How To Hit More Fairways, How Important Is It? Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
How To Hit More Fairways, How Important Is It? Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now there’s a huge amount made in golf and particularly when you look at the stacks of golfers about how important it is to hit the ball on the fair way. Oh he hits the ball on the fairway 70% of the time. He hits the ball on the fairway 50% of the time. Well how can he possibly compete against him? The simple fact is, on some golf courses hitting the fairway is not that essential. You’ve got to look at the course you’re playing on.

And you might be able to pitch to the – you’ve played on half a dozen golf courses this year, some of them hitting the greens, and hitting the fairways is absolutely essential to shoot a good number, other golf courses not really that relevant. Even if you look at the home of golf, and you look at St. Andrews. St. Andrews is pretty much nine holes out and nine holes coming back in roughly. Hence why we call it the in and the out with nine because this is the home of golf. You play at St. Andrews, you’ve got one fairway this way, somebody else has got another fairway that way. There is a little column of rough in between or even some pop bonkers. But actually hitting your fairway sometimes isn’t that essential. You can be quite wild around that golf course. Hook on to somebody else’s fairway, walk over and find out on a good lie, knock a pitching wedge back onto the green, make a par or make a birdie. Other golf courses you might look at somewhere like Carnoustie right near St. Andrews, the rough round Carnoustie gets up like this in the middle of the summer. Put a bit of a range shower on that as well. That rough slide playing out the Hay even if you find your golf ball, you’re in there slashing around, trying to dig the thing out. You miss a fairway round on that golf course suddenly it’s a different preposition. So how important is it to hit the fairway will often depend on the golf courses you play. So when you look at a golf course you think, is today a day to attack with the driver try and bomb it out there 300 yards, gouge it out a little rough on to the green. Or if I hit the ball 300 yards into the rough am I going to be back on the tee reloading in five minutes time because I can’t find my golf ball. So it’s a very tough question to say, you must always hit the fairways, because you might be missing out on the opportunity to hit the driver and get it down there. Or sometimes you think well, today is just the day to go out there and slash it round Bubba Watson style, miss a few fairways, chip out the semi rough. Other time you think no, that rough’s lost ball territory I need more loft on my tee shots. Three-wood, even hybrid club. Sacrifice distance, keep it in play. And all these sort of the decisions are up here course management decisions. So how important is it to hit your tee shot onto the fairway? Assess the golf course because the answer is not always the same. 2014-11-04

Now there’s a huge amount made in golf and particularly when you look at the stacks of golfers about how important it is to hit the ball on the fair way. Oh he hits the ball on the fairway 70% of the time. He hits the ball on the fairway 50% of the time. Well how can he possibly compete against him? The simple fact is, on some golf courses hitting the fairway is not that essential. You’ve got to look at the course you’re playing on.

And you might be able to pitch to the – you’ve played on half a dozen golf courses this year, some of them hitting the greens, and hitting the fairways is absolutely essential to shoot a good number, other golf courses not really that relevant. Even if you look at the home of golf, and you look at St. Andrews. St. Andrews is pretty much nine holes out and nine holes coming back in roughly. Hence why we call it the in and the out with nine because this is the home of golf.

You play at St. Andrews, you’ve got one fairway this way, somebody else has got another fairway that way. There is a little column of rough in between or even some pop bonkers. But actually hitting your fairway sometimes isn’t that essential. You can be quite wild around that golf course. Hook on to somebody else’s fairway, walk over and find out on a good lie, knock a pitching wedge back onto the green, make a par or make a birdie. Other golf courses you might look at somewhere like Carnoustie right near St. Andrews, the rough round Carnoustie gets up like this in the middle of the summer.

Put a bit of a range shower on that as well. That rough slide playing out the Hay even if you find your golf ball, you’re in there slashing around, trying to dig the thing out. You miss a fairway round on that golf course suddenly it’s a different preposition. So how important is it to hit the fairway will often depend on the golf courses you play. So when you look at a golf course you think, is today a day to attack with the driver try and bomb it out there 300 yards, gouge it out a little rough on to the green.

Or if I hit the ball 300 yards into the rough am I going to be back on the tee reloading in five minutes time because I can’t find my golf ball. So it’s a very tough question to say, you must always hit the fairways, because you might be missing out on the opportunity to hit the driver and get it down there. Or sometimes you think well, today is just the day to go out there and slash it round Bubba Watson style, miss a few fairways, chip out the semi rough.

Other time you think no, that rough’s lost ball territory I need more loft on my tee shots. Three-wood, even hybrid club. Sacrifice distance, keep it in play. And all these sort of the decisions are up here course management decisions. So how important is it to hit your tee shot onto the fairway? Assess the golf course because the answer is not always the same.