Stop aiming at the flag: where to aim on approach shots
The flag is the obvious target. It’s also, very often, the wrong one.
Course designers like to tuck pins near trouble: a few steps from the water, just over a bunker, close to the edge where the green falls away. Aim straight at a flag like that and your normal miss finds the trouble. Aim at the middle and the same miss still finds the green.
The fat part of the green
The “fat part” is simply the biggest, safest area of the green, usually the middle, away from the side where the trouble is.
Picture your usual spread of shots as an oval. Every approach you hit lands somewhere inside it. Aim at the flag by the water and half that oval hangs over the hazard. Slide your aim toward the middle until the whole oval sits on the green (or at least on the safe side of it) and the same swing produces a very different result.
That’s the whole idea: move the aim point, not the swing.
Short-siding: the miss that makes doubles
Missing the green is normal. Missing it on the wrong side is expensive.
If the pin is on the right and you miss right, you’re “short-sided”: very little green between you and the hole, often with a bunker in the way. That’s where a simple bogey turns into a double. Miss on the fat side instead and you have plenty of green to chip onto, and a two-putt bogey is still likely.
Before each approach, ask one question: which side of this green can I miss on? Aim so that your miss goes there.
Club for the back edge
The other half of the decision is club choice. A shot that comes up short finds the front bunker or the false front, so err long:
- Pick the club that carries to the middle of the green plus a few yards.
- Never pick one that carries past the back edge.
- Use your carry numbers, not the distance the ball rolls out to.
If you don’t know your carry numbers, a range session with a launch monitor or a simple count of where balls land will tell you. The Bogey Plan’s Module 2 walks through a 30-ball routine.
Putting it together
- Find the trouble around the green.
- Pick a target on the fat side, away from it.
- Choose the club that carries to the middle, never past the back.
- Commit and swing.
It feels conservative. It is. On a card made of bogeys, conservative is how you break 90 without changing your swing.