Mulligans and Golf…in your late 60’s or 70’s

At no risk of upsetting the handicap system, I’ll offer some insight on the game format I’ve been working on.

Golf…in your late 60’s or 70’s

 

I’ve been tinkering around with the Tee it Forward game for a while now.

 

If you remember my table a few months ago…the spec on the Boundary Oaks White tees is:

 

Boundary White

Yards 6372

Drives     250

 

 

For those of us driving 200  yards or less….

 

Average Drive to Tee Distance Matrix
Drive	Min	Max Tee Distance	Mid Point
200	5200	5400	5300
187.5	4800	5000	4900
175	4400	4600	4500

 

 

There is actually nothing quite that short.

 

 

Recently I have be working on playing back at the White or even Blue tees, and playing a game where

I extend my drive but hitting a 2^nd short from the fairway, but counting that shot as just an extension to my drive.

 

This allow for sort of a fantasy play where the short driver is able to emulate the longer drive player.

 

It actually speeds up play, since by hitting shorter drives off the back tees one can tee off early since the players ahead clear faster.

And even on the 2^nd extension drive shot, play is faster since you are only hitting a short positioning shot, rather than trying to hit it as far as you can….of course for your approach shot you still need to wait for the green to clear.

An added benefit is extra practice using the positioning club.

 

I also found one does not hit as many wild shots doing this.

 

Initially, I tried it using a wedge to extend my drive.

 

Lately, I’ve been trying to play positional golf on the par 4’s and 5’s.

How does this work.

1)      Look at the score card hole yardage.

2)      Determine your course objective for the round on what average green in regulation       distance you are positioning towards.

3)      For my game I use 100 yards. I’d like to be shooting to the green from on average 100 yard.

4)      So for Boundary Oaks 1^st hole  – 396yds, I subtract 100 yard, it’s a par 4 so I want to be hitting my 2^nd shot from 296yds.

5)      So then I estimate what drive and extension shot do I need to reach the 296yds target. For me that is 180 yard drive and 115 yard 7 iron.

6)      You can adjust this as needed for uphill or into the wind conditions.

7)      So you hit those two first shots. Obviously, shots will not be perfect, so I may endup anywhere before or past the 100 yard marker.

8)      I then play into the green, chip, putt as normal from where the ball ends up after my positioning shot.

 

This works for me on all the holes except number 8 where the down hill slope will often leave the drive near the 100 yard marker.

 

But for the other 13 par 4-5 holes, I take the extra shot.

On par 3 holes you are free to play from the tees of your choice…I still use the gold tees based on my shorter hitting game. At Boundary Oaks, the 4 gold par 3’s total about 100 yards shorter than the whites, so to adjusted course length is about 6,270 yards.

The goal is to get as close to par as you can for the round……of course you still have really hit those 13 other shots, but I don’t count them, I just pretend I am a 250-260 yard driver.

 

Call it macho golf, positional golf or fantasy golf whatever you want.

I encourage you to try it.

 

Or just play your normal game with your normal handicap.

But I found this more fun. 

And about the Mulligans….just call it hit to your happy, HTYH!

You can still do that but with this new format you might not need to.