The rangefinder has become an integral piece of equipment for a professional golfer and their caddie, providing a shortcut between the yardage book and pacing off certain distances. As I watch many of my members here at Oakmont Country Club, they grab their rangefinder, shoot a distance to the pin, grab a club, and fire away. This article will give you the inside view of what professional golfers and caddies do to ensure the correct club choice, starting line, and landing spot.
If you’re only using your golf laser rangefinder to get distances to the flag, you’re missing out.
The first thing we MUST do is determine where on the green the pin is located; this gives us information to ensure we do not short side ourselves if we mishit the shot. For example, if you use your Anarch™ rangefinder to shoot the top lip of the front bunker, and it reads 145 yards, then you shoot the pin and it reads 150 yards, this tells me the pin is very close to the front edge of the green, with only 5 yards between the bunker edge and the pin.
This would encourage me to take the longer club, and make sure that I fly the ball to the actual pin number, and if it happens to come up a few paces long, I have plenty of green to keep the ball on.
We were fortunate enough to be able to use the Anarch™ rangefinder during the PGA Professional Championship in Dallas, which allowed my caddie to get precise numbers to answer all my questions and prepare me to execute the smartest shot possible.
Three questions your rangefinder can answer.
Go through these three questions next time you play, and you will find the middle of the green more regularly, providing you a stress-free round!
- What covers front bunker?
- What is yardage to the pin?
- What is yardage to back of the green?
Logan Scott, 2019 SCPGA Metro Chapter Teacher of the Year, is a Class A PGA professional with over ten years of teaching experience with players of all ages and skill levels. Playing competitive golf at every level throughout his career, Logan knows what it takes to produce results with his students. As the Director of Instruction at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale, CA, Logan is constantly learning and studying the most effective ways to bring the best out of his students, including top-level college athletes and amateurs.
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