There’s more to scoring than booming drives
February 1st, 2009 | Published in Golf.com Pelz Vault
MY BOYHOOD BUDDIES, MIKE AND MIKE, were the kind of little rascals who shot spit-balls at teachers. They skipped A-block history, slept through Spanish and showed less pulse in biology than a dissected frog.
Nearly half a lifetime later, both have somehow become successful. But they still struggle with the fundamentals: writing, ‘rithmetic and reading greens. Their sand and wedge games are even worse. Watching Little Mike hit lob shots is like watching Shaq shoot free throws. Big Mike flails in greenside bunkers like a sexually frustrated orangutan.
dave pelz golf instruction
Like most average students — and average golfers — neither Mike had ever sketched a plan for self-improvement. Until this winter, that is, when they traded in their dunce caps for sun visors and flew to Florida for a three-day Dave Pelz Scoring Game School.
A poor pupil myself, I opted to join them. Childhood rivalries run deep, and I couldn’t let those bozos get the leading edge. The Pelz school, which opened in 1985, now has eight locations around the country, all of them born from a simple premise: most golfers go about the game bass-ackwards. We rush off to the range, pound drivers till our palms bleed, then light out for the course, fully expecting to shoot lower scores.
Proof that we rarely do isn’t merely anecdotal. It’s a scientific truth proven by Pelz, a former NASA engineer who has approached the subject with the single-minded focus of a…NASA engineer. Having spent the past three decades tracking golfers and compiling statistics, Pelz has concluded that 60 to 65 percent of all shots occur within 100 yards of the hole, and that 80 percent of strokes lost to par take place from within that same distance. Drive for show; chip, pitch and putt for dough. Read the rest of this entry »