Course Management 101

Most amateurs play the course they wish they were playing, not the one in front of them. They aim at every pin. They take driver on every par four. They try the hero shot from the trees when a simple punch-out leaves them a wedge in.

Course management starts on the tee. Walk up, look at the trouble, and then aim at the opposite side. A drive that starts down the middle and leaks into the right rough is a par. A drive that starts at the right fairway bunker and finds it is a bogey at best.

Know your numbers. Not your best-ever seven iron — your average seven iron on a calm day. The pin is 165, your seven iron carries 160, and there is water short. Take the six. Ego is expensive.

Think one shot ahead. Where do you want your approach shot to come from? If the pin is tucked behind a bunker on the right, the fairway's left side is the correct play — even if the yardage is slightly longer. The angle matters more than the distance.

And finally: take your medicine. If you hit it in the trees, the shot is to get back in play, not to thread a gap you would make one time in twenty. The scorecard does not ask how you made a five. It only asks that you did.