PLAY A PAR 3 WITH JULIETA GRANADA

Par 3, 168 yards
Many amateurs assume they are going to make a par on a short hole simply because of the length. However, the par 3s are often among the more difficult holes on a course. You can’t afford to be complacent and you have to treat even the shortest hole with respect. Take this hole – the 14th on the National Course at ChampionsGate – as an example. It requires good strategy and even better execution. Let me show you how I’m going to play it.
 
The Tee Shot
This is what I call a “red flag” par 3. There’s danger everywhere, and your bail out options are limited. If you’re short, right or left of the green, you’re in big trouble. And to top it all, a tall tree obstructs your view of the right half of the green. Could it get any tougher?
My thinking is to play cautiously, take a disaster score out of play and be content with making a safe par. I’m going to hit a slight fade – left-to-right shape – to hold the ball up against the cross wind from the right and also to avoid the single, tall tree that is in the way.
 
One final thing. Most of the trouble here is at the front of the green, so I’m taking enough club with my X-Forged 6 iron to comfortably reach the back of the green. I don’t want anything to do with the nasty stuff in front of the putting surface.

Shot 2 – 45-foot chip
The strong right-to-left wind dragged my tee shot into the fringe, about five feet left of the green. The good news is that I’ve got a clean lie and plenty of green to work with for my next shot. There are no huge slopes and the putting surface isn’t too quick. As a result, I can be fairly aggressive and give  the ball a good run at the hole.

My Chipping Technique
My No. 1 chipping key is to keep my left arm and the club shaft in a straight line at impact, so that my hands lead the ball ever so slightly and help me maintain control over the shot. I like to stand with my feet close together and with the ball opposite my right foot to encourage a slightly downward strike that creates a little check spin.

Playing tip:
Always read the break on chip shots
I wouldn’t have been able to hole my chip if I hadn’t checked out the slope of the green, especially around the hole. I figured the ball would break a couple of feet from the right, so I aimed two feet right of the hole and let gravity do the rest of the hard work!
 
Hole Summary
This is a great example of how, if you work out a game plan for a hole, you can still recover from a less-then-perfect tee shot. OK, I wasn’t really expecting to hole my chip from the fringe, but I knew I had a great chance to get up and down. I would have happily walked off this green with a par, so to make birdie was a huge bonus.