Senior Golfer 15 - Learn to live with your distances, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Senior Golfer 15 - Learn to live with your distances, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think one area that I see a lot of golfers have an issue with even when they're playing the normal line shots into a normal grid is club distances measuring how far they hit the ball. And often we've seen people over estimate how far they hit the golf ball going into a green ultimately leaving the ball short of the target area. Now short of the target area is often the area where the green keepers or the golf course desires will put the hazards, the bunkers, the ponds, the ditches often at the front of the green. Now if you are over estimating how far you think you can hit an iron shot, that's generally the area it will land. Now for the golfer this issue is possibly worse because they remember a time when they used to hit the ball farther. So if you are a golfer now hitting the ball less and less distance due to age, or injury, or illness you need to be even more aware of how far your golf clubs will go and possibly get them re measured in terms of how far they go every six months every year.

If you're playing a lot of golf, I would suggest you do it almost on a continual basis thinking how far the ball is going, but particularly after illness or injury double check your yardages again. Just off camera, myself and David have a conversation, I asked how far you'd normally hit your 9-iron, there is about 140. Now I think that's possibly little bit on the high side, maybe his best shots go 140 or at one stage he was hitting the ball 140 with his 9-iron. I think we measure this again today, we might see a slightly different result. So I'm just going to bring David in for a second. Setting up to a normal ball here, hitting out there we’ve got some measurements out there we can't see on the camera, but there's a 100 yard board down there, there's 150 yard board down that's real to work out how far this goes.

Now you can see this ball when it comes down here, David. It lands a lot near into 100 yard board than it was in the 150 board, it's possibly near 115-120. Now we're playing into a slight breeze today so we'll probably give David 120 for that. So that's 20 yard shy of his proposed 140 that he thought he could hit. So if we change and go over to a seven now. Now we think of 7-iron would probably give us the extra 20 yards we need to get it to 140 yards out there. So go ahead down the same target line, the same smooth swing. That's a good shot, it's a great shot.

Probably a better strike than 9-iron, but still about 135-140 into that breeze. So we can see that just by managing your expectations a little bit as long as David had set up to that ball with the right club, he could have hit the 140 yard target, but not with a 9-iron, he would have been stood here all day with a basket of golf ball struggling to get our ball in there landing all of those shots in around that sort of trouble zone at the front of the green, but as soon as you made the right change to the 140 club the 7-iron it now goes a little bit further. So it's well worth measuring your clubs on a very regular basis particularly if you're not hitting the ball as far as you sometimes think. So check for that next time you're on the golf course, use the right club, hit the right shot you'll hit more greens and regulation, and your score will improve.

 2012-09-18

I think one area that I see a lot of golfers have an issue with even when they're playing the normal line shots into a normal grid is club distances measuring how far they hit the ball. And often we've seen people over estimate how far they hit the golf ball going into a green ultimately leaving the ball short of the target area. Now short of the target area is often the area where the green keepers or the golf course desires will put the hazards, the bunkers, the ponds, the ditches often at the front of the green. Now if you are over estimating how far you think you can hit an iron shot, that's generally the area it will land. Now for the golfer this issue is possibly worse because they remember a time when they used to hit the ball farther. So if you are a golfer now hitting the ball less and less distance due to age, or injury, or illness you need to be even more aware of how far your golf clubs will go and possibly get them re measured in terms of how far they go every six months every year.

If you're playing a lot of golf, I would suggest you do it almost on a continual basis thinking how far the ball is going, but particularly after illness or injury double check your yardages again. Just off camera, myself and David have a conversation, I asked how far you'd normally hit your 9-iron, there is about 140. Now I think that's possibly little bit on the high side, maybe his best shots go 140 or at one stage he was hitting the ball 140 with his 9-iron. I think we measure this again today, we might see a slightly different result. So I'm just going to bring David in for a second. Setting up to a normal ball here, hitting out there we’ve got some measurements out there we can't see on the camera, but there's a 100 yard board down there, there's 150 yard board down that's real to work out how far this goes.

Now you can see this ball when it comes down here, David. It lands a lot near into 100 yard board than it was in the 150 board, it's possibly near 115-120. Now we're playing into a slight breeze today so we'll probably give David 120 for that. So that's 20 yard shy of his proposed 140 that he thought he could hit. So if we change and go over to a seven now. Now we think of 7-iron would probably give us the extra 20 yards we need to get it to 140 yards out there. So go ahead down the same target line, the same smooth swing. That's a good shot, it's a great shot.

Probably a better strike than 9-iron, but still about 135-140 into that breeze. So we can see that just by managing your expectations a little bit as long as David had set up to that ball with the right club, he could have hit the 140 yard target, but not with a 9-iron, he would have been stood here all day with a basket of golf ball struggling to get our ball in there landing all of those shots in around that sort of trouble zone at the front of the green, but as soon as you made the right change to the 140 club the 7-iron it now goes a little bit further. So it's well worth measuring your clubs on a very regular basis particularly if you're not hitting the ball as far as you sometimes think. So check for that next time you're on the golf course, use the right club, hit the right shot you'll hit more greens and regulation, and your score will improve.