Course KnowledgeCourse KnowledgeAim: To encourage you to study the twists and turns of the courses you will play, not necessarily in minute detail but a general impression as well as an idea of which holes mean trouble and which are there for the taking
This is tied up in with scoring and shot selection but if you are playing a course for a tournament, it makes sense to play a few rounds on it first. Take a sheet of paper and make some notes, and again, practice in the hardest of the conditions you'll have to play in the tourney...If you record your practice game ( just tick the box, doesnt matter about the REC, but it sets pins to the default position where youll see them in a recorded round tourney ) make notes of where the flat parts of greens are, where bad slopes are, where bad spots are you dont want to be in, where you got the wrong club, and what club you needed for a certain shot in, where does the ball fly through the green, where does it seem to stop short, which fairways must you hit, where can you lay up off the tee, which holes can I play to get my stock shot(s) to the green in, where on the green do I get an uphill flattish putt, where should I concentrate on getting par, where can I attack, can I get on the par5's, do I need to aim off the pin on any of the par 3's because of the slopes.....all these kind of things you should note, and no it doesnt take long, and no you dont have to do it, but it can't hurt can it ? As you play more and more you'll start to recognise certain holes, certain shots, some trouble, some easy gimmie shots etc etc...and you'll find you get to like certain courses and hate others, but it's always better to be prepared before you get stuck in for the real tournament! You dont need to go to town and keep a notebook recording all the holes of every course ( I dont) and you'll certainly get to know the courses if you play them a lot, but it can be handy to have a reference nearby, even if it's just telling you the danger holes and the easy holes.For the stats and numbers mad people, in conjunction with the new player you make ( see stats section ), record all your scores on all the courses hole by hole from now on, this will show you if you have a problem on any particular hole. You can also make use of the course stats options in Links, which will tell you how each hole plays relative to par, easy to pick out the tough holes from there.As an extreme example of course knowledge, ErnieB has a notebook telling him where to aim near the pin on every par3 in Links, so in no wind, he can make aces like you wouldnt believe, you can check his site out in the links section of this guide.Like everything else in this guide, it's all a question of how hard do you want to work at it and how far you are willing to go to improve your play. Personally I am lucky enough to have played so much I know many of the holes, and recognise 90%+ of them by sight,and I also know which ones give me trouble, but that comes with time, so in the meantime don't be ashamed of making a few notes, especially if you play a tourney of more than one round as you don't want to forget your troubles from the first round when you tee it up in the second.You'll see that me and Jay will be looking to do a course review of all the Links courses soon, hopefully to get in an upcoming issue of the LDSD Tour magazine
Top Tips:
Do keep a little notebook handy, list the course names on each page, and list the holes 1-18 down one side
Whenever you play a course, make a note of anything you should be aware of next time and fill it in your notebook
Refer to your notebook for instant hole-by-hole advice
Again, practice as much as you can in the wind, this will be when you really need to know the course well.