I played 9 holes with a Senior Tour player's caddy today. He said that he could take a 15 handicapper and in two weeks have him shooting around 75. He said mostly he would have him applying solid course management principals and picking the right club.
What do y'all think of this? I think this may be a bit ambitious. But you gotta PLAY the game right?
Side note: He did fire a 2 under 33.
Bucket,
Well... I haven't seen every 15 hc out there but I haven't seen 1 that anyone could take down to basically a 2 in two weeks under any circumstances.
I played golf from the time I was 14 until I was 22... then I quit for 20 yrs. When I started again I was approx. a 14. I played with mostly better players then myself.. from 8 to 10... One guy in particular insisted that my problem was course management, so I started keeping some very detailed statistics. My breakdown was pretty much 40% of my shots went roughly where they were intended...40% were playable misses and 20% were pretty awful.. but this was with almost EVERY club. The only clubs that were better were the 9i and pw and they were only marginally better. Of course the shorter the club used for the approach, the closer to the green the misses were. BUT the idea that an iron off a 350 yds par 4 to 'keep it in play' was not necessarily a good idea because it wasn't certain to keep it in play and actually reduced the % of times I hit the green.
One day I gave the guy a chance... we were partners and I let him club me... He had me hit NO drivers... with my driver I averaged 5.8 fairways (out of 12..2 short par 4's were not driver holes under any circumstances) with the 3 wood that day I hit 5 fairways... that day I hit 3 greens..2 were par 3's..one was a pw the other an 8i...I averaged 7 gir when using the driver. The end result was I shot mid 90's and he agreed that it didn't work. There is a whole chain reaction that occurred. One example (the only hole I remember)a 565 yd par 5... normally at that time driver, 3w (hope it was straight and solid) and then 6i to 8i...if 7 or 8 maybe on the green 40% of the time and right around the green 30% or so....I hit 3w solid, 3w straight but not great and then had 190.... because I got a stroke and there was a lot of trouble short left we laid up to 100 yds.. I did that okay and then my wedge was okay but about 30 ft away and I 3 putted...double.
The other downside of this approach is you never learn to hit aggressive scoring shots and in my case I never would have learned to hit the driver... and I'm not long enough to play without it, I'm actually not long enough with it..... This is one reason why I like playing an occasional round by myself or with my wife.. it gives me a chance to attempt heroic shots I wouldn't attempt when playing for a few bucks with a partner against some friends.....
In my experience there are a few recalcitrant golfers here and there that live for the long drive and consistently hit too little club in an effort to hit a 170yd 7i to 6 ft.....but even if one of those was a 15 he has too many problems to shot 75... maybe 82, maybe 80. I think most golfers know their games fairly well. They may be able to learn how to play a particular course from an experienced caddy/golfer and pick up a few strokes. However, while they may still make course management mistakes it is nowhere near 10 to 13 strokes a round.
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