How Do You Handle Hazards While Out On The Gold Course
Author: Donald Saunders
Category: Sports
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Although no player wants their ball to end up in a hazard you must agree that it is the presence of hazards on the golf course that makes the sport both stimulating and challenging. Who has not followed a tournament and enjoyed the spectacle of watching a player negotiate his way out of a difficult situation?
This said, it is one thing to watch other people attempting to hack themselves free of the thorn bushes but it is not something you want to experience yourself. So, just how can you at at the very least minimize the possibility of this happening?
The answer lies in reading the course and planning ahead.
Before playing a hole you need to think very carefully about where the particular hazards for the hole are located and work out how each might affect your game should you fall foul of it. Once you have done this you must then determine how to play the hole so that you can minimize and damage should you be unlucky enough to finish up in one of the hole's traps.
So, exactly what are the hazards you will come across on almost all golf courses? There are essentially 6 hazards that you are likely to encounter:
1. The Rough. While troublesome the rough is probably the simplest of the problems that you will run into and it is not usually too difficult to get your ball out of the rough and back onto the fairway.
2. Hilly Terrain. Getting your ball into a good position on the fairway for your approach to the green is always better than getting distance and thus, if you are looking at a substantial uphill slope to the fairway, you might wish to consider hitting short of it rather than going for distance and then having your ball roll back down the fairway and away from its intended target. This is particularly true when the slope falls away to one side of the course and your ball is likely to not simply roll back down the fairway but to roll off into the rough or into some other form of hazard.
3. Bunkers. Bunkers are really more of a hazard for novice golfers than for anybody else and, with some practice, it is generally not too hard to hit your ball out of the sand and indeed you can often achieve some quite excellent shots from the sand. That said, all bunkers are not the same and getting caught under the lip of a deep and steeply sided bunker could present you with significant difficulty.
4. Trees and Bushes. Bushes and trees can prove to be very nasty and even if you cannot play your ball and have to make a drop you could well discover that the lie within the two club lengths specified by regulation is not much better than your original lie.
5. Water. Landing in the water will generally require you to accept a penalty and reposition your next shot. That said, it it might be possible to play your ball from the water if you can get to it and it not lying too deep, however these occasions are few and far between.
6. Out of Bounds. Firing your ball into an 'out of bounds' area is probably the worst of all the hazards because you will need to play the shot again and will also have to take a penalty stroke. This is certainly something that you want to avoid because there is nothing worse than driving off into an out of bounds area and having to return to the tee and begin all over again with what in fact will be your third shot to the hole.
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Keywords: hazards, rough, bunkers, sand traps, water, hilly lies, out of bounds
View Count: 221
Date Submitted: 11/20/2009
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