It’s hard to believe we’ve made it into August already! It seems like just yesterday we were talking about the first round of the year and since then things around The Golf Academy have only picked up. Now some of you have been here since the beginning of things last winter and I’ll apologize because it has been a while since I’ve been publicly active here but I assure you, I have been busy. It’s been a great summer and for those of you that are still around I promise you the wait will be worth it! I have a great plan for the future of The Golf Academy, and it’s that vision that I want to chat about with you today.
Today, even in the midst of forty degree weather and gusting winds, I had the pleasure of playing my first round of 2016 with my dad at our home course in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. With the lack of snow and surprisingly mild temperatures lately golf courses have started opening up, and as my family was sitting around breakfast this morning my dad and I decided that nothing could beat spending our afternoon on the golf course.
Of all the skills around the green, one of the hardest to perfect is the art of getting up and down. While it might be hard to get the hang of, perfecting this can be one of the easiest ways to save strokes during your round. I mean, if you think about it, going from three shots around the green to only two is an extra stroke on your scorecard every time you get up and down. And you know we’re all about saving strokes here at The Golf Academy! So we’re here today to talk about some of the different ways to practice the art of getting up and down.
If you’re like me, most of the time you spend playing golf is just for the love of the game. I’ll go out on a Sunday afternoon with my dad or my brother and we’ll just play eighteen. I don’t make them re-tee their drive if their ball slips out of bounds, we’re very loose with our interpretation of ground under repair, and we generally let the small stuff slid by without too much of a fuss (except when my brother kicks the ball out from underneath a tree). This not only helps us keep our pace of play up, but it also helps us enjoy the game and each other more because we don’t have to worry about playing the game “the right way” in terms of the rules.
All of this goes out the window once you’re in a tournament though, where one small slip up on some of the rules I said above could result in penalties or even disqualification; something nobody wants to see! So what are some of the small nuances in the game of golf that some of us “Sunday golfers” pass over regularly?
We’ve all been in this spot on the golf course. A place that’s close enough to the green you don’t want to chip the ball, but where the rough is still too high or thick to simply putt the ball on. It’s one of the more dangerous places to be around the green, especially if the pin is close by. Often times the chance of catching the ball poorly and flying it over the green, or chunking it short, are better than the chances of you hitting a good chip, and that puts golfers like you and me in a tough position when it comes to decision making.
But are we really doomed to skulling balls across the green for the rest of our rounds? Or is there a different technique that can help us consistently get up and down from this tricky spot around the green? That’s why we’re here today. We’re here to learn about the hybrid chip.