Now. For the short game . . .
Golfgirl linked to an article by a Scotsman who believes women don’t work as much on their shorts games as much as men do.
Unfortunately, he takes a rather unkind tone — he describes women’s short games with words like “inadequate” and “inferior” — hello, somebody else needs to be expressing a bit of “innate touch and feel,” Huggan!
That aside, I have to admit — I’ve only been back to golf, as an adult, for about a year, and in that time I have been concentrating on my long game.
I don’t think that’s entirely unreasonable. As one example. An awful lot of red tee par fours are just about impossible to par if you can’t drive a fair distance. Take number five on Genesee Valley Park’s north course. It’s a 384 yard par four from the women’s tees. You need a 200 yard drive to even think about getting on the green in two. And if you don’t have a decent long game, your third shot isn’t going to need your short game anyway — you’re going to be more than 100 yards out still.
My score has gone down a good 10-12 strokes since my lessons began to take hold and I started hitting longer & straighter with my woods & driver.
But I can also see how important the short game is — particularly when you don’t have enough power to get to the green in two. (It helps that my dad keeps bugging me “how’d you do on your short game? how’d you do on your short game?” ;-))
So yeah, I’m going to work on it — you bet I am. I’ve seen too many “could be a par” opportunities slip away because I muff a chip. If that’s not incentive, I don’t know what is!