Hole 12 is actually quite a simple hole. A par 4 between 380 and 395 yards off the tee, and essentially a straight line! There’s nothing too complex here, or is there…
The tee shot is remarkably simple - hit driver. The problem, comes in because the fairway is only around 25 yards wide all the way up. The video doesn’t really do justice to the steepness of the slope which runs to the 150 yard post before flattening out - so around 230 to 245 yards is all that’s required to drive to the plateau and end up with an easy wedge into an open green.
My Performance
So the big question is how have I done? Well the answer is interesting:
Average score is only a small about down, 4.73 versus 4.77. This is, in-part, due to a large amount of success at making pars. Although it’s offset by the increase of doubles and triples, but for those it would be a very successful hole.
The reason behind this success is clear from the driving stats. Previously 41% hit the fairway and 41% required recovery, usually from the trees on the right! Reducing this amount of recovery shots so that 62% hit the fairway has powered a big increase in GIR from 22.7% to 43.3% however, GIRP has fallen from 86.4% to 83.3%. When the hole goes well it goes well, but a duck hook or two has caused some issues with the trees short right!
I think it’s fair to also point out I count “fairway” as on the cut stuff and in a position to be able to hit a second shot at the green. Hence the 13th and 11th fairways on either side also count as fair game, and hitting these away from the trees has helped the fairways hit. Rough doesn’t really come into play on this hole, so whilst I agree with Lou Stagner’s assertion that hitting the rough doesn’t matter it’s distance that’s important - I have one caveat, when that rough has trees in it and results in recovery it’s not worthwhile! Overall though rough simply isn’t scary and I’m quite happy hitting the green at distance from the rough!
So where’s the problem?
Sadly it’s quite obvious - putting, this is another green I hate, and whilst I’ve got the three putts down, average 2.45 in 2021-2022 to about 2.2 for GIR - it’s done very little overall for the average putts, increasing to about 1.95 from about 1.9. The green really doesn’t have anything special about it there’s no ridges, just gentle slopes that I like to misjudge!
What’s the plan?
This is a hole where speed work is key to get driver closer to the green. The fairway is very narrow but there’s significant bailout to the right, and I’m not scared of playing over the trees. So the further down the better as the critical thing is that my proximity improves as shot distance increases as I showed in the last post.