18 Golf Tips I Learned From a US AM Tour Tournament!

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18 tips from a recent tournament on the US Am Tour. We played at Golf Club of Houston on the Tournament course. Home of PGA and LIV Golf events.

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What’s up, Sticks and Hacks? Today I have 18 tips for you from a recent tournament round at the Golf Club of Houston, former site of PJ Tour and Live Golf Events. Golf Course is great. Let’s get started. In the tournament, I started on hole number 10 of the tournament course. And for your first hole, it’s always key to pick a club for success. On a shorter par4, like the 10th at the Golf Club of Houston, you don’t have to hit driver, but for me, driver is a strength. It’s got the biggest club face in the bag. And I like to swing hard when I’m nervous. So, I pull the driver and I pipe this right down the middle. That always feels good in a tournament round. But now, the real grind of tournament golf begins. We start with a tucked back right pin, a sucker pen that’s just asking you to fire at it and make a mistake. Luckily, I know better. We’ll shade slightly left of the pen. So, when I accidentally push this, I still almost find the green. I end up just on the apron. and an easy two putt later, we’ve got a par to start the tournament, just like we drew it up. On the good miss, we like easy pars. Don’t lay up if you can’t commit to it. On this 11th hole, we have water to the right and bunkers to the left. And the AI caddy from Tangent is suggesting that we lay back with a 3-wood. Problem is, it’s early in the round. I’ve got nerves. I don’t love hitting a 3-wood. So, for me, I know that the lefth hand side has rough that’s playable. I’m hitting driver all day. That’s a shot that I can commit to. And even though I do miss this left, I’m in the rough and I’m just fine. It does leave a blind shot, but it’s just a wedge. And all I’m trying to do is get this on the green and have a putt for birdie. All right, from my point of view, that was right over the flag stick, but uh we hit it a little extra hard taking out of play. We’re putting, it’s all we want, 18 putts. I’ve eliminated the big trouble off the tea, and we just want to stack up as many birdie putts as we can in this tournament round. Now that we’re on the green, it’s just a pace pot. And if it goes in, that’s gravy. We snuggle it up and make an easy par on this long narrow par4. Put that score in the tangent app to get our stats for the round. Be aggressive to conservative targets. I’m certainly not the first one to say that, but on the short par 412, you have water to the right, and it’d be easy to get suckered in to going straight at the pen. Instead, we’re going to have a tangent target of the left edge of the green. That gives us a little bit more room for error, and we still have an outside shot of hitting that green. If we hit it too far, we’ll end up in a greenside bunker, which still gives us a great chance for birdie. I smoke this T-OT, end up in the fairway on the left hand side. Just a short little 50 60 yard chip that I put to kick in distance for our first birdie. Don’t look now, but we’re one under through three holes in this golf tournament. Most golfers don’t replace their glove often enough, and I can be just as guilty. But Red Rooster makes it easier than ever by shipping gloves right to your door, so you can have a fresh glove every time you go out play the game of golf. I highly suggest Red Rooster and their premium golf club gloves. Go check out the discount link in the description. If you’re going to lay up, lay up. The 13th hole is just out of my range with the wind today. So, even after pumping a drive right down the middle, we have over 260 yards to this green. I would have had to really mash one to get there. So, my plan was to lay up with a 3-wood. Now, the tangent AI caddy told me to hit four hybrid because that would have made sure that I stayed short of the bunkers. I in the tournament made a bit of a mental mistake and went with the 3-wood. I hit this ball slightly too far and it ends up in the green side bunker, making my life a little bit harder. So, if you’re going to lay up, lay up. Take a club that stays short of all the trouble and I would have had just a flip wedge in the rough. Instead, I’ve got this tricky bunker shot. I catch it a little fat, barely get it out of the bunker, and luckily a good bump and run wedge gives me the kick in par, and we escape without a blemish. But I could have made my life a lot easier if I’d have actually laid up when I was trying to lay up. Learn from your playing partners. Whether it was the direction this tea box was facing or the wind or whatnot, I watched two of my playing partners hit a ball further right than they intended into bunkers, leaving themselves tough shots on this par three. I took that into account, chose my safe tangent target just left of that pin in the middle of the green. And when I hit this golf shot, I safely find the putting surface. So, even though it’s not super close, par 3s tend to be very difficult golf holes. So, just having a putt is a win. And in this case, we have a putt. It’s definitely easier than the bunkers on the right hand side. I hit a good lag and end up making a relatively easy par. And that easy par is gaining strokes on almost every player in this field. We’re still one under for the golf tournament. Let’s go put that easy par into the tangent app and track our green reading so that we can learn more about our performance after the round. Do what the hole is asking you to do. Even though the 15th hole is a par five, there’s a dry rock creek bed that goes across the fairway and hitting driver would bring that into play. So, we’re laying back. Actually, we’re laying quite a bit back, which is an iron off of the T. That does make this a three shot hole, but it’s a par five. All we’re trying to do is stack up birdie looks and not get ourselves into too much trouble. After good iron, it means we’re in the middle of the fairway for our second shot. And after a decent 3-wood, we still have just a wedge in. We’ve stacked up some opportunities. 60 yards. We do a good job of being aggressive here, but it flies just over the pin. Still, it’s another birdie putt and eventually another easy par. We don’t get mad at easy pars. Let’s throw that score in the tangent app. Prioritize greens. Even though this par 3 is playing shorter today, we’ll go ahead and move the pin to the front left location in the tangent app so that we can get a good yardage. And then we’re going to take a club that goes maybe a half club past this pin to make sure that we get it there. Take the bunkers out of play. We just want to stack up birdie putts. I choose a good club. I hit a solid one here, giving me a good look for a two. If you’re tired of fumbling for your phone when you drop it in a cup holder or the golf cart, a perfect solution is the Desert Fox phone holder. It keeps tangent at the ready. Link in the description with a discount. Quit fumbling with your phone. This has been pretty boring golf here for the first seven holes, but don’t worry, it does get interesting. I lag this up for another easy par. And that’s what really good players do. They make a lot of easy pars and every now and then they drop a birdie. I know I just got done telling you to learn from your playing partners, but you also have to be good at ignoring your playing partners. On this long par4 down the hill, I wanted to hit driver, which is also what the tangent AI caddy would have told me to do. But I watched two of my playing partners hit hybrid and iron off the tea and got a little bit pulled into their decision-making process. I was too reactive. I went against the AI caddy, pulled a 3-wood, and put one in the hazard. That uncommitted swing led to a penalty. I take another uncommitted swing off of the gravel path, and get lucky that it stays short of the hazard. Now I’ve got a wedge, and I’m trying to get up and down to save bogey or at worst make double. I hit a great wedge, had a good look for the bogey, but I end up leaving with a double bogey on the 17th hole. All because I was too reactive and paid attention to what my playing partners were doing. Tangent helps you hit blind shots as you’re going to see here in a second. The 18th at the Golf Club of Houston is a great hole. There’s water left, bunkers right, and normally there’s no bailout, but today they gave us a T- box up and I can easily carry the bunkers on the right hand side. So, we’re not even messing with the water, bomb it over the bunker, which keeps us safe, but it leaves a tricky blind shot into this green. So, I do a couple of things using the Tangent Golf app. First, I set the pen location using the pen sheet. I drive up to see the green. Move the pen to where it is on the green. So now when I see the top of the flag, I know where that is relative to the green to select my target. I can’t see the green from where my ball is. So I use the tangent app to look at the through line on that target to see that that black line intersects the left edge of the building. Now I know though I can’t see the green, I can see the left edge of the building. That’s where I’m aiming. I commit to the target. I make a good swing and I end up with a 15-footer for birdie on a blind approach shot. Even though I don’t make the putt, Tangent made that blind shot easy and I leave with an easy par. I’d have signed up for that at the beginning of the day. Listen to your caddy. The first hole at the Golf Club of Houston is made narrow by fairway bunkers on either side of the hole. Now, in my mind, I know I’m a fairly good fairway bunker player, so I opt for the aggressive option hitting a driver and trying to squeeze it in this very narrow fairway unnecessarily. Tangent gave me an optimal and an aggressive route. I opted for the aggressive route and overrode the caddy. And of course, I find myself in the fairway bunkers that Tangent was trying to get me to avoid. Now I have to put my money where my mouth is and try to defend my aggressive play. Walking into the bunker, I give myself a lot of good selft talk and I make a nice aggressive swing, but still only hit it to about 30 ft. I’m working too hard. It have been a lot easier had I laid back and been short of these fairway bunkers. Had that ball been just a few feet further, I wouldn’t have been able to get it out because of the lip of the bunker. A two putt later and we escaped with par, but it could have been a lot easier had I listened to the AI caddy. A committed swing to a bad target is often better than an uncommitted swing to a good target. The wind was picking up here on number two. So, even though the TE’s were up, I was having trouble committing to a target. Tangent wanted me to hit less than driver, but I was worried about going left on a hole that wants you to go left to right. So, I took driver and then I couldn’t commit to it. I ended up hitting it left anyway. But since I took more club, it one hopped into a pompous grass bush. If I had just listened to tangent, I could have pulled it left and I still would have had an iron into the hole. Now I’m dropping with a penalty and really trying to scramble. Despite hitting a good second iron and a really good wedge just to give myself a look at bogey, I end up leaving with a double bogey. All because I couldn’t commit to that target. I’d have been better off either being more aggressive and committing or being less aggressive and committing with less club. That moves me to plus three in the golf tournament. Don’t let one bat hole turn into two. Once you make a big number, it only impacts the next hole if you let it. And I stepped onto the T- box of the third, still thinking about the double I had just made on the second. I make a quick, uncommitted, thoughtless swing and hit it into a penalty on the third hole. Now I’ve really compounded mistakes. I had to take a drop and I’m dropping on a side slope with a long iron over a lot of water. I just missed getting it onto the green, but it bounces back into the hazard for a second time. So, very quickly, I’ve made three penalties in two holes. I do a great job getting my head back, taking the drop, chipping it up, and making a six, not making it a seven. But, I made my life a lot harder by carrying over the baggage of hole number two into hole number three. Golf is not a game of perfect. Coming off of two bad holes, the par five fourth offers me a chance to get the wheels back on track. And I really felt the pressure of making a birdie to try to make up for the two doubles that I had just made. This convinces me to take an aggressive play and try to hit it over the bunkers on the lefth hand side, which I just miss covering. Now I’m in a bunker and I’m forced to lay up. I hit an okay layup shot, which leaves me just a wedge into the hole. I hit a fat wedge that actually bounces up to 2 ft and it’s a tap in birdie. The lesson here is I’d spent so much time purposely trying to make birdies that in this case I hit three mediocre shots and ended up with birdie just trusting my dispersions and choosing good targets. You have to let the birdies come to you. Trying to make birdies doesn’t typically work. They’ll come to you with a little bit of patience. It’s still a game of misses after all. Sometimes a T-OT is just hard. This is a hole that has just been a challenge for me in the past. You’ve got water all down the left. You’ve got a bunker on the right. And if you miss the bunker, it bounces into the trees and it’s a penalty over there. There’s just no bailout. Sometimes you just have to get to a tea box, admit that it’s hard, and commit to hitting the best shot that you can, accepting the result. In this case, I chose a nice aggressive target left to the bunkers and hit a beautiful draw right down the middle. The hard part’s over. Now I have just a nice little wedge. I flush this over the flag stick. And while I can’t get too aggressive on this downhill putt, a tap-in par on the number one handicap hole is a great result. When you find yourself between clubs, pick the one you can commit to and be aggressive in your golf swing. The sixth hole at the Golf Club of Houston is a tricky T-OT that sweeps way to the left and there’s water up there, so it’s not a driver. I’m just hitting a hybrid trying to get it in play. But the difficulty isn’t over once I found the fairway. I had a tweener here. A tweener is when you’re right between two options. When this happens, you have to pick the one that you can be more aggressive to. I was so afraid of going long on this shot that I end up chunking this wedge terribly. It fails to even get halfway. In fact, I end up chunking it twice. I chunked the second one as well. All trying to protect myself from going past this pin. In retrospect, I’d have been much better off just being aggressive and going past the pin. So, after a perfect drive, two chunked wedges, I’m lucky to walk away with just a bogey. That takes me to plus five in the tournament. It’s time to think about the good miss. The reality is we don’t always flush it. So, even though I choose a club on this par three that could get to the pen, when I hit it poorly, I’ve chosen a good target on the right side of the green that allows me to get away with it. This ball ends up on the apron, and even though it’s a long putt, I’m able to snuggle it up there and two putt for a par to get out of here. Had I chose a more aggressive target and hit that same chunky iron, I’d ended up in the lake. That would have been a big problem. I’ll take that long putt from the fringe and the easy par. You’re not going to make me say it, are you? We don’t get mad at easy pars. Choose the lesser of two evils. On this eighth hole, you’ve got water to the right and a bunker to the left. And you’ve got to choose which one you can live with. This is a par five. If I hit it in the bunkers on the left, I can still make it a three shot hole and have a good chance for birdie your par. If you hit in the water, you’re in big trouble. So, we choose a line that’s really close to the bunkers and end up piping one, missing them in perfect spot. But had I hit the bunkers, I could have lived with that result. I took the water out of play. Now, the second shot has the same problem. I’ve still got water right. I’ve still got bunkers left. Same solution. We’re going to favor the lefth hand side of the green. And if it goes into bunkers, we’ll live with that result. We’re not going to make a penalty. I hit an okay long iron here, but I end up outside of the bunkers, but on a tricky down slope. A nice little chip leaves me a good putt for birdie. And even though I don’t make it, it’s an easy par, and we like easy pars. We’re going into the last hole of this tournament round at plus five with three doubles on the card. That’s a lot of good golf sprinkled in with some blunders and some stuff we can learn on in the round report. Your gear matters. Shortly before this round, I switched to these MCC compound grips. And all that means to you is they were slippery. It’s very humid in Houston. I’ve got a little bit of moisture on my hands. You’re sweating. There’s water everywhere. And they tended to be a little slick. I slipped a couple of times in this round and I slipped very badly on this ninth hole T-OT. For a decade, I’ve used quartered grips and have never thought about my right hand slipping on the grip. And I slipped several times in this round. The T-OT is a disaster. It doesn’t cover the hazard. I have to rete take a drop. I managed to get that on the green, but now I’m two putting for double bogey, my fourth double bogey of the round. All because my equipment wasn’t ready for the elements. That wraps up a 79 with four double bogeies. The tangent round report says that could have been a 70 had I avoided the five penalties and three recovery shots. The big issue today was driving. I put myself in a tough spot and you just can’t play great golf with penalties. But we’ll keep at it. We’ll study the round report next time on the goodness.