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Millions of golfers play the same course over and over, be it every week or every other day.
Even for golfers lucky enough to be members or regulars at an architecturally sophisticated course, a long run of rounds at home can start to feel tedious.
What’s a golfer stuck in a rut to do? If it might be a while before you get the chance to stretch your legs at an unfamiliar layout, how should you spice up your relationship with your home course?
Idea #1: Play different tee boxes
Untold amounts of research and debate have gone into attempting to tell golfers which tees are “right” for them. That’s fine as a rule of thumb, but you should definitely switch it up from time to time.
Every year in college, we played one tournament on a Marine base, whose golf facility had a beefy 6,900-yard layout and a sporty, sub-6,000-yard track where it was imperative to play aggressively and try to shoot a score in the 60s. In preparation for that event, our coach had us play our home course from the front tees on the par 4s, the senior tees in the par 3s and the middle tees on the par 5s. In addition to emphasizing the importance of short game, it was a great exercise to help get in a go-low mindset that can also extend to future rounds from our normal tees.
You should occasionally step forward from your normal tee and see what happens. And if your course isn’t full of forced carries off the tee, step back to the tips sometime to stretch yourself. You will gain some insight into your game that will help you when you go back to your normal markers.
Idea #2: Look (and walk) backwards
The path might look more like a zigzag than we’d prefer sometimes, but we all tend to process golf courses in one direction. But assessing golf holes backwards can be illuminating. "Even at your home course, you’ll learn a lot about angles, approaches, swales and interesting features that you might otherwise miss," wrote golf course architecture historian Bradley Klein in a 2004 Golfweek article about the joys of walking a golf course. "And if you really think you know a place well but want to study it more carefully, do what some PGA Tour caddies occasionally do when they’re looking for an edge. Walk the whole course backward, from the 18th green to the first tee."
If you might get in the way of play by walking the course in the "wrong" direction, do the next best thing: the next time you play, make a point of standing behind each green and looking back towards the tee. Observe how bunkers that might be in your face from the tee box suddenly disappear when gazing back from greenside. See how a fairway tilts or flows more than you may think when playing the hole. Notice how that hole may actually play a few more yards uphill or downhill than you realized. It might just help you conquer a hole you always thought had your number.
Idea #3: Play all day
The equally exhausting and exhilarating 36-hole day is almost always reserved for a golf trip, when you're seizing the precious time away from home to squeeze in as much golf as possible. What this suggestion supposes is...what if you treated your home course that way? Playing two rounds over the same golf course in the same day is a good lesson on multiple fronts. You get to immediately right the first round's wrongs, rather than having them haunt your dreams.
If you pay close attention, you will also get to see how drastically a golf course can change over the course of a single day. On a sunny summer's day, for example, the dewy grass of the morning that keeps greens receptive will dissolve and ultimately offer a significantly firmer test after lunch.
And like any 36-hole day, it will be an endurance test. Expending unnecessary energy early on over a bad shot or hole can sap your strength towards the fourth nine of the day. So can failing to fuel yourself properly throughout the day. I learned this the hard way years ago in a one-day, 36-hole U.S. Junior Am qualifier in searing South Carolina heat. I was in the mix to qualify through 27 holes, but ultimately faded as the elements got the better of me.
Idea #4: Stretch the season
One could argue this is an extension of Idea #3, but I think it's worth its own section. There's nothing wrong with being a fair-weather golfer (I know people here in Florida who have a "70 degree rule," as in they will not tee it up if the high fails to reach 70), but if you want to get better - both at your home course and beyond - you need to be prepared for any sort of climate that can be thrown at you. Tee it up on the first day of the season even if it's 40 degrees and windy. You might just learn something.
In the more temperate parts of the world, every year is like a multi-act play for a given golf course. The spring thaw usually means cool and wet conditions, with holes playing 30-50 yards longer than their posted yardages in some cases. As summer comes and wears on, dry conditions mean longer tee shots but also tougher-to-hold greens before the fall slows and cools things down again. Seasonal wind directions cause holes to play dramatically differently month to month.
Beyond the obvious, the reason it is important to play your home golf course in the full range of conditions is to build up a library of experiences to draw on from one round to the next. Done right, this repetition heightens your awareness and deepens your interest in every shot, every hole, every round.
Idea #5: Superintendent ride-along
This is more of a good-karma move than a game-improvement one, but don't underrate the cultivation of joy and gratitude as a way to get the most out of the game. If you're friendly with the people who maintain your home course (and you should be), they might be willing to let you tag along one morning as they prepare it for play (especially if you treat their staff to breakfast that morning, too).
The sheer number of tasks that greenkeepers must perform in the pre-dawn hours might blow your mind. You'll come to see your home course - and every golf course - not just as an object to be consumed, but as a complex, dynamic landscape that requires deep dedication and collective stewardship. It will enrich your golf life on a practical level (you'll be more conscientious about fixing ball marks and replacing divots), and it will also increase your appreciation for the game and its vast support staff.
What do you do to add variety to the experience of playing your home golf course?
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