Course Management: Part 1
When playing either competitive or just casual golf, it is easy to get caught up in how you’re hitting the ball, or how you’ve burned the edge on three putts in a row, claiming that it just “isn’t your day.” However, a lot of those things you can’t control. That’s golf. What a golfer can control is their game plan on each shot and from there, it is just a matter of execution.
During my years of training with The Golf Practice and now at the collegiate level, the emphasis on the “controllables” have become more prominent the older I have gotten. I truly believe that one of the reasons I have played good golf recently is not because my actually ability has improved tremendously, but my ability to get the ball in the hole and manage my misses has.
In the first part of this series on Course Management, I will take you through a system called DECADE, created by Scott Fawcett and used by most of the best players in the world, whether they know it or not. Okay, let’s jump into it!
DECADE is a course management tool to get the most out of anyone’s game, whether you are a 20 handicapper or a tour pro. Scott Fawcett, an accomplished golfer who played professionally for a little bit after his time at Texas A&M, created this system back in 2014 to mathematically help a golfer save shots, without changing his or her swing.
Distance, Expectation, Correct Target, Analyze, Discipline, Execute.
These six concepts make up the system, basically choosing targets and shots for you. Will Zalatoris claimed this system gave him “...25 years of experience in just 5 days.”
Here is how I use DECADE to take the least amount of risk without playing conservatively: Let’s say I am 150 yards away to a left pin tucked by water. Immediately, I am not looking at the flagstick, but moving that flag about 10 feet towards the middle of the green and committing to that spot. Let’s move back to 220, and I am aiming for the center, or even right-center of that green. A ball on the right fringe is 100 times better than hitting your fourth shot after a drop.
Sure, you have to make birdies to play at a high-level, but that is where your putter comes into play. Leaving myself 15 footers all day long is fantastic, and I know one of those putts will fall eventually. The best is when I aim towards the middle of the green and accidentally pull it to two feet. Of course I play if off like I meant to do that, but I rarely aim at a flag unless I love the shot at hand.
Boring golf is good golf. I saw this first hand when I caddied in a Korn Ferry Tour event in the Chicago area. We were paired with Michael Kim in the final round, a PGA Tour winner and former NCAA player of the year. He by no means did anything extraordinary, but kept the ball in play and when he was in trouble took his medicine, and signed for a 68 at the end of the day. Good golf that day was boring. Besides him making a 40 footer for eagle, that was pretty cool.
The biggest thing I take from decade is the target selection into greens, but here are some more cool tips from the philosophy:
The 90% rule: When in the trees going for a punch-out, choose a target you know you can hit 90% of the time. If the answer is less than that, choose a more conservative target.
Hit Driver as much as possible: Fawcett explains that if there is 60 yards or more between trouble (either OB Stakes or hazards), hit Driver and don’t look back. Being in the rough 120 yards away is better than in the fairway at 180.
Next time you tee it up, try to use some of these. As Tiger Woods once said, “Play aggressively to conservative targets.” You’ll thank yourself at the end of the round.
