Experimentation...

Well my last three on course outings have taught me an awful lot. A bit of experimentation yesterday has helped me to decide on a strategy for my next competition. Till now I've sometimes played too cautiously and it has backfired. That old conundrum of risk and reward has often led me to place a healthy wager with the course at an inopportune moment. So with recent experience fresh in my mind and a little look at my statistics has helped me identify where too attack. Interestingly, it is on one of my problem holes that I first intend to take the course on. Our 4th has caused me many problems in the past. However, I have noticed that I have got my best scores when I've had a go from the tee, though interestingly with wind behind that can be with as little as a 4 iron. Conversely our par 3 6th, which is notoriously difficult to hit and stick is going to be treated with more caution. Some of the easiest holes on my course is the stretch from the 8th to the 11th. However, having a go with the longer clubs yields very little benefit, except for the most accurate and powerful strikes. So I shall take these on with no more than a five iron in hand. It has been a worthwhile planning exercise and it has certainly opened my eyes to a number of misperceptions I've had about how best to tackle my own course. Only time will tell if theory translates into performance. What I will say is this. My personal best was achieved with similar tactics to the ones I'm proposing and the holes I got wrong that day owed more to poor execution rather than poor planning.