3 Strategy Shifts From The AIG Women’s Open That Will Instantly Save You Strokes

When I watch professional golf, especially Majors, there's a natural feeling of inspiration, of wishing my game could be more like that. Those drives that carry most of the hole. Those crisp irons into the green. Those wedge shots that zip.

And I know as a mere mortal, I'll never close the gap between my game and theirs. That's why I don't try to. Instead, I look for patterns. The things that, if we applied them to our game, could move us closer to our score goals.

That's why I'm not looking at how I can replicate their swings. I'm looking for how I can replicate their thinking.

Take Your Medicine

I had already noticed this theme over the weekend but the play-off is where it landed hardest. Two extra holes, both played down the 18th. Both of them with a player in trouble.

The first being Shiho Kuwaki, who pulled her drive into deep grass short of a bunker. A major championship so close she could almost touch it. And no shot at the green. She took her medicine, got herself back in play and then stuck her shot in to about three feet. And holed it. Par saved, play-off extended.

Next it was Esther Henseleit who found the trouble, after her tee shot clattered off a marshal's "that'll hurt tomorrow" shin and finished in a gorse bush. She followed the same process. Get back in play. Wedge to about 12 feet and a putt to give herself a chance.She missed it, but that’s not the point that stayed with me. It’s that she gave herself a chance. After finding the trouble, she didn’t panic. She chose the shot that put her in a position to possibly save par. And that's the key – to give ourselves chances.

As golfers, we know the feeling. We find ourselves in trouble, we know we should play it safe but that little voice tells us to take it on. So we do, before we hear the clatter of that branch and get that sinking feeling that we just made the wrong choice. And the bigger number that follows wasn't caused by the trouble-finding tee shot. It was caused by our decision to hit-and-hope it, rather than take our medicine.

Here's what I keep coming back to about that play-off. In the biggest moments of their careers, neither player tried to make up for the “bad” shot with the next one. Even when it was all on the line. I've been working on this myself recently – my recovery thinking. And last week, I carded my first ever round without a double bogey.

And the funny thing is, when I look back on that round, the thing I’m most proud of isn’t the pars I made, it’s the bogeys I saved from becoming worse. Because now I know that even without my best golf, I can finish a few shots off my personal best by focusing on my recovery thinking.

So it might just be that the shot that saves your round isn't the spectacular one. It's the boring one that gives your next shot a chance.

Position Over Power

Royal Lytham & St Annes might have the most bunkers I've seen at a Major in a long time. With 167 of them lining the fairways and hugging the greens, it’s hard to imagine not finding the sand at some point.

It was the fairway bunkers that looked the most punishing, with lips high enough to make any chance of going for the green unlikely. That’s why I found it inspiring to see World No 1 Nelly Korda play for position off the tee on those par 4s. Instead of always reaching for driver, Nelly took an iron. One of the longest and best-swinging players in the women’s game, choosing to take the trouble out of play.

Here's what struck me about that. I would back Korda to find a fairway more often than not but she still chose not to take driver just because she could. She knew that being long is no use if that’s where the trouble is.

How often do we play for length over position? Pulling driver because we think we should, when actually it's the club that brings that fairway bunker into play? We've all done it. Taken driver, almost on auto-pilot, found the sand, then had to wedge it out. When a wood off the tee would have left us a slightly longer second but from a safe place and a much better chance of a par.

The question isn't whether we can hit driver. It's what driver buys us on that hole. So when it comes to a tee shot that often leaves me scuttling into the sand, I’ll be thinking more like Korda. And laying back, knowing that’s giving my second shot a better chance of being off the short stuff.

It's Not Your ceiling. It’s Your Floor

This is the one I've been thinking about most deeply. When it comes to winning Majors for a pro or playing to - or below - our handicap, for us amateurs, it’s easy to think we need to play our best every round.

But there’s a pattern that’s become clear in my own golf recently that this weekend’s Major confirmed for me. It’s not about how good your best rounds are. It’s about how good your bad rounds are.

Furue shot 65 on Saturday, the second-lowest round of the championship. And she finished tied 53rd because on Sunday she shot 82. That’s a 17 shot gap between her best (ceiling) and her floor (worst).

Jeeno Thitikul shot 64 on the opening day, the lowest ever score in an AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham. And she shared fourth place because her following rounds went 73, 72, 73. A 9 shot gap. The two lowest rounds of the championship produced a tie for fourth and a tie for 53rd.

Now look at it from the other end. Of the 11 players who finished under par, not one of them shot worse than 74 over the four rounds. Charley Hull went 69, 71, 71, 72 – a 3 shot gap – and she finished tied sixth. Kuwaki's four rounds ran from 66 to 73. A 7 shot gap. The ceiling didn't separate them. The floor did.

I think this is the most useful thing us amateurs can take from watching the pros and those who finished highest on the leaderboard. Because I believe it’s the opposite of how we think about our golf.

When we play, we put pressure on ourselves to play our best. To come in with more than 36 points. To finally break that score goal. We want the round that finally clicks and proves what we know we’re capable of. And that’s what we measure ourselves against – our best.

But I've come to realise that closing the gap to our score goals isn't about hoping for our best golf. It's about making our bad rounds better. That’s what boosts our confidence - scoring well, even without our best game.

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