Pre-game preparation

I don't know about others, and yes I probably need to get out more, but when playing a new course I thoroughly enjoy pre-planning the round to the extent that I produce my own form of yardage book using google earth / paintshop pro / Powerpoint (some of you have already experienced this - I even won a prize at my first golfshake event 'best prepared golfer'.  I think it is partly to do with good advice from one of Dr Bob's books on avoiding indecision on the tee by already having decided what shot you are going to take and how you are going to approach  each hole (obviously depends on the weather conditions on the day etc).

For example I am playing (or hoping to if my back improves) at South Winchester on friday.  I have not played the course before and have done my own yardage book and planned each hole.  Took a couple of hours I guess.  Sample page below.  On my hole charts I put 150/200/250 drive arrows, 150/100/50 approach discs and dotted areas for safe option (black) and bold option(blue) shots.  I would also say that once off the tee it normally all goes pear-shaped and I resort to using my head but i find it helps to have an initial plan. I do find the process makes me think about each hole and think about my course management.  It also makes your realise how well courses are laid out - not just random traps and hazards.

My question then is does anyone else do any significant pre-game preparation (apart from cleaning the clubs maybe) or is it just that I am particularly sad on this front?As I say - I enjoy the preparation almost as much as the game!

This is an excellent hole to play, Andy. the drive is not an easy one as the lake comes into play more than you think and if you take the safety line left then the second shot is almost impossible. It is a long par 4 and not hit in 2 shots very often.

I like your approach to a new course, myself I just cannot be bothered. I never look at yardages, just trust my eyesight, though that is even failing me at the moment.

Try and make it to South Winchester, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Very good Andy I've used google to make yardage books before SG5, didn't look as good as yours (limited computer skills). That hole is a nice hole and where you have marked in black is wher JP hit his drive around the 240 mark ,I was in that bunker it's a magnet as right is OB ,made par though you will enjoy the course i'm sad not to be there but my club needs me and im playing a course which is poo in comparrison.

Andy, I'm a big GTD fan - Get Things Done and one day hope to move towards teh Tim Ferris 4 hour weeking week     I wish!!

In your working life is a couple hours doing the yardage map more cost effective than calling the course and paying £5 and have them send you a stroke saver ?

Just curious.  I am no one to talk as I waster many an hour on the internet researching rubbish

Apart from anything else, I'm a cheapskate.  I also don't find the yardage booklets much use and hence value for money.  An aerial photograph is preferrable to artists impression and gives a better feel for what's going on IMHO.

As for 2 hours making it - call it stress relief.  The computer is in the dining room / kitchen so I'm taklking to wifey while I'm doing it.  I fit it in around other things. I also only do one every now and then - I'm not doing one a night!

   I'm only messing.  I shan't refer back to the first ever golfshake event at Wokefield Park 2 years ago

You want to see what I waste my time doing with spreadsheets.

Joe - It is simple and quick if you have the right gear.

The basic tool is Google Earth.  Find the course. Zoom and pan so hole is tee LHS and Green RHS.  Use the mesuring tool so get the distances and the pin tool to add appropriate markers at the right distances and for the tee / centre of green.

Screen dump the view out of google earth into an image editing software.  I increase contrast and brightness else it prints a bit dark.  Select and crop to just the hole, rotate 90 deg and save the image as hole#01 etc.

I then paste into slides in MS powerpoint but you could equally do in Word if you aint got powerpoint.  I then use the drawing tools to add the dotted ovals for the landing areas.  The text is obviously just a box.

I then organise the slides / pages in the right order for when I print.  I then print to PDF and then from Adobe I print 4 to a page on A4 portrait so the top two pages are holes 1 and 18, the bottom two are 2 and 17.  Then cut them out, staple them together and you qualify for your Blue Peter badge!

If you PM me your email address I'll email you the powerpoint file so you can see how it is set up.

Alternatively, tell me which course and paypal me £5 and I'll send you the completed item (only joking)

Andy, you now have me intrigued also and is this anything that could be incorporated into golfshake, obviously a free public service due to the google/google maps ToS

Andy,

Don't have your computer skills and I don't put in as much time as you but I certainly research a new course a bit and will print out an online course guide if they have one.  Its certainly worth having an idea of what type of club to use on different tees but obviously I would adjust any plans when confronted with the real thing.  Also good to note water hazards before hand as you can miss them with a quick glance at a course planner and they can be hidden and poorly marked on some courses.

Difficult to know how you could do it.  Driving distances for example vary depending which tee you play off.  Landing zones will vary by player.

You already have some functionality on the course details pages that could be developed more along these lines though like you said earlier, is it worth the manhours doing?  I would think it would be a niche market for such info.

Google earth is an excellent tool for checking out courses and the measuring tools are good.

You can save and puplish the markers, and I think groups of markers so it is possible, for instance, if I were to include all the markers for South Winchester, to post on the google maps page the relevant details and anyone with google maps or google earth to see the mearkers in their own software via the web.  I posted some links like this when I first joined golfshake back in 2005.  I shall look them up again and add here as an example

You'll see on Friday that no amount of preparation will make a blind bit of difference to the outcome - it'll just reinforce one's views on what you should have done compared with what you actually did.

Oh and a last tip

Don't print them using an inkjet printer if you expect it to rain!

Amazing what you learn from bitter experience!!

And another

Don't let people see you using them on the course - they'll take the mick.

I started to do this before I got my SG5.  After reading Bob Rotella's books and thinking it actually makes sense to have a plan for the round, knowing what club to use on each tee, planning from the green backwards.

The last one I did was for my society http://sites.google.com/site/saplingsgolfsociety/courses

Didnt take long to do either.  As long as you know your own distances you can plan your round club by club.

Very good Chris. I'm presuming SG5 is a GPS thingy?

It could be quite useful for high handicappers to have the benefit of advice from low handicappers who regularly play particular courses to record in some way how best to play any particular course/hole. You sometime get the 'Pro's Tip' on the strokesaver / yardage book but it doesn't always help much. I guess a bit like the comments John initially made on the plan I posted above.

That said, once you have played a course a couple of times it is not really necessary. The ideal I guess is belonging to a club where you play regularly and have a few rounds with an experienced member who tells you what the best route round is.

Interesting discussion though and one of my justifying thoughts for doing what I do is the fact that a tour pro doesn't just go out and play a course in a comp without having had some practice rounds and made countess notes in their yardage books about where the hazards are and where to and where not to hit the ball.

Yeah the SG5, is a SkyCaddie - swear by it now.  I will still play a practice round before a competition if I can, but Google Earth has been a God send before I bought my SG5.

I would not like to be stuck behind you, Ian, if you are always walking backwards and forwards attempting to find out the yardage.

If this system of knowing the exct yardage worked then perhaps it might have some merit, but having played this game for over half a century I have witnessed too many times, shots through the green, shots coming up short, all by expert players.

The speed of play is now a disgrace and the days of 36 hole golf have disappeared from the calendar.

Over the years, Golf Clubs have put devices in to aid yardage, coloured discs, 150yd marker poles, even planting trees. Some courses now have versions of a yardage chart on their Cards. This is all well and good if the Golfer knows how far they hit each club.

I play "visual Golf" and use yardage as a back-up. What I need most on a strange course is how far IT IS to something, a figure many Yardage charts don't give because of the number of different Tees. Some do, but unless you are good at Mental Arithmatic they are of no use.

Over the years I have played a lot of Courses and kept Yardage Charts so if I go back to a place, I just dig out the old Chart and make a few notes. When you get to a certain level, new courses pose no threat to you because you can plot your way round "Blind", its only when you want to shave shots off your Hcp that you need to know more.

TheLyth

I too have always been a visalgolfer, David. I always felt that I could feel the distance and what club and type of shot was the best for the situation.

As good a shot as it was by Watson on the last he made an error in club selection and paid the penalty. If a man of his experience and abilities can make a mistake then thjere is no need for the normal golfer to get yuptioght when it does not go right.

I played many times with Christy O'Connor Snr in Pro-Ams in Spain and Portugal and one time at Vale de Lobo he used every club in his bag and put the ball on the green on a short hole. A superb demonstration of how feel is one of the most important factors for good golf.

John,

That was Christies party trick. Most of the Tour guys have at least one, I like hitting Driver off my knees some 250yds. Yes I can still do that.

I saw a number of things at The Open. The wind on Sunday was drying the course out very quickly and a number of players fell foul of it. 15 gave a great chance of a 2 or a difficult bunker shot, the difference between the two was inches. What surprised me most was the number of fairways being missed with Irons.

TheLyth

I cannot hit 250 standing up, perhaps if I got on my knees and prayed then I would be OK. A nice trick to have in ones repertoire though.

With the undulating fairways lots of shots were missing them, the nature of a links course.

Interesting that Marino hit one drive 356 yards just feet off the fairway and that counts as a fairway missed, shows the stats up for what they are, a charade.

Yes, its OK when they just roll off the fairway, but some of the guys were missing the fairway by 20yds. Alvero Quiros knocked it over the first.

On one of the practice days at Troon (1982?) the 1st was reachable with an Iron and you couldn't reach 17 with a Driver. Arh, the ways of Links Golf.

Personally, I am a great fan of links golf as it makes for imagination and a little bit of flair to deal with all the things that links golf can throw at you. I like the bare fairways, the undulations, the variety and strength of the wind which will make any yardage chart redundant. The usually superb slick and true greens which allow for good putting actions to be rewarded. Bunkers which are a hazard when they have the steep faces associated with links golf.

What I like about Links Golf is the fact that there is a way into every green in all conditions, where as the American type course is almost unplayable if the greens are unreceptive. The "art" of playing Links courses is lost in some of the young guns and that is why Tom did so well this last week.

TheLyth

Agreed, David, they all seem so mechanical these days, no shot repertoire at all, just the same swing all the time, which, as you say, is fine on the hit and stop courses, but on the links something more is needed.