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Post by pavaveda on Jul 9, 2011 21:01:38 GMT -5
OK, I'm playing a classic Donald Ross course tomorrow morning (8 AM Eastern) and I want to play well. Last time I played this course in the spring (9 holes), it was wet, really wet, and it was pretty obvious to me that they don't spend too much on maintenance. Therefore, you have pretty long rough, pretty long fairway grass, small greens that are slow, few bunkers, little in the way of water hazards, and fairly straight-away holes. Slope around 124. I'm no scratch player, in fact, my course handicap will be around 31 tomorrow. I ask you, the more advanced, accomplished golfers, what are your suggestions for me to just kill this course? Course on Google
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Post by cloran on Jul 9, 2011 21:12:04 GMT -5
I'm not "more advanced" or "accomplished," but...
I looked at the layout on Google Earth. Unless the rough is REALLY long and thick I'd hit driver off every tee. Bomb it as far as you possible can. There are very few trees, hazards, bunkers, etc; and the layout seems pretty simple with not many doglegs.
Bomb it as far as you can and give yourself a short iron into the green.
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Post by pavaveda on Jul 9, 2011 21:24:27 GMT -5
I'm not "more advanced" or "accomplished," but... Uh, yes you are. Rough was about 3 inches back on the first of May. Fairway was probably around 3/4" or so. Longer in spots. We'll see what it's like now that it's the middle of the summer. I spent 90 minutes on the range tonight hitting driver after driver trying to improve my drivers. Starting to hit better shots and feel more comfortable with it. Might have to see how it goes tomorrow. Last time I tried to play driver was on a pretty tough course (slope 132) and it was not pretty.
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Post by mchepp on Jul 10, 2011 12:50:17 GMT -5
My suggestion would be to work on getting there early and making sure your comfortable with the green speed. Get all your putts to die around 12" past the hole. Make your goal to have perfect speed today.
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Post by pavaveda on Jul 11, 2011 9:02:59 GMT -5
My suggestion would be to work on getting there early and making sure your comfortable with the green speed. Get all your putts to die around 12" past the hole. Make your goal to have perfect speed today. This would've been a good idea had I known where the practice green was (now I do) because the greens were soft, spongy and slow, and I had a tough time hitting the ball hard enough all day. Went with cloran's strategy with trying to bomb the driver. First drive was great, had a wedge on, but then 3 putted. Parred the next hole, par 3. Next hole I played poorly because I didn't know it, and ended up in some bushes off the tee, this was my blow-up hole for the front 9, and I made an 8. The rest of the way I played pretty nicely with the long game, but short game wasn't so great. And I doubled the par 3 9th because I nuked an 8 iron long and left. 44 on the front, and would expect that number to go down if I played there again under similar conditions. The back side, everything fell apart, and I shot a 53. Only redeeming thing was that I was just in front of the green after two shots on the 560yd par 5 9th. Proceeded to take 4 shots to get down from there though. Ugh. Need to practice some more.
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Post by cloran on Jul 11, 2011 14:43:46 GMT -5
44 on the front... nice job man. I should have recommended that you use my personal strategy. Only play 9 hole rounds.
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Post by tightdraw on Jul 11, 2011 18:47:17 GMT -5
Sorry, wish I had seen this before. I have played a lot of Donald Ross courses but the big thing is whether they maintain it in Donald Ross fashion. Almost all the greens are crowned on a DR course and the ball tends to trickle into collection areas. The key to lower scores at a Ross course is chipping and putting. I don't mean really low scores. That requires incredibly accurate iron play but that was not your goal. they are typically position/target golf courses. If you play again, I would need to know if the fairways roll or not, and whether the fairways slope and what the topography is. You can almost always play a Ross course to a reasonably flat lie in the fairway. then you need to decide where to miss the green. unless the pin is behind the crown you can miss short and then stay short of the hole on approaches. this changes if the greens are very slow in which case you have more freedom. And where is the bunkering. Often you can play your shots to roll onto the green if they are slow. if they are fast you have no idea where they will roll. In my experience you should always start by asking yourself how does the architect protect par. Some do it by the greens, some by the bunkers, some by the fairway lies, some by fairway bunkers, some by length -- the least interesting -- and so on. Hope this is helpful. Every good architect builds a course around a view of the golfer as more than competent and also a thinker. So each hole is set up to provide intellectual and strategic challenges in teh light of the player's ambition for that hole. I love CB Macdonald in this regard, but no one was the equal of Alistair Mackenzie in my humble opinion. Ross was really good and his courses are demanding and fun and challenging, but he only had a couple of truly great courses. You play well enough to enjoy a Ross course and not be defeated by it. You can score in the 80s on this one next time. for sure
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