Story Time
You are walking to the 18th tee with a one stroke lead over your buddy whom you have never beat. You stand at the back of the tee box and you see a 470 yard dog left with trees on the right, a fairway bunker on the right, and water on the left up to where the dog ends.
You have never seen this hole before and you have no idea what to do. Do you hit driver? Do you hit a 3 or 5 wood to play safe? Here are the questions running through your head: How far is it to carry the water on the left? How far is it to the edge of the fairway bunker on the right? You don’t have that information and you can’t get it. You need to go with your gut and hit the shot you think is the right one.
You decide to pull driver and aim down the middle because you think the water on the left too far to carry. You hit the ball and watch it tail in to the fairway bunker by just a few feet. You end up making bogey and your buddy makes par and you aren’t able to get those bragging rights just yet.
The Benefits of a Rangefinder
If you would have had a rangefinder standing on the 18th tee, you would’ve been able to determine how far that carry is over the water. You would’ve known the distance to the edge of the fairway bunker so you know driver would bring the bunker in to play.
Now the scenario plays out where you use your rangefinder and see it is 230 yards to carry the water on the left and you can do it that in your sleep. You take out driver and rip one over the water and cut the dogleg slightly and set yourself up for an approach shot to the green of 155 yards.
On the other hand, your rangefinder indicates it is 275 to carry the water. You look at the fairway bunker on the right and see that is 270 to the edge of it. You take out 3 wood and hit it 260 and take the water of play on the left and lay up just short of the bunker giving you a long iron to the green from the fairway.
In both scenarios, you make par for the victory and finally get to rub some dirt your buddy’s face. Bragging rights are now yours for a few days.
Without the rangefinder, you are playing the hole blind and just trying to eye what the best shot is. You have no idea on where to hit it because you have no idea on how far the carry is or how far the fairway bunker is.
The rangefinder can give you precise information that is vital to making good decisions on the golf course. Good decisions lead to lower scores. Lower scores leads to more bragging rights with your buddies.
The Benefits from the Fairway
Green complexes these days are becoming larger with more slopes in them. The old style courses have relatively flatter greens and the square footage is fairly small. Par 3’s might have a little bigger green and the par 5’s will most likely be smaller greens.
These days, the new courses have larger greens with many slopes in them. Sometimes the slopes are very large creating mini greens within the green. You need to have precise distance to keep the ball on the right tier of the green in order to have a good chance at two putting.
When you are in the fairway, the rangefinder can help get you the exact yardage you have to the pin. There is no need to find that sprinkler head that says 137 on it and pace off the nine steps back to your ball. What does that tell you? You have 146 to the center of the green.
You see that the pin color is yellow (a back pin for the course). You don’t know how far back that pin is. All you know is you have 146 to the center. General rule of thumb is to add 10 and so you guess you have 156 to the flag. You hit your 156 club as perfect as you can only to come up 10 yards short.
One great benefit of the rangefinder is that you can get that exact yardage. How were you supposed to know the green was an extra 10 yards deep unless you’ve played there before. You can’t. But with the rangefinder, you can get the exact yardage and fire at the pin.
The Benefits of Being Pin High
Hitting the ball pin high is one of the best ways to start taking strokes off your game (next to putting but is that is for a different site). When you hit the ball pin high, you generally will be within 20-30 feet of the flag if your direction is off a little. But, you are still in a position to two putt at worst and walk away with an easy par.
If you are guessing at yardages and are miss clubbing by a half to a full club on some shots, you will still have a 30 footer or so if you hit a good solid shot at the flag. But add the fact that not every shot you hit goes directly where you want to hit it (at the pin) your approach shots are now further away from the hole or even miss the green. You may have a 50 or 60 footer now and your odds of two putting just drastically decreased.
Being pin high is an easy way to get closer to the hole with your approach shots. You make more birdies and pars and reduce the number of three putts you have that turn in to bogeys.
Wrap It Up
The benefits of the rangefinder are simple:
- You can get exact yardages off the tee to water, fairway bunkers, doglegs, etc.
- You can get exact figures to the pin to get on the right tier.
- You can get exact figures to avoid having to guess how far the pin is from the middle of the green.
By doing these things, your scores will be lower. You will have more fun. You will beat your buddies more often. You just need to decide on what kind of rangefinder (laser, GPS, or watch) works best your needs.
