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Uneven lies...

• CerinoDevoti 3,232 Posts

  Wed, Dec 26 2012 5:47 PM

  Corwyn:

  YankeeJim:

  Have you experimented with moving the aimer to change the color of the box? When you move it so it's green does that give you the best option?

  Absolutely! That gives you a much safer shot: Green is good, Yellow is harder, Red is downright scary! (And Black, by the way, is that rare thing, a perfectly flat lie!)

  So often, the best thing to do is move the aimer around, even if you have to go backwards, till you find a shot you can make to get the ball back in play (and ideally, look for a flat spot to play the next one from). 

  I've found the hardest part of Uneven Lies is having the discipline to accept the penalty, play out, and try to salvage par from somewhere manageable. (And I've learned that lesson after being stuck in bunkers for shot, after shot, after shot... etc). To me, that is a better representation of the difficulty of playing in a Major (after all, these are Major Championship courses we play on), than the artificial flat lies. It may not be fully 'realistic' but it does better represent the difficulty of play.

  I forget which year it was, but there was a reason Tiger made such an effort to play 72 holes without once going in a bunker the year he won The Open at St Andrews.

   

  Corwyn is right on the money. Moving the aimer around in a circle looking for the green box lie is "the game". Play the green for maximum safety. Play the yellow and accept some risk. Play the red and go for broke knowing you can blow up a hole very easily or hit the shot of a lifetime. That's the course management we have to play with. Sounds just like watching one of the majors on TV. They always have a balance between safety and heroics.

  BTW, I witnessed Corwyn try those red box lie shots out of a bunker on St A. He didn't get out until he accepted what the course gave him. A shot straight backwards away from the hole. Wasn't pretty but that's the way it is.

• CerinoDevoti 3,232 Posts

  Wed, Dec 26 2012 5:49 PM

  chris5214:

  well fellas .. after reading this thread, i gave it another go on front 9 of Kiawah .. 

  4 birds, 3 pars & 2 bogeys .. so shot 34 giving me -2 ..

  must admit i had some fun doin' it .. interesting to see the ball curve in the direction of the lie on longer shots .. closest i got to hole on uneven lie was from approx 160yds where i ended up 4yds from the hole .. managed to get within 2yds on both par 3's where one bird came from obviously ..

  played all shots, except one, from the fairway off green grids .. hittin' the fairway is key .. 

  gotta say that i still find the degree of aiming off green still way too severe .. not close to how that would play in real life .. example: #4 par 4 i had 190yds into pin .. green grid with dots not moving fast from right to left (ball slightly above my feet).. wind apposing lie left to right at 4mph .. i would normally aim half flag stick left on this shot to counter that 4pmh at that distance .. i decided to aim off green to the right in the direction of the wind .. my marker was on the other side of the fringe (aimed at the rough off green) .. missed ding one line to right (opposite wind) .. ball still ended up 11 yds left of pin .. way unrealistic ..

  still .. was fun

  I highlighted and underlined the most important part of your post. You had fun. I know you like the game to be hard and it's pretty hard to play very well with unevens. With a little practice, you'd be kicking *** as usual.

• Choppography 2,166 Posts

  Wed, Dec 26 2012 7:07 PM

  I kind of grunched this thread.  I looked at Cerino's first response and only wanted to add one thing for him...

  While you make a great point of using the land the way it was laid.....the golf was intended.....we have also developed the draw and fade to counteract such severe slopes such as St. George and other links courses.  These shot-shapers, historically, also counteracted breezy conditions to allow us to continue to use the natural slopes we played in different conditions.

  Although I see your point, I still contend we need to implement shot-shaping to fully unlock both the architecture of these genius, historical designs, but also allow us to also attack a course's features in different wind conditions.  Only then will we have unlocked ALL the potential of WGT.

• chris5214 1,937 Posts

  Wed, Dec 26 2012 8:40 PM

  i concur .. shot shaping together with unevens would just be genius .. it would take the WGT experience to a whole new level for me ..