author T. Allen Winn: I Don’t Do Strategy Let me state for the record t...

author T. Allen Winn: I Don’t Do Strategy 
Let me state for the record t...: I Don’t Do Strategy   Let me state for the record that I totally understand the concept, golf is a game of strategy. It’s just not in...

I Don’t Do Strategy 

Let me state for the record that I totally understand the concept, golf is a game of strategy. It’s just not in my game plan. Whompers don’t do strategy or at least, don’t do strategy well. Calculating yardage, verifying the pin placement, selecting the appropriate club or using the best brand ball for your play is serious business to most golfers. Guess I don’t fit into that “most” category and don’t take the game that seriously.

My assessment, strategy contributes to a stressful round as does having higher expectations than what you know to be reasonable. I know my limitations plus I’m too laid back to let any game ruin my day or life. Those who play with me typically have a full appreciation of what they’ve signed up for within the first two or three holes.

Seriously strategic golfers should never invite me into their foursome. That’s why I don’t perform well in those captain’s choice, best ball type tournaments. I have no best ball and I certainly wouldn’t be a captain’s choice for partner; too much strategy for me. I receive a best ball invite because I can putt fairly well. Heck I’ll putt from thirty yards off the green when possible; Texas wedging it to the hole.

I find it comical when my playing partners agonize over their club selections determining if this shot requires their one hundred yard club or their one hundred twenty yard club. I don’t have clubs for ten or twenty yard increments.

I play old man golf using about four different clubs from my bag, more if you count my assortment of three wedges. Par fours and fives; driver off the tee, seven wood or number five hybrid from the fairway, then my bronze headed wedge one hundred thirty yards to ninety yards, 52° wedge between ninety yards and sixty yards, then 60° wedge for all others unless I’m using the putter aka Texas wedge. Par threes, choices are wedge, a nine wood or my five hybrid, unless driver is required. Stating my game plan already sounds too much like strategy for me.

Yardage, I check it only to determine if this is a wedge or wood shot. One of my buddies has one of those Sky Caddies glued to his hip so he can determine the exact distance to the pin. Knowing the distance doesn’t play into my game as much as direction does. My aim and direction doesn’t always agree. Knowing how far to hit it and actually hitting toward that yardage is what makes my game so challenging.  A hundred fifty yard second shot to the green might be a two hundred twenty five yard third shot for me from an adjacent fairway.

Ball selection is so over rated. Use a white one or yellow if you prefer. For the past three years living parallel to the green on a one hundred seventy yard Par three, I have become accustomed to collecting balls. I no longer buy balls. I just wait for them to fall from the sky then sort and egg crate them for later use. So far I’ve accumulated over three hundred with only one broken window. I dump a dozen in the bag when I get low. My buddies often ask when helping me look for my ball, “what were you hitting, how’d you have it marked?” My response, “I’m not sure what brand but it would have had somebody else’s initials on it.” I don’t lose as many balls now because what ever we find must be mine. Now that’s strategy.

Reading the breaks on a green, bet that Sky Caddie doesn’t do that for you? I’ve tried to be a little more patient and at least squat down behind the ball to look for a slope or something. For somebody who doesn’t stalk the hole from every angle for five minutes, I putt pretty well. My toughest vice is waiting my turn as I’m a quick draw both on the green and in the fairway. Slow play is the kiss of death for my game. If I have to wait, the mind wanders all over the place. If I did do strategy then I could probably occupy those long intervals.

It’s fun to watch someone plan their shot. “Should I draw the ball? Is this the place to use a fade? Hook it or slice it? Flop it or bump and run? Sometimes I picture a third base coach out in the fairway giving them the signs. I’d be taking off the bunt sign and having them swing for the fences.

Here’s my game in nut shell. I grab one of the clubs as mentioned earlier to match the scenario. I hit it. It goes somewhere. If it’s my tee shot, I’m ecstatic if it goes far. It doesn’t have to go straight. I address the ball and hit it again, and it goes somewhere else. If I’m lucky that somewhere else is toward the general direction of the green. If not, I’ll whomp it again from where ever it landed. I keep whomping it until I finish the hole or reach double par.

At the end of a hole I mark down my tally. At the end of the round I tally up the damages. If I’m around 100 or just below, I’m happy. If I ended the round with the same two balls I originally pocketed then I’m bragging about the round. If I finish with more balls than I started, I had a remarkable round, and probably had an opportunity to do some nature trails. So goes strategy.

author T. Allen Winn: Join me (T. Allen Winn) on Facebook and help me ch...

author T. Allen Winn: Join me (T. Allen Winn) on Facebook and help me ch...: Join me (T. Allen Winn) on Facebook and help me choose which book I publish next. It's really very simple. Look over the choices below ...

Join me (T. Allen Winn) on Facebook and help me choose which book I publish next. It's really very simple. Look over the choices below and pick the novel you'd like to see me publish. Go to my Facebook page, enter the word 'Contest' and then your choice (number 1 - 14) and I welcome your comments. Contest ends @ midnight March 17th. I'll tally the votes and then announce he winner on the 18th. Thank you for you assistance.

1) The Perfect Spook House (suspense thriller) – In 1969 Eleven Eleventh Graders from Abbeville High will forever be impacted by the events of that Halloween night. An old deserted house of the Cedar Springs Road holds secrets to their past, present and future.  Nineteen years later the adult versions are drawn to that house one more time, this time for answers. Sometimes the past is best left in the past. Digging up old bones can harm you. Driven or possessed, they must see this through and they might like what resides in Pandora’s Box.

2) Outside the Clique (suspense mystery) – Ricky Waddell returns to his home town, Calhoun Falls, for a class reunion, something he had no particular interest in doing. He hooks back up with his pals, the old clique, all of whom still live there.  The clique is not how he remembered them.  An outsider has a chance to once again be an insider but doing so will forever change his life. Recapturing your past comes with a price.

3) No Mulligan (suspense mystery) – The best golfer on the tour, Chance Roberts lives a life, one not viewed on television. Unfortunate circumstances uncover his dirty dark secrets, making him world famous for all the wrong reasons. One event leads to the next and he finds himself in a new game, clearing his name while fending off temptations.  There will be no mulligan.

4) Absent on Arrival (suspense horror) – A getaway in the Smokey Mountains at the secluded Big Blue Resort could be the perfect vacation or it could be the beginning of your worst nightmares. Welcome, we’ll leave the lights on for you just don’t play out in the real world. Ask Jay and Mira Myers, Bobby and Marge McAlister, Dean and Chrissie Waldrop if checking in is easier than checking out.  

5) Last Stand on the Grand Strand (suspense horror) - Chad Reynolds is cornered into a vacation of forced family fun along South Carolina’s Grand Strand. Salt life is in his blood but bonding with in-laws isn’t exactly what he had in mind. Tragedies on the open sea bring forth mysteries from the depths of the dark abyss, a time long ago forgotten, ones that Oceanographer Chad Reynolds and his father-in-law, Professor Frederic J. Bornfreund are determined to solve. Chad’s nemesis Roth Niederwerter has laid claim to capitalizing on the events plaguing the beach community and no one will stand in his way. Foe verses for verses foe...last stand for some  

6) Foot (suspense horror) – Indian lore becomes reality for a trapper turned wagon master when mountain man BN Carlson leads a handful of hopeful frontiersmen westward. Some aspiring to cash in on the gold rush, others leaving their past behind, the patrons of the small wagon train follow their dreams; their second mistake, trespassing into the northern woods, their first, trusting in their fellow man. The Indians honor and protect the Northern Woods. The S’cwene’y’ti defends their territory. No one knows this more than five unsuspecting mountain men seeking to strike it rich as loggers, and a small Indian rescue party attempting to impress their old chief. Get rich schemes in the northern woods bring death quicker than riches. Rescuers soon find themselves in need of rescue. Be warned. Stay away from the Northern Woods!

7) Another Foot, 2^nd in Foot series (suspense horror) – In the shadow of Mount Saint Helens, in the 1980’s, two mysteries are about to be solved. Mattie Reynolds has found a journal of an ancestor from the 1850’s, and is determined to prove it fact or fiction. FBI agent Underhill is obsessed with solving one of the most baffling cases in history. Warm trails with take them to the Great Northern Woods. The S’cwene’y’ti still defend their territory, as does Elwood Speed Moore. Sometimes you just can’t win.

8) The Tenth Elemental (suspense horror) – Purchasing a summer home in Maggie Valley seemed the right thing to do. Doyle and Jill Vandergrift, son Travis, daughter Megan will encounter something magical on Jaybird McCracken’s old home place, something not mentioned in the amenities. Who would have thought a simple summer getaway could become the battleground for the world’s survival. Meet Salvatore Perrozi but you can call him Jimmy.   

9) Mack, follow-up to Dark Thirty (suspense thriller) – Just whatever happened to Mack? Follow the continued adventures of Dale Thomas Jackson and his nemesis, Mack Stevenson. Discover what happened to Debra Floyd, Ted Parker, the Shadow Men and the bullies. Overcoming one’s fears and phobias come with a price.

10) Buttermilk and Cornbread, Good Ole Fashioned Nostalgic Nonsense (memoir) – discover growing up in the fifties, sixties and seventies on so on, through my eyes.

11) Lou Who (suspense supernatural) – Lou Stetson has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. What she doesn’t know is that there are far worse inflictions than diseases that steal the mind. Be warned, there are no miracles, only tragic endings.  Sometimes you must look within to defeat the one in the mirror.

12) The Lord’s Last Acres (suspense sc-fi) – Doc Watson’s holiday celebration takes on an ugly twist when the greatest fireworks show around isn’t what it seems. With a hundred of his best friends partaking in his annual New Year’s celebration, the world as they know it becomes larger than they could have ever imagined. The Watson farm could just be the Lord’s last acres, man’s last hope as the meek might soon inherit the earth.

13) Digging Sea Turtles (children’s) – Join Bobby Duncan as he discovers the wonderful world or Loggerhead Sea Turtles. See the world of beach life through the eyes of a five year old as Bobby saves Scoot from certain perils and begins a journey that will span a lifetime.  

14) The mystery pick (what’s behind door number three?)