Dave Pelz's Damage Control: How to Save Up to 5 Shots Per Round Using All-New, Scientifically Proven Techniques for Playing Out of Trouble Lies [Hardcover]

Only read the first 20 pages and it already saved me AT LEAST TWO strokes during my golf round today.

When faced with a difficult lie, blocked by a row of trees, with the ball sitting on a pile of mulch, no matter what shot option I selected, my next shot wasn't going to reach the green. My first choice would have been to hit a big old looping hook with a 7-iron.

After reading only the first 20 pages, the probability of being able to hook a 7-iron off a pile of mulch to get out of a trouble situation with OB to the right looked a lot more like a marginal success shot than before I read the first 20 pages.

I asked myself, "can you hit a hook with a 7-iron"? The answer was - YEP almost every time I try. The next question was, "have you EVER practiced hitting a hook with a 7-iron off a pile of mulch"? The answer to that one was - NOPE. The next question was, "how bad is the penalty if you miss this shot" The answer was - INTO THE FIRE! So instead of trying to hook a 7-iron off a pile of mulch, I hit it less than 20 feet forward to open up a less challenging flight path to the green.

Next shot was onto the green, and I still had a realistic possibility of saving a par. Walking off the green with a bogey and thinking, had I been successful with hooking a 7-iron around a row of trees and off a pile of mulch, I still would have likely had a bogey. But if I missed that 7-iron off the mulch it would have been OB and a 7 or an 8.

Three holes later, with my ball nestled down into the rough with 105 yards to the flagstick. My first reaction would have been to pull out the 105 yard club (SW) and take a rip at it. But after reading the first 20 pages, I asked myself; "what's the statistical shot pattern going to look like on being able to pull off hitting this 105 yards out of 4" rough"? Not very likely, so I added one full club to a 120 yard wedge, choked down two inches on the shaft, took a shorter swing at the same tempo, and stuck it 10 feet past the stick. I was now looking at a realistic birdie opportunity simply by mentally assessing my likely shot-pattern from 105 yards out of 4" rough? It's possible I might have been able to pull it off, but I believe I may have increased the statistical likelihood of the outcome simply by changing clubs.

I was explaining the results with my playing partner today, and mentioning I was reading the new Pelz book "Damage Control". He's an 8 handicap I'm an 11 handicap. No handicap strokes were involved and I beat him 3-up in match play and by 4 shots today. He was laughing and says, "if you can save 3 shots by only reading the first 20 pages what's going to happen when you finish the book"?

I'm going to have to finish reading the book to answer that question.

Being a great fan of David Peltz and having read the Short Game Bible many times, and it is actually on my bed stand dare I say in no offense to the golf god, like a bible. I preordered Damage Control which I got for the holidays and have read through it with great delight while the weather this winter has made golf a near memory. I am always amazed at the number of golfers I play with that know golf is a game of strategy but do not ever seem to actually use strategy or think through their next play. To read this book and understand it you have to be open to the idea that much of the game involves trouble shots. This is why the golf courses are becoming 7500 yards with endless bunkers, buck grass you could hunt duck in, trickery of the eye, super fast greens and really rough rough.
I should mention that I am a passing middle age high handicapper beginner of 3 years playing from the red tees. (Please don't tune me out yet just because I am a female golfer!) I am also an engineer and so is Peltz. His many years at NASA taught him how to problem solve and the golf courses today are an engineer's dream of problem solving. In this book he starts with some basic statistics about how often from the Tee you will end up in trouble, somewhat based on handicap and not being a professional that practices 40 hours a week. Once you embrace this simple truth then you are prepared to evaluate probably more than half of your lies as difficult situations. After he has you convinced to accept this as part of the game he uses the rest of the book to demonstrate how you extricate yourself from these common problem areas.

What I found most interesting was the idea of keeping the spine angle as aligned with the terrain as possible to allow for enough room to open your hips and get a fairly good shot, even if you are on your knees. It is discussed in most books briefly in the section on uphill/downhill lies, ball above/below feet. His review has finally brought this into focus for me and I find the few times the weather has allowed me to play and I am in these situations I think about this first thing and it really makes a difference.

It is the type of book you read through once then return to each section, usually after you have encountered the situation on the course and you need a refresher about why he says to do what will best give you the chance to escape trouble. As a beginner I would have to say that I will follow all of his advice and keep referring to this book probably after every round I play. However, I would like to also say that as a beginner I reserve the right to call an unplayable lie, such as a buried ball in the sand since I will most likely take 5 strokes to get free and injure myself in the process!

I'm a long time Dave Pelz fan, every year dusting off my "Bibles" and brushing up on the ten commandments of the short game and putting. Every time I sink a long put, having correctly read more break than appears, I make the sign of the cross to my savior, Dave Pelz.

Which gets me to this book, Damage Control. Has anyone noticed it's not a "Bible"? I don't think that's accidental, as I think this book must have been written by some anti-Christ, imposter to the true one. First of all, the format is third-grade and cartoonish, it's just not a serious book and I found myself turning page after page looking for something useful. In truth, the whole book can probably be summed up in a few of those game improvement cartoons in the back of Golf Digest -- indeed, it appears to me he took a few of his magazine articles and blew them up into a book.

As they say, sometimes "less is more," and this book just goes on and on with wordy discussions of the swing plane, etc., that could have been summed up in a few illustrations. Indeed, the whole book begins in a weird way: you are reading it to figure out "damage control," that is, 'how do I hit that crazy shot,' or even better, 'how do I not hit that crazy shot and play smart'. But instead of that, you get page after page on the swing plane with no real context (until later).

Sorry, Dave, I'm a true believer, but this is no more than a pamphlet, pumped up and placed between hard covers, to make it look serious. Not heresy, but the truth.

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