First, let me point out that I am an 850 rated player.

Today, for leagues, we shot on the hardest of the 3 courses we play: Goliath at Mason County Pump Storage. Scott Martin holds the course record there at -10, which was a 1040 rated round, similar conditions today. The course has a lot of 350 foot or longer holes, and since I'm playing with a hernia, and hence no run up, I decided to play smart 300 foot shots rather than risky 350 footers.

ANYONE that has ever said playing it safe is the smart way was definately right. I shot the best round of my life there today, at 1 over, which is roughly a 950 rated round for that course. My worst scores were 4s, and they were all on holes over 400 feet, 2 of which are over 700. I am DEFINATELY sticking to the smart play. 300 foot with an easy upshot for consistant 3s is a whole lot nicer than 350 with impossible upshots for tough 4s.

There is always a time and a place for risky play. It all depends on your skill and confidence level.

I am not saying that lessor skilled golfers cannot try for risky shots, please do not get me wrong, going for high risk/reward shots helps develope confidence and prepares you for fixing your mistakes on the course.

For a good example lets take a great risk/reward hole on a new course here in Alabama. It is a total of 385ft long. From about 30ft off the tee box to 40ft before the basket is a lake. So to go straight at the basket you must accurately fly 315ft over the water. There is a bail out fairway the entire length of the water on the far left side of the hole. It is an easy midrange/midrange/putt route.

Most people who go for the basket play safe and shoot at it and hyzer out to the left fairway. But at 385ft, it is a difficult shot to go a line drive. Most people without a 450ft+ drive do not duece this hole, mainly because of a distance to accuracy ratio. If your max is 450ft, then shorter distances you become more accurate. If your max is 400ft, then that 385ft pushes your max and you are more prone to errors when trying to reach max d. Players with the 450ft+ drives are acutally backing down on arm speed with a stable driver to maintain accuracy on this shot.

There are many people who barely push 400ft that are trying to duece this hole. They lose a lot of discs in the process, however, the ones that do end up duecing it, gain a ton of confidence.

So in a tournament setting, like the league you described. It is best to lay up and take the easy three. However, if the hole is realistic for you to reach, and it is coming down to the wire and your barely behind your competitor (this hole I spoke of is hole #17 at UAH in Huntsville), then go for the difficult duece.

The more experience you get when playing tournaments and rounds coming down to the wire, the better at course management you will become and it will be easy to recognize when to play safe, and when to go for it.

In my first singles round at UAH, I went on a 4 out of 5 duece run on the last five holes because I was behind of my competitor. That 4 hole birdie run brought me to a 56, on a course where par is a debatable 56 or 57. SSA will be tricky as there are a lot of 3.5 parish holes out there.

I've always been able to throw far - when I was intermediate player, I was crushing people in distance, but would still finish around 3rd place b/c I couldn't score - holes where I knew I could reach, I tried. Every time. Sure, I got up there every now and then and sure I made some awesome birdies, but 4's and 5's also came with those as well.

For the Tarheel tournament 2003 I decided I was going to play smart golf. I used one driver (on a huge hyzer hole) and everything else was midranges and avairs. There were 3 or 4 holes I couldn't reach (this was not at UNC, it was Valley Springs), but I got 3's on them. I won this event....

Now that I play pro, I do throw drivers on some of those out there, but I have much more confidence to do so. You will be amazed at how many strokes (I guess you saw first hand) you can save by smart play.

Just this past weekend, I played a really tight course. There were 5 holes that I could reach, but decided to play smart on them and just hit the fairway and get a three - I got 3's on 4 of them and a 4 on one - had 6 dueces on holes I felt I could duece, and shot one of the hotter rounds of the tournament.

I'd have to say Castle Hayne is one of those courses for me....

I used to throw drivers on the longer holes cuz I knew I could reach them if I hit the line. The only problem was I wasnt hitting the line cuz I was sooo intent on reaching the hole.

So I backed off, started throwing Rocs on those longer ones to stay in the fairway (which is essential to scoring well in this course) and I started scoring better. I only wish I had tried that sooner....