Playing and improving on your local course is great and nothing beats the feeling for making a birdie on a hole you have struggled with in the past.
However, you should try and play some different courses and if you enjoy the competitive element of golf, you can enter tournaments and these will take you to various courses in your region. This could mean you play a very difficult course and you have no idea what you are about to get yourself into.
On the other hand, you could be playing on a golf course which you have played a couple of times before but have come away with a high score. The fairways are narrow and there are hazards on each side and that’s all you can think about before playing your shot.
The key thing to remember when playing on a very tough course is you will get bad breaks. You can hit a sweet shot off the tee but the ball kicks off the fairway and lands in an awkward place for your second shot. This happens regularly for a lot of players but becoming angry about it does not help the situation.
Your only focus when playing a hard course should be to stay out of big trouble and avoid making large scores on each hole. Being the best ball striker does not translate to a low score on a tough golf course. Having a good strategy and sticking to it is equally as important.
This first thing you must accept when playing on a difficult course is you will not hit many greens in regulation. One of the primary reasons you may find a specific course tough is the length and if you try and push yourself hard to make greens in regulation which are just out of reach, you are going to wind up in a lot of trouble.
Accept you are not going to reach every green in regulation and plan how you can get the ball on the middle of the green without taking any major risks.
If the golf course has rough which is unforgiving, your main aim should be to get the ball on the fairway. That means leaving the driver in the bag and using clubs with more control. You know which is the longest club you can use and keep the ball consistently straight so opt for that one.
If your ball does land in the rough, do not take unnecessary risks which could add to your misery. Do not worry about trying to land the ball on the green from deep rough. Instead, think about where you can land the ball on the fairway to give yourself a reasonable chance of reaching the green on your next shot.
If you start taking risks from poor positions, you are only going to land yourself in more trouble and that’s how the big scores start.
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