Tactical Game

A well put together round of golf should contain a game plan – A defined objective (goal) with a strategy of how you propose to achieve it. You therefore need to establish your objective and strategy before you play.

Be careful to differentiate between tactics and strategies, and expectations and goals.

(see Expectations)

Tactics are methods you will employ as part of your strategic plan in order to achieve your goal. (Also see Goal Setting)

Game Plan

You might treat a round of golf as 18 small games within a larger game. You should therefore have strategies for each hole and each shot working in support of your master strategy.

Where objectives should be unshakable, strategy and tactics need to be adaptable enough to absorb changes in circumstance. Something as simple as a strengthening breeze might require you to adjust your plan.

Your tactics (the methods you employ to accomplish your strategy) will of course need to be highly adaptable in order to cope with the potential variations in strategy.

Your plan for playing a hole may in turn have a strategy for each shot. This is a good example of strategy within strategy.

Example: You are playing a par 4, slight dog-leg right with water in front of green.

Having played your tee shot, you find the wind affects your ball more than you allowed for. Instead of finishing down the left, the ball stays central and much shorter than expected. Trees still obscure your view of the green. You therefore need to rethink your strategy.

You play the shot and the ball finds a favourable position just short of the lake. Your objective is still to par the hole, but now you are relying on a very good chip across the lake to leave a reasonable putt.

We won’t take this any further, but you can see how the objective remains the same while the strategy has had to alter to take account of each change in circumstance.

It is unusual for any round of golf to go exactly to plan, so your attitude needs to remain adaptable in order to cope with inevitable modifications to strategy. For this reason it is highly inadvisable to enter a game with any expectations. Far better to adopt an open-minded attitude - if you have no expectation you less likely to get frustrated. (see Expectations)

The more experienced you become, and the more often you employ a tactic (with good effect), the more instinctive that tactic becomes – making it an almost subconscious response. Be careful though, it can be dangerous to make strategy and tactic into routines.

The key is to be flexible. With no two games being the same, you should always fully consider all options (strategic and tactical) carefully to avoid making silly mistakes through assumption or complacency. Remember, there’s always more than one way to skin a cat!