By Paul Myers
Harbour Town GL is a beautiful course in the beautiful town of Hilton Head, SC, and it features a unique design with plenty of doglegs and tight angles to be found. The player who is successful at Harbour Town GL is the one who is willing to think their way around the course. If you regularly play a golf course near you with narrow fairways and plenty of doglegs, it will help your performance if you have a strategy going into those rounds. The points below should help you lower your scores on courses that demand precision above all else.
Accept the Challenge
The first key to shooting low scores on a tight golf course is to simply accept the challenge that is in front of you. Rather than trying to play a powerful brand of golf around a narrow golf course, you should adapt your game to the layout that is in front of you. Accept the fact that you probably aren’t going to have very many chances to blast your driver, and instead focus your efforts on hitting accurate and controlled tee shots to set up easy approaches into the greens. If you are unwilling to adapt your game to the course that you are playing, your scores will never reach their full potential.
Stay Below the Hole
Often, short and narrow golf courses will use slope as one of their main defenses. If that is the case on the course that you are playing, make it a priority to keep your ball under the hole as frequently as possible. Specifically, aim to the low side of the green so that you can have an uphill putt or chip on as many holes as you can throughout the day. It will always be easier to play uphill as compared to downhill on your short shots, so plan your route around the course accordingly.
Pick a Go-To Club
Most likely, your driver is not going to be the best club of choice off the tee on a narrow golf course. Instead of forcing your driver into tight spots, use something like a long iron or hybrid club to accurately position your ball in the fairway. Even if this strategy leaves you with slightly longer approach shots, the sacrifice of distance will almost always be worth it in the end.
Pack Your Patience
Most likely, you are going to find yourself in a tough spot or two throughout the day on a narrow golf course. A tight course has been designed to make you think and to test your patience – so don’t give in when you find your ball in a frustrating spot. Make patient decisions as often as possible, and let the course dictate your shot selection. To walk away from a tight golf course with a good score, you will have to outthink the course and be willing to wait for your opportunities to make pars and birdies.