rough as far as possible, practice a lot with your short irons so you're consistent, then hit more greens. Short irons do the scoring so get them in your hands whenever possible.

Kevin

and then hope you make the putt......... http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...s/banghead.gif

Never "hope", just "do".


-JP