36 POINTS (c) Craig B. Kincaid 1999
Golf is a mind game. Golf is technical and requires coordination. The current pro golfers are proving that strength is an important element in conquering the golf course but touch and sensitivity is also very important.
Most golfers are obsessed with scoring. They worry about their handicaps and how many strokes that are going to get or give in the next match. But scoring is only one aspect to the game of golf. Comportment is a very big part of the game. Just play golf with somebody and you’ll gain insights into the “real” person. Why is golf such a great business activity? Because you can observe the way another person handles himself under pressure.
Most golfers in Scotland don’t care much about score but they sure care about the status of their match. Ask a Scot coming off the 18th at the West Links of North Berwick how he played and he’ll most probably tell you that he won his match 2 and 1 or some other measure of the match results. The match is all that matters. You can have a terrible score but still win your match. You can have a great score and still lose your match . . . . which one would you rather have?
When people ask me for advice on the golf course I usually respond with “play each hole from the green to the tee”. They look at me like I’ve lost it and ask me to clarify this simple statement. So I take the time to explain that playing the hole from tee to green is how you’re going to execute your shots but if you don’t know where you want to be when it comes time to make your approach then you’ll probably ending up in some place that you might not have a realistic opportunity to get it close. What this means is that you want to be making your approach to the green with your best full shot. If you can hit your wedge 100 yards and your sand wedge 75 yards, then you really don’t want to have a 85 yard shot. Making a 80% swing with a wedge is very difficult in comparison to hitting a full sand wedge. So when planning your attack of the next par five of 490 yards think this way. I know that I can hit my driver 235 and I can hit my 3 wood 210 which if I’m successful at doing will leave me 45 yards from the pin. Uh, I don’t have a 45 yard shot. So instead I’ll use my 4 iron instead of the 3 wood and leave myself a full 100 yard shot. Your buddies might wonder why you’re not using the 3 wood but when you know that you’ll have a full wedge to the green you’ll have more confidence in hitting both shots.
A game I play to accomplish my course management goals is one I made up several years ago. I call it “36 points”. If I’m successful at accumulating 36 points during my round of golf, I’ll most probably equal par. Let’s examine this simple but very effective “inner game”.
The average 18 hole golf course has 4 par 5’s, 4 par 3’s and 10 par 4’s. If a green in regulation on a par 4 is defined as 2 shots to reach the green and on a par 5 is defined as 3 shots to reach the green and on a par 3 is defined as 1 shot to reach the green then I give myself one point for every “fairway” and one point for every “green”. If I don’t three putt any hole and I score 36 points I will have a very nice par 72. Ah but you say what happens if you 3 putt? Well, I’m really hard on myself but 3 putting after hitting green is inexcusable and I will deduct one point. Keep track of the points and forget about the score and you'll play a round of golf with a different mentality than ever before. Try it.