You've hit a good drive. Middle of the fairway, wayyyy down there. The pin is tucked back right behind a bunker with only 4 yards to play with behind it. There's a big old run off behind the green which means if you're long, you'll have a 40 yard pitch back up a hill with an even harder shot than you faced in the first place. But you're feeling good. You've smashed it this far, why not take it on? You hit it all over the pin until the lightest gust of wind comes along, takes it that couple of yards further. You shout at it to 'sit' but it just ignores you, the ignorant little bugger, they're all the same. You've not even hit a bad shot. But now you're facing a bogey, at best. Welcome to the dark side. Sorry, 'the short side'.
That's what I call a sucker pin. It's a bit like when you play the Euromillions and you get that email saying we've got 'news about your ticket'. Just from looking at it, you're convinced that you've won. You just know it's good, start thinking about whether you'd go public or just live out the rest of your days as a secret millionaire. Then within seconds you're brought crashing down to reality with the golf equivalent of an extra £5.06 in your account and a free lucky dip. Cheers.
There aren't many certainties in golf, but one thing I do know for sure is that understanding the short side will help you shoot better scores, make for a much less stressful round of golf and might make you earn a few extra quid...which you could then go put on the Euromillions and start picking out a new car.
In a round of golf you've got 18 holes. Or to look at it slightly differently, 18 opportunities. Hit and miss, up and down, you've always got a chance. The obvious ones are when you choose to play aggressive, go for flags, make birdie, fist pump as you walk to the next tee. But for these to count, you also need to recognise when taking your chance means being patient, making par and moving on.
In this situation, what I try to do is ask myself questions before deciding on the shot I'm going to play. For example, I'd start by looking at the yardage to the pin, then the yardage to the back edge of the green. Let's say there's only four yards behind the pin to play with and a steep run off. I'd know straight away that I was playing short of the pin. There's a trap in line and short of the flag so I'd look at the yardage to cover the trap. In this case the pin is tucked into a little cut away in the back right of the green so there is only a few yards between the bunker and the pin. I'd be playing slightly short and to the left in this case. 20ft is a good shot. I'll make my par and go to the next, job done (if only it was that easy).
Then there's the more stressful version of going straight at the pin. I'm aware of what could happen if I am even slightly out and relying on things that are out of my control. I can't help it if there's a gust of wind mid flight or if a pigeon flies right alongside my golf ball and gives it a little blow to make it go two yards long and through the back. Granted that second one is fairly unlikely but you never know. In this instance, you're playing for perfection and in the words of Dr. Bob, 'Golf is Not A Game of Perfect".
Pull the shot off and it could be a birdie. But if you don't, then there's a dropped shot (or shots) and possibly a few hangover holes where you're replaying what you should have done. That can be the difference between winning or losing. It's when you should listen to the old "play the percentage" shout . In tournament golf, over the course of four rounds, would your overall score for that hole be lower if you went at the flag or if you played 20ft left, remembering that 20ft is holeable. I know what I'd go with.
If you get chance, have a look on the PGA Tour statistics at the proximity stat. This looks at the average distance that the players hit it from the hole. When playing from the fairway, not even taking into account from the rough, Corey Connors currently leads the average proximity to the hole at 32.6ft. Like I said, 20ft is a good shot. The scrambling stats show that the leaders are getting it up and down close to 66% of the time. The top players have to play a little more aggressive as the winning score is always so low but ensuring that your misses are not all that punishing will increase your scrambling stats, you'll have easier chip shots! You are essentially not playing "sh*t or bust" golf.
There's only one score that counts at the end of a round. The best we can do is try and make the hardest holes as easy as possible. Play aggressive at conservative targets. On one hole that might be playing to a pin, on another it can be away from it. Work on a process that allows you to more often than not, make the right decision. Sometimes you'll get it wrong no doubt. Accept that you did what you could to hit the correct shot and move on to the next. Yep, that was me that wrote that, I'm sure I buried my wedge on one of my videos. I'm working on it. I have new wedges now.