What Drives Your Golf Satisfaction?

I have three.  Shooting a good score, learning a new shot or technique, and teaching someone something that improves their game.  Others such as: taking money off your friends, bombing buckets of drivers at the range, general love of competition, showing off, winning at all costs, swizzling as many beers as you can hold, or blaring loud music and having a good old time hold less of an appeal.  I do enjoy traveling, being out in nature, and the general company of my playing partners, but not quite to the level of my top three.  Let’s dig in.

I am a “no pictures on the scorecard” player.  Generally, when someone asks about my game they inquire, “How did you play?”  This may not be a great approach, but I find myself measuring my satisfaction by score.  I’ll know a 78 on a par-72 track is the same as a 76 on a par-70, but I’d prefer the 76.  Do you think like this?  Maybe I should play on par-60 executive courses all the time and maintain a stroke average like Scottie Scheffler.  Weird how my brain works.  I’m very honest with myself and can evaluate course conditions, difficulty of the venue, how I’m feeling, and their effect on score, but damn, give me the lower number!  My benchmark has changed as of late because I play and practice less.  Generally, I’m happy if I break 80.  Last weekend, I played Poolesville after a couple days of heavy rain.  The normally fast greens had slowed considerably and the rough had grown into US Open length.  Very tough conditions to adjust to.  The first two holes are a par-4 and par-5.  I played five well thought out, superbly executed golf shots, and bogeyed both holes.  Got frustrated and started pressing and had to grind the rest of the day.  On the last hole I hit a great 4-iron into the green and three-putted for bogey which had me down but when I added up my 79, was happy.  If that bogey had turned the round into an 80, it would have made a difference.   Weird how my brain works.

I also derive a great amount of pleasure from taking lessons.  Now, these are expensive pleasure points, so they don’t happen that frequently, but my gratification transmitters are usually firing on high when I leave a session with my pro.  It’s also inspiring to try a few things around the practice green or the driving range that click and you can repeat on, because knowing that you have a chance to leverage these broadens the overall outlook.

Lastly, I love to teach.  Whether it’s golf or showing a colleague at work about a piece of software or helping my daughter to learn guitar when she was young, the feeling that washes over you when you see someone “get it” feels great.  I count a lesson that I gave in the mid-1980s as one of my greatest moments.  I had been teaching only for a couple months and had to give a beginner’s lesson to a lady who spoke no English – I think she was Japanese.  Through demonstration and physical manipulation of her grip and weight shift, I had her hitting decent 7-irons off a tee.  You could see the joy in her eyes as she learned what she was capable of and the feeling of conveying this experience was priceless.   

Scoring, learning, and teaching are my top three.  What brings you the most satisfaction?

Play well!      

My secret to playing better more satisfying golf

Time to pause at the quarterly mark of the golf season and evaluate how my improvement plan has performed to date and check my readiness to hit the meat of the summer schedule.  I’m happy to report it’s working better than expected and I’m enjoying myself more than ever on the golf course.  My desire to get better more consistent ball striking was the secret sauce of satisfaction.  It’s great to come out to the course confident that you will hit solid shots with consistency.  The off-season conditioning program has clearly helped strengthen my core and allowed for better execution without extra practice or lessons.  In fact, I have not hit balls once with the intent on working on my swing, and have just let the physical changes drive the swing improvements.  I’m playing about once per week, practicing a little less, and feel more refreshed.  I planned to add a mid-week nine holes but that has not materialized.

The KPI I’m most concerned with is greens in regulation, with the goal of averaging 11 per round.  Through eight rounds, I’m not there but have hit or exceeded 10 GIRs five times.   For the first eight rounds in the last five years, my 10+ GIR stats were:

2011:  3 for 8

2010:  1 for 8

2009:  0 for 8

2008:  0 for 8

2007:  4 for 8

The trend is good and the major change I’m enjoying is more length off the tee.  I’ve been able to maintain a solid spine angle and clear my left hip much quicker on the downswing which has improved my timing and balance.  Oddly, I’ve struggled in my scoring on the par-5s as the added length has left me in layup/go for it situations I’m not used to.  In years past, my strategy was to lay back to 100 yards for an unimpeded wedge to the green.  Now if I go for it, I’m dealing with awkward greenside plays that often include low percentage long bunker shots.  Guess more short game work will be required to leverage the distance off the tee, but it’s a great problem to have.