Which Club
in the Bag?

Being on the bag for so many years has taught me a lot about people and how they choose their club and approach the game of golf. There is a reason for having fourteen clubs in your bag. It is so you can choose the proper club to make the best stroke on the ball for the lie and yardage that you have, plus give you the landing that you desire. But so many golfers will pick the club that gives them the most distance, even though they are in deep rough, sand or the woods. They think that somehow they are going to win the golf lottery and make a miraculous shot. Too bad they haven't practiced using all those clubs. Then they would be able to choose the right club as outlined in an important rule for the amateur golfer: "use the club that you can hit with the most accuracy, most of the time."

You Are Not as Good as
You Think You Are!

One thing I have noticed about golfers, other than the pros, is they are not as good as they think they are. They may take their driver and use it on every tee shot, when sometimes a three wood or a long iron might be better. Or they'll try to hit a sand wedge 130 yards and stick it like the pros. Chunk! The most creative part of their game is the growing list of excuses they make for not executing the shot.

Take Knothead, for example, who spends more money than I make in a month trying to find "something" that is going to make him as good as he thinks he is. A good place for him to start might be to aim at all the sunflower plants with a shot of "weed-be-gone"! My best tip for the rest of you is this: "play to your skill level, not to your ego level." Do this, and you will learn to be as good as you think you are.

Don't Listen to that Little
Golf Devil's Voice!

I know you have stood over your ball and realized that you had the wrong club in your hand to make the shot you were facing. What did you do? Instead of going back to the bag and pulling the right club, you listened to the little golf devil's voice in your head saying, "just choke down a little bit and take a little off it and you will be just fine!" Then you stroke the ball, make a rotten shot and go cursing down the fairway.

Here is the way to cure this with another favorite tip of mine: "treat the golf devil's voice like you would your spouse's. You never listen to them, do you?" Seriously, you have to learn to eliminate all doubt and trust your instincts. No one will criticize you for going back to your bag and switching clubs, but you can be sure they will have something to say about the lousy golf shot you just made.

I hope some of these things will help you get the most out of your bag in your next round. Check back again for some more of my advice on how to manage your game and the course.



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