‘GET MORE BIRDIE LOOKS’
Learn to smash a wood and stiff a wedge, and the course is yours.
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IN ANY GIVEN ROUND, your score largely comes down to how you play the “tweeners.” A tweener is any hole where the par on the scorecard doesn’t feel like the par for you. Your expectation lies somewhere between, which means it’s an opportunity. If you’re a long hitter, a par 5 where you can get on or near the green in two strokes is a tweener. A five almost seems like a bogey, so the hole is essentially a par 4½. More typical for amateurs is facing a par 4 that’s a beast, where you’re destined to be hitting a fairway wood for the second shot no matter how well you hit the drive. Pitch on and two-putt, and you walk away with a bogey even though you didn’t make a mistake. Or make the putt, and that par is a big boost of momentum, almost like a birdie. On the PGA Tour, we even consider some drivable par 4s as tweeners, because you’re giving a little back to the field each time you don’t make a 3. What do these holes have in common? No matter who you are, the skills to score on them are twofold. You have to be able to smash a wood up around the green and then pitch a wedge close enough to give yourself a good chance to make the putt. The technical keys to these two shots couldn’t be more different, but if you can link this combination of power and touch, you can really take advantage of the tweeners. Let me show you how. – with max adler