Episode 25: How I Think Through Golf Hole Strategy

Episode 25 is a milestone, and Corey celebrates hitting 25 episodes and nearing 250 downloads before diving into a practical strategy discussion built around a real round. Instead of theory, he breaks down how he approaches holes by looking at the course map, identifying safe landing areas, and choosing targets that maximize good outcomes even when the swing does not cooperate. 

Corey walks through a par five where the fairway narrows near trouble and explains why he chose the “fat” landing area, how he recovered from a shank, and how net scoring changes the way a hole should feel when you get strokes. Then he breaks down a par three by mapping safe misses around bunkers and using a shot shape to create multiple acceptable results. Finally, he covers a par four where he plays for his miss, aims to remove the most dangerous trouble, and sets up an easier approach and chip. 

The big takeaway is that course strategy is not just about better decisions, it is also one of the best ways to get your mind off swing mechanics and back into playing golf the way it is meant to be played.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The Birdie Board Podcast is brought to you by the Birdie Board app, the easiest way to track matches, scores, and handicaps with friends. Now, here's your host, Corey, with another episode of the Birdie Board Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome to episode 25 of the Birdie Board Podcast. This is a pretty exciting episode because it is our 25th. I publish these episodes through a tool called Bud Sprout, and they have some cool achievements that kind of help me track the progress of the podcast. And 25 episodes is one of those achievements. So after this episode, I'll reach that achievement, which is pretty exciting for the podcast. Another exciting thing is another achievement that they have on their platform, which is 250 downloads. As of the recording of this podcast, we're at 247. So definitely this podcast is gonna push us over 250 downloads, which I'm really excited about. So it's been a really fun podcast. I've been doing it for about half a year now. Um I'm worried when I first started it that I run out of things to talk about, and I I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface yet of what to talk about with golf. So it's been fun. Um and in this episode today, I wanted to just go over how I approach some golf holes. Uh really, it's like golf hole strategy, core course strategy type of discussion. Um, but I think the the way I think about the golf holes would probably help a lot of you listening. Um now I feel like I can strategize well, but I don't always execute well. So it puts me in a lot of unique situations that I then have to strategize from again. So what I am doing for this episode is I brought up one of my recent rounds and I just wanted to talk through the different holes and how I think about each of the holes. So the first one is a par five. It's um I probably should have pulled up the yardages. It's probably about a 500-yard par five. And on the left hand side and the right hand side of this hole, there's all greens. Uh, probably about 200 yards up on the right hand side, there's a bunker, and then another one on the right hand side, about 250 or so. Uh, and this is kind of where it starts. You're on the T-Box and you're trying to analyze okay, how can I keep my ball in play? Well, the first thing that I always do is I look at the course map because um a lot of times I like to play new courses, I don't always know what the hole is doing, so I use Arcos. If you haven't used it, it's a pretty good app. Um, I have had a little bit of trouble with it lately where for some reason it's not recording my par threes, but outside of that, it's been a pretty reliable app for me over the years. I'm hoping this season um that bug has been fixed, and if not, I'll probably try to look for a new app. But anyway, so I'm looking at this Arcos app and it's showing me what the hole looks like. So I can see that the hole is pretty wide up until that first bunker. So even though there's trees on both sides, the there's a very big landing area um up until that first bunker. Now the landing area narrows up to that second bunker by probably about half. So if I were to guess maybe 100 yards wide at the fattest point near the first bunker, maybe 50 uh near that second bunker. So of course the risk is like, okay, if I can push it up near that second bunker, which is probably like 250 yards, then I'll have a shorter shot to the green. But the error rate for me to get it up to that is probably 70-80%. The chances of my game to get up to that skinnier area of the fairway and not hit it in the woods to the left or in the bunker to the right or the woods beyond the bunker to the right is fairly low. So what I decided to play this shot as is instead of pushing it up till that skinner area of the bunker, I knew like, okay, this is a par five, it's probably a two three-shot hole to get to the green, maybe even four for my handicap. So I'm just gonna play it to the fat area. So I played it 200 yards, uh, got it up to the first um bunker. I took a six iron off the T-box, and as probably it happens for a lot of amateur amateurs, I shank my six iron. Uh so it's does go about the distance I want it to go. It went 186 yards, but it actually went into the woods to the left. And thankfully it wasn't out of bounce. Um, the woods were just like a red stake area, so I was able to find my ball and play it. But I was pretty deep into the woods, so I did see an opening, and I thought, okay, I'm just gonna get it up to the second bunker in the skinnier area. Um what's nice though is the lower my clubs get, the more control I have over my shots. So I took a 50 degree and I was able to hit it right around 105 yards and get it up to that that skinny area of the second bunker. So now I'm probably like maybe 180 yards out from the hole. Um, and I have a decent shot in, and I take an 8 iron, and guess what happens? I shank it off to the right. Now this shank wasn't as bad as the first shank. Uh but what I did though is I played my error in this case. So I knew that the hole was kind of off to the left from this shot, so I didn't have a clear shot straight at the hole. I could be aggressive and maybe try to get it to the hole, but I would have had to hit it like 180 yards through the air over two bunkers and landed on a green that's probably from that angle maybe 10 or 15 yards deep. Um, a challenging shot for even the pros. So what I did instead is I played this as a two shot at this point, and I aimed to the right. So even though I didn't have the best of shot and shanked it a little further right, um, I did have a shot into the green at that point. And I shot I had a shot into the long end of the green. So I took my eight iron again, uh hit it 162 yards, which ended up being just a little long, but I was able to chip on and two putt from there. And what I played it long as well because there was a bunker in the front left. So if I was on the front right, I'd be okay, but the front left, the there would have been trouble. On the back side, it was all grass. So even if I went long back left or long back right, um, I'd be okay. That wouldn't be the same for the front side, where if I went short left, bunker, but short right would be okay. So I played again the shot that had a higher chance for success. Now that's playing my error. So best case scenario, I don't hit it long and I land on the green. Worst case scenario, which is what happened here, I hit it a little bit long left and I had a chip back onto the green and I ended up two-putting it. So if you're keeping track, that ended up being a double bogey for me for that hole. Um, but I'm about a 20 handicap, so I had I had two strokes on that particular hole. So I ended up getting a net par. And in competition golf, that's probably about all you can ask for. Um, especially a harder hole like this, a hole that you made some mistake. I made one major mistake off the T-box, shanking it into the woods, and then a smaller mistake after that, where it was a little bit of a shank, but it wasn't quite in the woods. I had a better shot into the green, and I was able to walk away for with a net um a net par. So that's how I approached that par five. So I wanted to walk through pretty much one of each hole. So the next one I'm gonna walk through is a par three. So this par three was about 135 yards. Um, it's kind of like an odd long bunker or odd long green with two bunkers in the front split by a little strip of grass, and then a bunker on the back side. So when I look at this hole, I ask myself, where are the safe areas? Uh well, far is not safe, far middle is not safe, and short left and short right is not safe. What is safe is short middle and then far left and far right. So the way the hole looks too is you probably have a little bit more room off to the left because even though there's a bunker far middle, um, there's it extends a little bit more to the right than the left. So I see my safe areas a little bit more to the left or short middle. So what I'm playing, if you can shape your shots, and I shape a natural draw with my shorter irons. I'm not like a pro, I'm not trying to brag on myself or anything like that, but I can draw on command. So what I'm trying to do is turn my ball into the gap um kind of angle to the left of that back bunker. So what I do is I shoot toward that middle spot in the front. And what what I'm thinking in my head is if my ball goes stud straight, then fine. I'm I'm in that short little spot in the front of the green between the two bunkers. If I draw it like I'm I'm trying to do, then it will start turning toward the hole, and that's the type of shot I want. If I draw it too much, then I'm gonna get enough length, but it's gonna end up falling to the left of that far bunker, either short to the left of the green, which we talked about is open, or far back left, which is avoiding the bunker as well. Um so I have one shot safe short, a shot that's on, I have a long left shot safe, and a medium left shot safe. That's four different outcomes that my ball would be sh safe with this strategy. Where it's not going to be safe is if I don't hit it far enough and I draw it too short, which isn't likely with my pitching wedge, but I would land in that front left bunker. Um and then anything far right, so if I ended up just puring it and I didn't put any draw on it, it would be far back far left. And the the outcome that I think is least likely with my particular swing would be short right because I'm trying to draw the ball and I'm kind of aiming past that anyways. Um, but you can start to see how this mindset plays out. You're trying to think of like, okay, how many positive outcomes can I get with the strategy I'm approaching? And this doesn't have to be in-depth, really, really deep thinking or anything. You're just taking a look at the hole and you're trying to make a decision on which direction everything it can go and which um outcomes would be least detrimental if you messed up. So in this case, it turned out really good for me. Um I did exactly what I wanted to do, and I hit it about 33 feet from the hole, and I made it um with one putt and walked away with a birdie, which was incredible for this round. And let's finish up with a par 4. So for this par 4, it's mostly straight. I would say it's probably about a 400-yard par four. Um, but it kind of curves to the left just a little bit at the I don't know, I would say maybe 275-yard point. It kind of tucks back to the left. Now it's not a hard dog leg, but it's definitely protected by a little bit of trees and um a bunker off to the left, and then a short bunker probably around 275 or so. So approaching this hole, I can see um it kind of goes off to the left, and I can see that there's a lot of opening to the right. So in this case, there was a little bit of trees to the right, but it's very open and sparse trees. And it's all red stakes up the right-hand side. So in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, let's see if I can just get a drive down there. And if if I can, um I will try to draw it back onto the green, which I honestly don't do great with on my drives. Um, or not the green, back on the fairway, I meant to say, but I honestly don't do great with that on my drives. Uh, but what I did is probably at this point I was probably fighting a little bit of a slice if I remember this day correctly. Uh so what I did is I aimed up kind of like the middle left-hand side of the fairway. And I felt confident with my driver at this point because I saw that up the right hand side I had red stakes with very sparse trees. So I thought, okay, worst case scenario, I slice it. And there's enough room on the right hand side of maybe my 30 or 40 yard slice that if I aim it up the middle left, then if I slice, I'll maybe just be in the right hand rough, or if it's really bad, I'll be in the trees, but it's sparse trees, and I can play it. Best case scenario, I hit it straight, and if I hit it too far straight, like I really get hold of it and have a great drive, uh, there is a bunker about 275, but it's a pretty small pot bunker. And it's one of those scenarios that like if you get it that far, um, it's a pretty playable bunker. It's not it wouldn't be super detrimental to have that sort of shot. So that's what I did. I kind of aimed just about at that far left bunker at 275, that's kind of hugging the left. Short of it would just be uh in the kind of left hand side of the frailway, and I take my shot, and what happens? Well, I hit it dead straight, but I didn't have the distance on it that I normally do. So what I ended up happening is I landed in the fairway a little bit short of that left bunker, giving me an awesome shot into the green. Now, it could have gone another way, I could have sliced it, but I since it's kind of off to the left, if I would have gone to the right, I would have had an even better angle into the green. So I was really happy with how the strategy paid out off of the T-box. So now I have about a hundred yard shot into the green. Uh hundred yards is roughly my 56 or so. Um, sometimes my 50, depending on like the slope and elevation. So I took my 56 and I have a decent shot just off to the right of the green. Now I did aim a little bit to the right because I like I mentioned this green is a little bit tucked to the left, and there's bunkers on the left and right side. So if I went right at the green, what I'm hitting over is that little bunker in front of me, maybe a little bit of a tree line, and then a bunker on the left. Now I do have a lot of room long for that, but that's a lot of error uh margin if I hit it short. And I only needed to aim like five yards or ten yards to the right to take out a play the tree line and the far left bunker. The little bunker in front of me was only like 25 yards, so with a 56 degree, I kind of thought, okay, this isn't even a problem, hopefully. And what I did is I shot up the kind of aim to the right of the flag. I would say maybe five yards or so. Uh if I could draw it back in the flag, great, I'd be on the green. If not, then it should be a little chit. And what happened is I ended up just kind of hitting it straight, maybe just a little bit offline to the right. So I just missed the green, but this was a perfect spot to miss. Um, there was just a little bit of fairway in front of the green, I was short of the far bunker. Uh, there was just nice fluffy rough for me to hit out of. So I had a nice 16-yard chip shot up on the green, and I two-putted it for a bogey. And in this case, I got a stroke for this hole for my handicap, so I ended up walking away with a net par. So really happy with that course strategy. So you can start to see how I think about these holes, and I think that you all listening could really benefit from this. And it all starts and really comes down to like look at the hole you're about to play, think about where's the safest shot that I have. When you make that sort of decision, you have the ability to put your ball into a position where even if you mess up, you still can play a next shot and have high confidence that you can continue on with the hole. Sometimes I would say in competition golf, especially maybe near the end of match play or something like that, you may play golf a little bit more aggressively and you might play that shot where it's a little higher error prone. But I I will say that my best rounds have always been when I'm locked into the course strategy. And it's not only just from like thinking about the hole and making the correct decisions. While I think that's important and can really help, I think the bigger picture of all this is it gets your mind on something other than your golf swing, which is one of one of the hardest things I think you can that I think is one of the hardest things that a golfer has to overcome is just trying not to think of the mechanics of their swing while they're actually playing. And thinking about course strategy like this is one tool you can use to really help you get your mind off your swing and start thinking about the strategy of the course. And that's a lot of fun, in my opinion. When you're really playing well and you're just thinking about the course strategy, that's how golf is meant to play. That's why we play different golf courses. So that's golf strategy. Uh, just a couple examples at least. I didn't really want to jump into theoretical stuff or anything, I just want to walk through some practical examples and talk about how I've thought about course strategy in the past. So hopefully you enjoyed that. Um, so that's it. That's it for uh this episode of the Birdie Board Podcast. Thanks for listening, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

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