How Can I Best Play a Hole With a Split Fairway? (Video) - by Pete Styles
How Can I Best Play a Hole With a Split Fairway? (Video) - by Pete Styles

So how should you best play a golf hole that has a Split Fairway? Now golf course designers can be quite tricky with these split fairways quite often on par 4s, par 5s they might use a natural feature be at a rocky out crop or a pond or a big tree to give you a decision to make. It’s quite a nice hole to play actually to have a decision to make, do we go the left side do we go to the right side. Generally speaking there will be a safe and there will an aggressive on attacking route. Safe might be a bit littler longer but with less of trouble, the attacking route might be tight and might be shorter a little bit more dangerous but might lead to birdies.

So a lot of this can depend on where you are in the game that you are playing and how confident you are feeling. If you are leading the game that you are playing you want to turn the screw a little bit more when you are playing well, you might take the aggressive and attacking route finish off with a birdie, win the match. But if you are not that great in those holes, you are playing a bit poorly, you may be not as confident as you should be you might be happy just to play the long route round make a bogey, you make a par maybe and be happy with that. Again if you are playing in a medal play where you are keeping your own score I would advise you to play the safer route. If you are playing match play particularly if it’s doubles match play, one player goes aggressive, one player goes defensive think of it like that. Also have a look at where the flag is even though it’s a par 5 or along par 4 you might want to go up there and have a look at where the flag is to work out where the best angle of approach is because if the flag is tuck behind a bunker maybe the risky route isn’t all that good to you because the flag’s tucked away. Well likewise maybe the safe route is no longer safe because the second shot onto the green might be more difficult. So split fairway holes really bring up a great deal of really exciting possibilities to a golfer. Do you attack, do you defend. Do you go risky, do you go safe. There’s no right or wrong answer otherwise they’d only be one Fairway there. It has to be up to you to decide work on how confident you are on that hole but then once you’ve picked your side commit to it. Don’t stand there thinking, oh I wish I was aiming at the other Fairway, it’s up to you. Aim at the other Fairway if you need to but be nice and committed. Once you’ve chosen that side commit to it, play it well, maybe assess it afterwards. And work out whether you’d do the same again for your next round of golf. But that’s how you should best play your split Fairway holes. 2014-05-09

So how should you best play a golf hole that has a Split Fairway? Now golf course designers can be quite tricky with these split fairways quite often on par 4s, par 5s they might use a natural feature be at a rocky out crop or a pond or a big tree to give you a decision to make. It’s quite a nice hole to play actually to have a decision to make, do we go the left side do we go to the right side. Generally speaking there will be a safe and there will an aggressive on attacking route. Safe might be a bit littler longer but with less of trouble, the attacking route might be tight and might be shorter a little bit more dangerous but might lead to birdies.

So a lot of this can depend on where you are in the game that you are playing and how confident you are feeling. If you are leading the game that you are playing you want to turn the screw a little bit more when you are playing well, you might take the aggressive and attacking route finish off with a birdie, win the match. But if you are not that great in those holes, you are playing a bit poorly, you may be not as confident as you should be you might be happy just to play the long route round make a bogey, you make a par maybe and be happy with that. Again if you are playing in a medal play where you are keeping your own score I would advise you to play the safer route.

If you are playing match play particularly if it’s doubles match play, one player goes aggressive, one player goes defensive think of it like that. Also have a look at where the flag is even though it’s a par 5 or along par 4 you might want to go up there and have a look at where the flag is to work out where the best angle of approach is because if the flag is tuck behind a bunker maybe the risky route isn’t all that good to you because the flag’s tucked away. Well likewise maybe the safe route is no longer safe because the second shot onto the green might be more difficult.

So split fairway holes really bring up a great deal of really exciting possibilities to a golfer. Do you attack, do you defend. Do you go risky, do you go safe. There’s no right or wrong answer otherwise they’d only be one Fairway there. It has to be up to you to decide work on how confident you are on that hole but then once you’ve picked your side commit to it. Don’t stand there thinking, oh I wish I was aiming at the other Fairway, it’s up to you. Aim at the other Fairway if you need to but be nice and committed. Once you’ve chosen that side commit to it, play it well, maybe assess it afterwards. And work out whether you’d do the same again for your next round of golf. But that’s how you should best play your split Fairway holes.