Golf's 'North-South' Problem

0:00The future of American golf is now. The US National Development Program is the United States' first unified pathway designed to guide top junior players all the way to the highest levels of the sport. From competitive junior golf to amateur and eventually professional play, the USGA is helping chart that journey. The program identifies, trains, develops, funds and supports the nation's most promising young talent, regardless of their cultural, geographic or financial background. It's all part of the USGA's commitment to keeping American golf at the forefront of the global game. Talent is everywhere and opportunity should be too. Learn more at usga.org-usndp. So I think of this as the North South problem. It's really important especially with your distance wedges. If you want to hit those well, you want to get up and down more from range, make more studies. You really need to understand what this concept is and how you can strategize for it.

1:02So let's get into it. Okay, so the North South problem, what is it? Well, the easiest way to start is that imagine you're on the driving range with a driver in your hands and you just start banging balls. Now what's going to happen is that yes, you're going to hit some good that go further and you hit some poorly which go a little shorter. But on the whole, your good ones and your bad ones are going to be more left to right bias than they are long to short. Like again, yes, your good ones will go a little longer, your bad ones will go a little shorter. But really what we're talking about with a driver in our hands is that your bad ones are going to be big slices or big hooks that go way sideways. Whereas your good ones, they're going to go further but they're also going to go a little straighter. Now this is what happens with your driver and with other long clubs in your bag that your misses are wider than they are narrower. They go from left to right more severely than they go from short to long.

2:05But as you move down your bag into your higher lofted clubs, that starts to change and that's where the North South problem starts becoming really important. Because by the time you get all the way down through your bag to your wedges, all of a sudden it's completely flipped. So good shots with your wedges, they're going to be pretty much in line with your bad shots. I mean, yes, again, your bad shots will be more crooked than your good shots with a wedge. But the big difference, the key difference is that your bad shots with a wedge are going to go shorter or longer than your intended target compared to your good ones. Your good ones are going to go pretty much exactly the distance that you want. The direction, it's less of an issue. It's more about the distance and that's where the North South problem comes into play. And I've got some numbers to back it up to. These are from Lou Stagling, who's a great statistician. He's a great follower on Twitter too. He cites Arcos numbers here. And for a five handicap, from 100 yards, just to keep math simple, from 100 yards, your

3:06left right, your east west dispersion is about five yards. So you know, my margin of error, if I'm trying to hit it right over there and I hit my wedge and it goes 100 yards and I accidentally pull it, it's on average going to go about five yards left. And again, I accidentally push it out to the right five yards right. That's kind of your margin of error left right. But when you start looking at the long short dispersion, so I hit a bad one that goes a little shorter, that's 12 yards in either direction. So my bad ones may only go five yards to the side, but they'll go 12 yards shorter or 12 yards longer. So your north south misses, your long and short misses are more than double as bad or more as double as long as they are wide. So what this means is that as you're starting to go about and plotting your distance wedge strategy, you need to remember, okay, I've got a wedge in my hands and this is not the same as a driver because with a driver, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to manage

4:11this big left to right margin of error. I'm trying to manage this really wide cone of misses, whereas with a wedge, it's not that wide. It's actually pretty narrow, but my mistakes, they're more long and short of my intended target. So now I need to manage this really narrow dispersion cone of misses. I need to think about, okay, how can I plot this thing around versus this thing? It's two very different things. And it does really matter because as you start looking at pins and how to access pins with a wedge in your hands, it means aiming in a totally different way than you would would say a six-eyed in your hands. And this strategy becomes really important on greens that have a wide spot in them, followed by a narrow spot in front of them. So if you just kind of imagine the letter P, basically, like the literal letter P, you've got a big bat chunk at the back of the green and then you've got a narrow little shoot right in front of it. For a few, you see this green design pop up all over the place.

5:13I always think of two greens at my home called Tamar Country Club, the first green and the third green. Very much like this. But if you're looking for a mainstream example, the fourth hole at a guster is a really good example because even though it's a par three, it's got a narrow little runway at the left of the green. And then at the back of that runway, you've got a really wide fat left to right. It's kind of chunk. And so again, this is a green design that pops up all over the place in golf. I'm sure whatever golf course you play, you've got one that's shaped this way. Fat in the front narrow, sorry, excuse me, narrow in the front, fat at the back. Anyway, I'm bringing this up because when, let's say, on a green this shape that shape kind of like a P, let's say that the pin is in that narrow front portion of the green. Now if I have say a five iron or a six iron in my hands, that pin at the front of that narrow little shoot at the front of that green is an absolute no go.

6:14Like you do not want to be aiming at that pin. And the reason why is because it's in a really narrow tight portion of that green. So what I need to do is I need to club up. I need to say, okay, I can't fit my wide left to right cone of misses at that pin probably in this generic example. So what I need to do is club up and try to hit it past the pin into this big fat wide portion past the pin. And then maybe I mishit it, I accidentally get it close or I just hit a great shot into this big fat portion of the green that's nice and wide. And then I just try to make a pop. And that's kind of the best thing to do in that situation with the longer club in your hand. I club up, I aim for the big wide fat chunky portion of the green. I hit my long iron into it. Great. Again, your dispersion pattern, your mist type is way different with a wedge in your hand. So if I'm standing there with a wedge in my hand and that same pin is in that same location at the front in narrow corridor of that green.

7:17Now this is a go, this is a green light pin. This is a go zone moment because now I have a wedge in my hand and I know, okay, even though the pin is in a narrow corridor on this green. I don't need to bail out to the wide area long because I know that my misses with my wedges are more long and short than they are wide if that makes sense. So pins in the middle of that little narrow corridor. Great. I can just have a free hitter. I can just go straight at that pin. And I know that if I mishit it, it may go a tiny bit left or right, but not so much that I need to stay up and you know, stay awake at night and worry about it. I can aim straight at this pin and know that my short one, my bad ones, they'll go a little short. My bad ones may go along in the other direction if I over hit it, but left or right, not that big of the, so knowing this, knowing that your, then types of your misses change based on the length of the club has made just made you a birdie instead of a par or whatever

8:17it may be because now you know I can chase this pin because this pin is in a narrow corridor and with my wedges, even if I'm a 15 handicap out there or a 10 handicap out there, that's totally fine because for a 10 handicap, I know that my misses long and short at 12 yards in either direction, but my miss is left and right, it's just five yards in either direction. So I can aim straight at this pin and I know that left and right direction, not so much an issue, it's all about getting the distance right. And again, it's a totally different strategy than if I was to hit the long club into the fat part of the green because I'm managing my left and right misses. And again, you can flip this too because let's say on that same green with a big chunky portion at the back in a narrow corridor at the front. And let's say the pin now on the next day is right in the middle of the left side, on the middle or on the right side of that green. Now I'm in basically aiming at the same spot because I've got the same long club into it and I'm saying, okay, I'm just going to aim at the middle of this big section.

9:19So the pin's kind of in the middle of this big section. This is great. I'm just going to aim straight at it and I'm just going to go for it. And hopefully I hit it online and hopefully, you know, I hit a great shot and it lands right next to the hole. And if not, I'll land somewhere in this big chunky portion of the green. But if that pin is in the middle or say to the middle right portion of that big chunky area of the green and I've got a wedge in my hands, that is absolutely not a pin you could go for because again, what do we just talk about? That your misses with a wedge are more short and long focused than they are left and right. And when I look at that pin in the middle of that big wide section of the green, I can say, well, that wide bit, that's not going to help me that much. I need narrow. And when I look at what's happening long and short of that pin, there might be a big bunker short of that pin. You know, there's, I need to budget for my long and short my north and south misses more. So what I need to do in this situation is a more to the left of this pin because I need that buffer of the green that short and long.

10:21So again, this is just something to keep in mind as you're plotting your way around golf courses and with distance wedges, this is especially important because for amateur golfers, we have it end up having a lot of these shots between say 30 yards and 100 yards because we're not hitting as many greens as pros. Proves they're hitting a ton of greens and regulation. The ones that are not hitting, they're chipping, short, basic chips. And that's a good thing for them. But for us, we miss a ton more greens. We're only hitting like maybe five, six around for a lot of people. And what that means is that when we're miss hitting shots and not getting on the green, we're probably not going to be finding a lot of fringes like pros. What we're going to do instead is be leaving us as distance wedge in our hands. And so our ability to say break 90, break 80, it comes in many ways. It comes down to how well you can hit your wedges in those situations, how well can I advance it safely onto the green. And then when you do that, the next time you're in that situation, which will be no doubt

11:22this weekend, if you're playing this weekend or whatever it may be, you need to remember, the one thing I want you to take away from this video is to remember that when you're in that situation, 30 yards, 50 yards, 60 yards, 100 yards, whatever it may be, that your misses with that wedge are more long and short than they are left to right. With the driver, with the hybrids, with the forearms short, yes, they're way wider than they are top to bottom. But that starts to flip as you go further down the bag. Everything gets narrower, but everything also gets longer and shorter. Remember that when you are attacking a pin, when you're looking at a green and you've got a short club in your hands, you need to ask yourself, okay, what is, I don't need to worry necessarily about left and right as much. What I need to worry about is what is what happens if I miss short or what happens if I miss long, because that's what happens with your short clubs. It's a tiny little detail, but it's really important. It's the north south problem. And if you can get that right, if you can plan for it, you're just going to end up hitting

12:26a lot more good shots with your wedges and leaving yourself in better spots.