Today’s golf tee box tips are about how to keep from being tricked by the golf course designers.   When people  are learning how to play golf they generally don’t get too excited about playing the fanciest course that is available.  City owned public courses offer plenty of challenge for the beginner and generally are less expensive to play as well.  The reason I mention this is that most private courses make a special effort to insure that all their tee boxes are groomed nicely.  One course that I played recently had bent grass tee boxes all dead level and in pristine condition.  You never see that on a public course

Let’s explore some of the subtle challenges that you will find on many courses.  These are things that can and often do affect your game and score yet you tend to not realize that they are part of the problem until you have a seriously bad shot and start wondering why.

Take a look at the choices that this tee presents.  Rich Harvest Farms Hole #4

The famous fourth hole Devil’s Elbow has one of the most intimidating tree-lined tee boxes and fairways of any golf course.…

The Most Demanding Shot in Golf

So on to the tee box.  That place where you take your first shot.  Generally these are rectangular, giving the grounds keepers the ability to change the location of where you tee off so they can keep the grass growing over the whole tee off area.

Speaking of grass on the tee box many courses with low budgets have tee boxes that have multiple divots making it difficult to find a level place to stand or tee off.  Even if it is only a subtle difference, the ball can wind up above or below your feet which can contribute to a slice or a hook.

So far so good, but what about the direction that the tee box points to?  In an ideal world the tee box would be pointing directly at the middle of the fairway.  In the real world that is rarely the case.  I’ve inserted this crude little drawing to illustrate my point.

Now it is rarely the case that this exaggerated picture  is what you will see, but this is very often present in a subtle way.  Simple mis-direction in your setup will lead to a number of difficulties.   I can think of several holes where the tee box is pointing straight at an obstacle or some form of trouble.  There may be trouble on the opposite side as well.   Your task is to thread the needle by aiming slightly to the left or right to avoid the obstacle.  The challenge is that it is almost instinctive to align your body to the tee box, and you may find yourself hitting directly at the obstacle.  In other cases your body will sense that you are lined up wrong and try to adjust the swing to point in the proper direction with equally disastrous results.

Driving range tip

Many of us are affected by the geometry of our environment.  Think about the driving range mats for instance.  Most of them are square with an embedded tee in the center of one side.  It is only natural to figure that aligning yourself to the square of the mat will align you square to the target.  To illustrate the point, go to a nice range that has a number of target greens dotted around the driving range.  Take a tee block in the center (if you can get it) now intentionally turn your body and aim at the green that is one fifty out on the center left. Take one shot, where does your ball land? In the center?

Take your next shot at the more distant green on the right you get one shot (just like playing on the course).  How about that shot did it head toward the center of the green?

Now for full effect, change up and hit a shorter pitch to the green that is 80 yards out on the near left.  This shot requires you to align your body almost diagonally with the driving mat.  What are your results?  If your shots tended to favor a center of the fairway direction you are being affected by the placement and direction of the mat or by extension the tee box.

While we are on this topic another place to pay attention is the not so subtle placement of the tee blocks. You know the golds the whites the blues and blacks.  The fellow running the mower picks those up when he mows, then quickly throws them down again as he races off to mow another one.  Quite often he will not take the time to align the blocks to be square with the direction of the fairway.  The casual golfer will draw a mental line between the blocks, line up squarely between the blocks and be aimed way off target.  Remember it is quite easy to set your feet and knees in one direction then turn your shoulders to point a bit differently; the results are not pretty.

Finally there are the distractions.  I could write a book about this one.  Have you heard the one about the cart-lady or marshal who is waiting for you to tee off?  She is just up there on the cart-path  on the right.  She thinks she is far enough away that you will  not hit her, but she is close enough for you to see her.   (Okay, if it is the one who wears the micro shorts maybe you want to see her…) The fact that you can see her and the fact that your eye is being drawn by that distraction will often cause you to unconsciously hit toward or away from it.  Courses that have back and forth fairways often have golfers who inadvertently hit into the oncoming fairway.

I have seen it a hundred times; the cart driver comes up the side of the fairway, realizes that your group is teeing off and parks just off the fairway thinking that every golfer in your foursome is “Mr Accuracy,” sure enough before we are finished teeing off one of us will be yelling fore!  Why? He is in our field of vision, he does not belong there, he is distracting our focus from the target and subconsciously we aim toward our last dominate thought as we swing.

Three Tips to help you hit the fairway

• Decide on your ideal landing area.  Now pick a target beyond your landing area that is exactly in line with your target.  It should be stable (not capable of moving like the flag) like a tree or a  even a house off the course.  This is the absolute direction  you wish to hit your ball.
• Next pick an intermediate target that is inline with your distance target. Your intermediate target should  be visible from your setup, no more than 10′ from your ball.  This is your sole reference point as you set your alignment for your tee shot.  Ignore everything else in the tee box, especially the tee blocks.  Align your body to the ball with reference to the intermediate target.
• To get your ball to the target landing zone you need the best swing to get it there.  Your final focus should be on the golf ball itself.  Look  at the back of the ball and imagine the club-face making contact with the ball.  By focusing on the dimple on the back of the ball your last dominate thought is making contact with the ball.  If you are distracted by anything, step away, go through your setup again.

Nothing seems to give the new golfer more fits than being stuck in a sand-trap while golfing. Years ago, during a practice round Corey Pavin found himself in a trap, he calmly stepped in, took a swing and holed out. One of the spectators cried “Lucky”, so he calmly reached into his pocket, dropped another ball on the sand and proceeded to put that shot into the hole as well.

Getting up and down from the sand does not have to cause any jitters for you if you know what to do. I have only heard stories of famous sand-traps on some golf courses which give even the professionals trouble. The 17th hole of St. Andrews comes to mind, Hells Bunker looks pretty scary. Certainly, when you are confronted with a ten foot wall the prospect of making your shot go straight up will be intimidating.

Lets take a look at some strategies for getting out. There are two strategies for dealing with bunkers. With a fairway bunker the obvious choice is to get out of the bunker with maximum travel for your ball. In most cases the lip of a fairway bunker is a bit lower than a hole-side bunker. So you will want to take a club that will clear the lip of the bunker and still give you the most distance. On occasion your ball may alight in a place where it is not possible to do much more than get out and sometimes that even mean by going backward. I can hear you you saying, now you have lost me “why would you want to go backward?”

Consider, your ball sits in the sand right next to the 3′ lip, if you try to advance the ball it will hit the lip and remain in the bunker. In this case the best strategy would be to go sideways or even backwards to lose one stroke getting out and being favorably set up for your following shot. The fellow in the video below obviously missed this part of the lesson as he takes 10 strokes before he decides that backwards is a better course of action.

So, take enough club loft to clear the edge of the bunker. Next for the fairway bunker you want to pick the ball as cleanly off the sand as you can. To insure the best chance for that to occur you should line up to the ball with the ball slightly behind the middle of your stance. This will insure that your club comes into contact with the ball before it hits the sand. As long as you hit the ball before the sand you will get most of the distance (I would venture at least 80%) for whatever club you are using. I have used as much as a 3 Wood to hit from the sand with reasonable results.

For the fairway trap that is the only thing that will change as far as alignment. Your shoulders, hips and knees should remain on the target line with just the adjustment of ball positioning being the only change you would make.

The green-side bunker is a different animal entirely. Here you are faced with number of decisions. Club selection may vary depending on how close or how far you are from the hole. You could go from using a 64° lob wedge for something nearly up and down to a 9 iron if you are 75 yards away from the pin.  For the green-side bunker your body alignment will change to an open stance. By body alignment I mean the knees and the hips, your shoulders should always be pointed to the left of the pin or your target.  The reason for the open alignment is to insure that the club will swing through the sand and the ball and not be inhibited or blocked by your body.

Two things real quickly.  Number one is attitude; if you landed in the sand next to the green you are close and your next shot could be “in” so remember, “Sand is my friend” is a good saying to have.  Secondly the technique and swing is always the same for a green-side bunker shot, to get more distance for your shot you may change clubs to decrease the loft and increase the distance.  Finally, a well struck sand shot will have a lot of back-spin and tend to stop unless you are above the hole so it is usually safe to aim for the shot to go straight for the pin.

Now here is the important thing to remember sand shots are always full swing shots.  The fact that you are close to the hole makes no difference in the size or fullness of your swing.  Your distance is controlled by the loft of the club and the openness of the face.  If I need the ball to travel three yards laterally I would use a very open faced 60° lob wedge.  On the  other hand  if I needed 40 yards of carry I might use a 48° pitching wedge with a square facing alignment.  In both cases I would take a full swing into the sand expecting to hit behind the ball by an inch or two at the most and accelerate through the ball knowing that the ball was coming out with a cushion of sand to slow it down and land it softly.

How do I know that I will hit behind the ball?  For every golf shot you take  the bottom of the arc of the swing will be in the middle right? That is when the leading edge of the club is at it’s deepest point.  Knowing this, I simply line up with the ball in the center of my stance, the butt end of the club will be pointed directly at my belly button.  I know that at this point the clubhead will be burried in the sand during my downswing.  Next I want to open up my body so I don’t block the swing and to do that I simply move my target side foot back about 6″, this opens my lower body and I keep my shoulders aimed at the target.  This is the set up that I use on every sand shot, when I want to reduce the distance of lateral travel I open the face of the club as well.  I would do this for a very close shot.

A few trips to your local range will give you an opportunity to try this out.  Here is what you want to find out.  How far does the ball travel with my lob60°, sand56° and pitching48° with a square face alignment.  Next by degrees open up the face of your club you want to know how open your clubface needs to be to take the shortest (Laterally)possible shot.  In 45 minutes at the practice facility you can own 3 full swings for 3 different clubs that will give you a range of distances from 60 yards on in.

I hope this helps you to feel comfortable with the sand.  By practicing to own a swing you can repeat it any time any where with a good degree of confidence that you will be close to the pin every time.  The ball in the center setup eliminates the fear of “flyer’s” when you know the club will be beneath the ball for every shot that you take.

Agree? Disagree?  Hit the comments below and we will talk, thanks.

Hit them straight and seldom,

Michael Brown

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