Golf Tip For Hitting Into A Tight Fairway

Golf Nut, I always seem to struggle with tight fairways.  I can be having a great round of golf and come to a tee box with a tight fairway in front of me and it’s almost like I should just drive the cart and put my golf ball in the rough or the woods.  Any tips for me?

This is a good example of how the mental side of golf really affects our game.  I do have a suggestion that a golf buddy of mine shared with me years ago and it really helped me with this issue. And it’s probably something you all know, but maybe don’t practice.

For this golf tip, you have to play the hole based on what you have.  But let’s say you have one of your typical distance par 4’s.  Say it’s anywhere from 350 yards up to 400.  One of the keys here it to leave your ego in the bag.  Let me give you an example.

Most of the time golfers pull out the driver, or maybe even a 3 wood because it’s a par 4.  So many times we want to hit that tee shot as far as possible so that we only have 100 yards or less  for our approach shot.  But if you check the ego, you can hit an iron off the tee and have a much higher chance of being in the middle of the fairway.

Maybe you tee of with a 4 or 5 iron.  On a 385 yard hole, that might leave you with 190 yards or so if you hit a decent 4 iron off the tee.  Now I’m not saying that you ought to count on hitting the green consistently with a long iron.  But let’s compare the alternatives and you tell me which gives you the best chance of scoring better.

Hit a driver or 3 wood and many times you end up in the rough or bigger trouble.  Now you have to chip out or just try to move the golf ball up the fairway while you come out of trouble.  So you are hitting 3 into the green from maybe 140 to 170 yards or so.

Or, as I suggested above, you hit two 4 or 5 irons and even if you miss the green on your second shot, you end up just off the green, chipping from maybe 15 yards or so.  See the difference?  Now I know many of you may be saying, Hey Golf Nut, that’s just common sense.  But the question is whether it’s common practice.

As I said earlier, you have to play the hole based on what you have.  So bunkers, water hazards, and other trouble affect what you do.

But the key golf tip here is play smart when you have a tight fairway.  Don’t let the ego talk you into pulling out the big sticks when a smart approach can save you strokes!  Good golfing out there.