What would happen if..........

[Hoot]

The previous thread "If I were her coach" by Dale and the responses have me thinking what woud happen if...........Grace were to make changes and play to par the par 4's and birdie the par 5's. Yeah, yeah yeah.....some of you don't like that idea because you think she would be playing not to lose instead of playing to win. You all had your reasons for not liking this coaching stategy. As far as I can tell, there are no courses with just two par 5's on this years LPGA tour. But let's just say Grace follows this coaching strategy and birdies just the par 5's. That is 2 under par per round. What does that do for her? A couple of big things.............she makes the cut and gains confidence. And 2 under per round adds up to 8 under for a tournament. See............this where it gets better and give's Dale's coaching logic some merit. The best part of all at being 8 under par is that would put Grace in the top 10 in most every tournament played to date this year. To top that...........8 under would be a winning score in some of these tournaments. Now isn't that what Grace Park fans want to see? I think some of you fans that criticized this strategy simply want to be Wowed by Grace and her talent. I know about that........about her talent and it's going to waste right now. Heck...Grace might even scoff at this coaching strategy.........but on the other hand.....something's gotta change. Somehow I think she really would take 2 under every day for four days........think of it...........top 10 finishes and maybe even a win. IF you still doubt........go look for yourselves at the results of every tournament completed so far this year..........ciao!

[Buzzer]

Your theory is fine, provided there are no bogies during the round. No bogies is a harder thing to do than birdie the par 5's. Bogies cancel out the birds, and Grace (whom I like) is not playing bogie free golf. As a matter of fact, not many players are capable of playing bogie-free golf. Even Annika, in her record breaking win last week, had three bogies.
Annika and Lorena cancel out their bogies with birdies, while most others cancel out their birdies and parrs with bogies. Theirin lies the difference.

Viva Annika

[virginian]

Thanks for the support Hoot. Much appreciated.

While some bogeys would slip into her round even if she used my strategy, some birdies would slip in as well.

The two rules of my plan are:

1. Try to birdie the par 5 holes, try to par everything else.

2. Except on par 3 holes, if you have hit a bad tee shot, advance the ball as far as you can back onto the fairway. I repeat BACK ONTO THE FAIRWAY! A bad tee shot is more than 3 feet into the rough. I don't care if you feel certain you can get the ball onto the green, lay up in front of the green. Your third shot will get you close enough to the hole to guarantee a par.

You could argue that rule number 2 is more important than rule number 1. I'm certain it is at least as important because it protects par on par 4 holes. It will minimize the number of bogeys in any round and she will still get occasional opportunities for birdies when she does not hit a bad tee shot. And by the way, she usually hits pretty good tee shots.

Rule number 1 is designed only to get Grace to accept birdie on par 5 holes. She is so intent on eagle that she is often too aggressive.

Here is the Reader's Digest version (short, quick version) of what I am trying to accomplish. Birdie the par 5 holes and equalize bogeys and birdies on the remaining holes.

Bingo !!!!! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Final score per round of -2 to -4.

I do not expect that this plan would work in every round for every tournament. But it would work way more often than it doesn't.