COURSE MANAGEMENT – THINK SMARTER ON THE GOLF COURSE

In the 7th episode of Develop the Ultimate Golf Game, we are heading out on the golf course! Thinking smarter around the golf course will save you shots FOR SURE! Shooting lower scores is NOT always hitting more balls on the range. Just by understanding your own game, strengths and weaknesses, we can plot ourselves around the golf course strategically and shoot lower scores.

Follow along each episode as we help YOU build YOUR Ultimate Golf Game!

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:27 Long Par 3
01:41 Chip & Run up a hill
03:09 Big breaking putts
05:20 Tucked pins
06:58 Green reading 101
08:04 Wedge shot uphill
09:09 Green reading tip
10:07 Where to miss your shots
11:45 Lag putting
12:55 Playing “smart”, aka playing to your strengths
14:21 Soft wedge shot
15:38 Closing

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Location: Savage Creek Golf Course & Driving Range
Editor: Raven Crew Productions

Hey everybody welcome back to another episode of develop the ultimate golf game I’m your coach Nathan lenhard and today we’re here at the beautiful Savage Creek Golf Course in Richmond BC we’re going to take everything we’ve been talking about so far onto the course to help you score better so let’s get into

That right now all right so here we are in the fourth hole part three I got about 190 yards to the pin pin’s roughly in the center of the green I got wind going left to right uh looking at this the pin’s closer to the bunker on the right

The bunker on the right’s a little closer to the edge of the green so missing left would be a little bit more favorable I play a fade that’s my comfort shot and the wind’s going that way so and knowing how long of a shot

This ball is going to be in the air a long time that wind is going to be affecting this ball a lot so I’m going to be aiming towards kind of left edge of the green and if I hit this ball straight I’m fine I don’t even mind

Missing the green a bit left that’s pretty easy chip from that spot but I don’t really want to be messing around with that right side so going to be looking towards that left side of that green and just commit to my fade hit it not too bad it’s kind of

Fading towards the center of the green yeah just on the front edge all right so here’s a great example of a shot I see a lot of amateur golfers struggling with shots that are going up ridges up Hills uh a lot of times I see players just using too much loft okay

Grabbing their 60 or whatnot uh and just trying to hit it harder but the problem is when we hit those type of wedges harder it gets more backspin so something I learned on learned very early on in my professional career was I love to use 60 everywhere um but I found

That a lot of these pins were kind of just on top of ridges and I was having a tough time getting that ball to Skid uh and roll up that face of that hill so I learned quickly that I need to get this ball rolling more so now on a shot like

This taking more of a gap wedge or for more regular golfers a pitching wedge nine iron even right getting kind of more of a a flattish uh swing as opposed to kind of hitting down and just letting that ball kind of climb that slope there at least that way I ride up that

Heel it gives me a chance to be saving my par not leaving it on that heel and potentially coming right back down all right so I got about 8 ft downhill lots of slope here so the way I’m going to kind of go through this for my

Routine regardless of of where I am here my routine of checking this out typically I’m going to start behind the ball and the way I start is I don’t start by looking at the ball in the hole I kind of already have a sense of this

Putt is going right to left so I’m going to kind of angle myself here to a spot where I think roughly I might be putting towards okay and this is a a guesstimate right and so I’m kind of getting a sense as I’m putting out in this direction

What is this slope kind of doing for myself I like to feel it with my feet so that’s where I I know that this is going right to left decent amount but I’m going to come and get a sense for myself here and as I’m doing this I’m kind of

Thinking okay which way would this ball kind of enter the hole and as I’m kind of feeling my pressure moving towards my toes here I feel like this ball might want to be entering in this side right here the very top side there so that

Means that to do that I might be aiming somewhere out in here okay thinking that okay my balls almost going to be going uph bit here and then it’s going to be starting to take this slope downhill to the left so I’m going to be saying that

I’m going to be aiming somewhere up in this area again for an 8ft pot to have three feet of break it’s not that simple but we’re going to give it a chance and if it doesn’t go in I just want to make sure I got the speed to uh make my next

One without much trouble oh got lucky sometimes all right so here we are we got about 140 yards this a really good hole to kind of talk about proper course management you can see the pin is directly over the Center of that bunker on the right okay and right of this

Green I know there’s a bit of a slope if you hit that there’s not much rough it’s going to kind of slope down into the water so for me again I’m playing a fade and I have the wind kind of moving that way which sounds great which it is if I

Aim properly okay if I go and think about taking it right at this flag and hit my shot with this wind I’m in the water so I’m going to be looking definitely center of the green okay trying to hit a bit of a fade hoping

That wind kind of pushes it over a bit for me okay helping my ball flight and if I’m hitting a draw again I don’t need to go pin uh hunting on this because if I just push that draw a little bit and miss it right it’s just not worth it I’d

Rather kind of start that draw left edge of that bunker draw it into the wind and kind of hold it there ending up just left of the flag would be a great spot to be so kind of aiming center of the green setting up for my fade and then just trust

It I started it there it’s kind of moving towards the pin just over the hill that looks like it could be a good shot all right so hit a pretty good shot shot here at the hole just a little bit under the hole um so right here I kind

Of see that slope going up so I know I’m a little bit up heel looks to me like this side’s a bit higher than this side so going to go and kind of do my feel here with my feet just to get a sense if

I have the sensation like I want to rock towards my toes or my heels and I do feel just a tiny bit of sense there of moving towards the toes so I’m pretty confident this thing is going to be turning right to left now since it’s

Uphill and I need to hit it harder the ball’s not going to break as much as if it was downhill and I was hitting it softer since I’m hitting it with some speed it’s not going to break as much so I’m going to go probably play this about

A ball outside the hole with some decent pace nice all right so here we got a really short part three I only have about 80 yards up a decent amount you’ll be able to tell from video you can’t really see the uh the hole we kind of get cut off about a

Quarter of the flag there so I know that this is a front pin so regardless of how short this is I know it’s a front pin so if I haven’t even seen this green before I know that I got some room behind it the thing I don’t want to do is kind of

Leave this one short and suck it back especially with a wedge kind of suck it back off the front I’m going to try to take it a little long and maybe get a little spin there so right now for myself 80 yards I got a 54 degree Sand

Wedge just going to be playing kind of like a 3/4 swing uh and allowing that ball to kind of hop and spin from there okay I hit it okay just a little right of it from here it looks like it’s all right all right so I got about 15 20 ft here

Um what I wanted to show here is how we can use the edge of the greens to help read our putts better so right now whenever we’re by an edge of the green that’s kind of slopes down and off the green to a lower spot I want to go back

Here and get as low as possible to the level surface level of the green cuz now my eyes are so much lower to the ground that I have such a better vantage point of the terrain right versus if I was standing up here by the ball and I can

Only get my eyes so low right so just whenever we’re by the edge of a green use that slope get below the level and then we’ll be able to get our ey line more closely uh down to the ground so that we can see that terrain a lot easier

All right so I got a 90 yard shot here I thought this would be a good one to show just because I’m not sure if camera really picks it up but on the right side of this pin here there’s a real steep slope okay and then towards the left

Side of the green it’s not so much so there’s a couple things here that I want to say one I’m not looking at hitting a club like a lob wedge here that’s just going to have a ton of spin that might just suck back down that Hill okay I’m

Going to be hitting a 3/4 Sand Wedge one that I’m trying to fly on top get a bounce and spin and stop but I’m also going to try to error a little left just in case I do get a bunch of spin or I come up a bit short that I’m not coming

Down a massive slope and then my putt after that isn’t going to be so terrible but if I miss this kind of short right which a lot of people do that’s going to be a real tough Tupac and again just think thinking that way and erroring a

Little left could save you a shot and just by thinking that way doesn’t even have to be hitting a great shot to save this to save a shot so I’m going to go kind of at it just a little left 3/4 Sand Wedge here all right landed on top looked like

It skipped and kind of Spun so hit a good one we’ll go try to make that pot all right so I got us here in a good spot we got about 50 ft and we got a real steep incline right here in the beginning so what I really want to talk

About here for speed control on a long putt is the back swing far too often I see players taking really short back swings but then going and trying to hit it from there I want you to think of rolling this thing lengthen that back swing so that the down swing and follow

Through can be a similar length Okay so we can smooth it out think about rolling it not hitting it right so I’m going to be aiming a bit right looks like this thing’s turning right to left and then from there on a length like this I really want to be

Reactionary meaning I’m going to look at that Target come back and hit really give it a good hammering to get there okay just a few feet by and just a little left so we’ll go knock that one in okay so here we have about a 270 yd

Hole so really short reachable but it’s kind of surrounded by water that you can’t really see off the tea both sides on the right side of the bunker on the right and the left side of the bunker on the left there’s water so I’m not going

To be taking this one on here I’m going to be kind of laying up in front just cuz I like chipping and I like putting so kind of play to my strengths of hitting it towards the right edge of this green and right now I got a four

Iron so I’m going to be probably hitting this thing about 2 10 and I might have about 50 to 60 yards to that pin all right so again most people are going to take driver that’s fine you want to knock it on but if you’re looking to

Score better right hitting an iron to a spot here that gives me a little pitch and run on this driveable hole I feel like I’m going to make birdies more often I might not make Eagle uh as often there but I’m not going to make hardly any bogeys from that position

Kind of right at that bunker just a tiny bit right where I wanted but it’s still in the Fairway have a little chip okay so after that four iron off the tea I got about 55 yards to this back pin uh pin’s kind of Opp on top of

A ridge so and the it’s downwind so I’m not going to be able to fly something on top and have it spin fast enough where it’s at with this downwind so I’m going to take a gap wedge I’m going to land it uh just a little bit on the green and

Kind of have it skipping up that hill try to try to ride and roll up that hill as best as I can use this wind to my advantage so that it doesn’t just Spin and stop on the hill so my focus is just trying to make sure I get up on top

That looks like it ended up pretty good so kind of like ride up that hill again we don’t have to just because you know how far to hit a 50 yard lob wedge or something like that we don’t have to hit that just play around with different clubs

Right I don’t practice a 50 yard gap wedge very often but it’s just a little bigger Chip Shot trust it kind of see it and uh you never know what might happen all right guys thanks so much for joining me this season on develop the ultimate golf game it’s been a blast

Learning and creating content about how to play the best golf we can we’re all at different levels we all have different shots we need to learn and improve upon so thanks again for joining me and I look forward to helping you out in the future