Golf instruction focuses on what a good swing looks like. This week Andy showed us something more valuable — what a good decisions sound like.
He played three par-4s at Eastern Michigan’s home golf course and shared every thought out loud. Target, tendency, wind, lie…every factor in how a great player (and newly-minted state champion) thinks. Andy guides us Inside The Ropes and inside his mind at the same time.
Think Like a Pro — three holes, out loud
Hole 11 is a 430-yard dogleg right. Hole 12 plays 429 into the wind. Hole 13 is 418 over water. Three completely different problems, one repeatable process:
Pick the smart target — not the heroic one, the one that leaves you a shot you actually like.
Play your tendency, not the shot you wish you had today.
Read the lie before you pick the club. The lie decides what's possible; the yardage only decides what's ideal.
Expect Anything Different?
Let’s use real numbers to manage our expectations.
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1. In play > In the fairway
The most accurate driver on the PGA TOUR right now is Russell Henley, at 72.78%. Read that again — the best in the world at hitting fairways still misses more than one in four.
Meanwhile Scottie Scheffler ranks 24th in driving accuracy and 1st in Strokes Gained: Total — the stat that measures how many shots a player gains on the rest of the field. Rory McIlroy ranks 121st in accuracy and 2nd in the same measure. At the top of the game, fairways hit and scoring are close to unrelated.
What does separate players is trouble. Arccos tracking data has low-handicap players — scratch to 4.9 — keeping the ball in play about 88% of the time. For 30-plus handicaps, 45.1% of drives end in a penalty or a recovery shot. For the low handicaps, that number is 12%.
The one thing: Stop counting fairways. Count penalties and recovery shots. Then pick the tee club that makes that number smaller — which, on a lot of holes, is not the driver.
2. The Tour's best iron player leaves it 33 feet away.
Lucas Glover leads the TOUR in Proximity to the Hole (and in Shoes Removed per Hole). His average approach finishes 33 feet from the flag — a putt most of us would call a lag and be happy to two-putt.
Scottie Scheffler leads in Greens in Regulation at 72.73%, which is another way of saying the best player in the world misses more than a quarter of the greens he plays.
Our expectations for pros are extreme. Don’t let those expectations color your own game as well.
The one thing: The pin is not always the best target. And your lie can determine whether you are on offense or defense.
Andy’s easy 3-hole loop didn’t come just from swinging it well. It came from better decisions, made out loud.
Try it this weekend. Say the plan before you hit — target, club, why. You'll catch yourself talking into a bad decision before you make it.
Think like a pro. Not harder — smarter.