One club challenge

I was fascinated to hear that Bubba Watson recently shot 81 using just a 20° rescue club. This got me thinking that I would like to try and do the same thing, maybe not one club, I was thinking maybe 3 clubs + putter e.g. 20° rescue, 7 iron, gap or sand wedge and putter.

I proposed a challenge to my buddies but they all thought that was too many clubs so we settled on one club plus putter. However this week one of those guys went out and shot 90 playing with just a 3 iron. I was amazed because he is the sort of dude who could shoot 76 on a good day but equally is capable of shooting 92 on a bad day. So to shoot 90 with just a 3 iron was amazing to me. I can imagine playing tee to green with a 3 iron but I think I would definitely lose strokes on the green putting with an iron.

So anyway what club would you choose for this challenge? I'm thinking either 20° rescue + putter (like Bubba) or 7 iron + putter. It's a short knockers course we will be playing so I can get away with just a 7 iron. I'm leaning towards the extra versatility of the 7 iron.

Kiwigolfer wrote:I was fascinated to hear that Bubba Watson recently shot 81 using just a 20° rescue club. This got me thinking that I would like to try and do the same thing, maybe not one club, I was thinking maybe 3 clubs + putter e.g. 20° rescue, 7 iron, gap or sand wedge and putter.

I proposed a challenge to my buddies but they all thought that was too many clubs so we settled on one club plus putter. However this week one of those guys went out and shot 90 playing with just a 3 iron. I was amazed because he is the sort of dude who could shoot 76 on a good day but equally is capable of shooting 92 on a bad day. So to shoot 90 with just a 3 iron was amazing to me. I can imagine playing tee to green with a 3 iron but I think I would definitely lose strokes on the green putting with an iron.

So anyway what club would you choose for this challenge?  I'm thinking either 20° rescue + putter (like Bubba) or 7 iron + putter. It's a short knockers course we will be playing so I can get away with just a 7 iron. I'm leaning towards the extra versatility of the 7 iron.

I think a 5 iron would provide the same versatility as the 7 iron whilst delivering additional distance off the tee. Actually, I think Bubba had it right with the hybrid. I can hit a hybrid up to 220 off the tee. For my fairway shots I could take half swings and be pretty accurate. The hybrid would be much more effective for putting than the 7 iron and is good for chipping. I often times use a hybrid for putting when I'm just off the green.

The biggest key would be avoiding the sand.

My course does a 3 club challenge every year. You can choose putter or not. All the guys who putt with a club other than putter always lose.
Now, I haven't done particularly well in this event, but I believe my strategy is sound. 5 iron, gap wedge, putter. You aren't going to hit many greens in reg, but that is a given no matter what you choose. The 5 iron gives me the chance to hit all the par 5's in reg, plus any par 4 around 390 or less. The gap wedge is great around the greens and serviceable out of bunkers, and the putter is the putter. I can't tell you how many missed 3 footers and 3 putts happened for the guys putting with a hybrid or wedge.

With one club, I'd probably have to look at the course and figure out if there are any forced carries. If not, I'd probably choose a 7 or 8 iron. It would be about making bogeys, but not worse. I just wouldn't be able to do anything around the greens with any less loft.

I agree your strategy is sound HB. 5 iron is very versatile and gives decent distance whilst the gap wedge can be used from within 100 yards and everywhere around the green.

I once read an article in a magazine questioning whether we really need 14 clubs and they made several different club golfers go out and play with just 3 clubs. To me that was too extreme. Sure, we may not need all 14 clubs but 3 clubs leaves you severely lacking both distance and versatility. But we could probably do fine with 7 or 8 clubs.

Driving club - Driver
Fairway club 20° Rescue
5, 7 and 9 iron
Gap or sand wedge
Putter

With those seven clubs I think my scoring would not be too dissimilar to normal.

FamousDavis wrote:
I think a 5 iron would provide the same versatility as the 7 iron whilst delivering additional distance off the tee.  Actually, I think Bubba had it right with the hybrid.  I can hit a hybrid up to 220 off the tee.  For my fairway shots I could take half swings and be pretty accurate.  The hybrid would be much more effective for putting than the 7 iron and is good for chipping.   I often times use a hybrid for putting when I'm just off the green.  

The biggest key would be avoiding the sand.  

Agreed! I wondered whether Bubba went in any bunkers. Imagine trying to play a green side bunker shot with a hybrid. What a friggin nightmare!

One-club is a fairly old game played mostly by those liking a wee wager or so on a round of golf. Of course there are modern permutations but the real true 1-Club is just that. One f*cking club. Not one and a putter or three or whatever. I played it several times at my club back in the day when I could shoot a 76. The club of choice of everyone was either a 6 or 7 iron. Off the tee, you can hood the face, play it back off a short tee, and maybe get 200 out of it. Open your stance and the clubface and choke down two inches and you can hit a pretty soft, high, 90-100 yard shot. Same principle out of the sand. Pitching and chipping same thing and a 6 or a 7 makes a pretty good putter, too. Of course only if you are a pretty good putter to begin with.

In the winter of 1992, a work colleague and I went to search for lost golfballs along side a road fronting on the college golfcourse close to his home. It was February and it was just above freezing and drizzling but no snow was on the course. After we found 20 or so balls, I suggested that we go play a couple of the holes since the course was closed and the weather was too shitty for anyone to be out and about. The only clubs we had in the car were his pitching wedge and my sand wedge--one of my father's hand-me-downs with almost no grooves left and a huge hunking sole that must have had 20* of bounce. We played like 11 or 12 holes. I showed him how to hit a 200 yard tee shot with a wedge. Possible only if you whack it teed up slightly and catch it right in the equator. A fun learning experience.

P.S. Its a lot easier to play this with a forged blade iron as opposed to a cast cavity backer. If you try it, you'll know what I mean.

Horseballs wrote:My course does a 3 club challenge every year.  You can choose putter or not.  All the guys who putt with a club other than putter always lose.  
Now, I haven't done particularly well in this event, but I believe my strategy is sound.  5 iron, gap wedge, putter.  You aren't going to hit many greens in reg, but that is a given no matter what you choose.  The 5 iron gives me the chance to hit all the par 5's in reg, plus any par 4 around 390 or less.  The gap wedge is great around the greens and serviceable out of bunkers, and the putter is the putter.  I can't tell you how many missed 3 footers and 3 putts happened for the guys putting with a hybrid or wedge.  

With one club, I'd probably have to look at the course and figure out if there are any forced carries.  If not, I'd probably choose a 7 or 8 iron.  It would be about making bogeys, but not worse.  I just wouldn't be able to do anything around the greens with any less loft.

I thought this thread was about the one club we would use to play golf. We're not talking about 3 clubs. But, since you did, I would choose the following:

Driver: I can putt very well with the driver. Plus I'd be crushing it 60 yards past where my 5 iron would land.

Sand Wedge: I'd use this for all shots around the green.

7 iron: This is where I would work my magic.

Kiwi, maybe next time our match can be with 3 clubs.

Kiwigolfer wrote:

FamousDavis wrote:
I think a 5 iron would provide the same versatility as the 7 iron whilst delivering additional distance off the tee.  Actually, I think Bubba had it right with the hybrid.  I can hit a hybrid up to 220 off the tee.  For my fairway shots I could take half swings and be pretty accurate.  The hybrid would be much more effective for putting than the 7 iron and is good for chipping.   I often times use a hybrid for putting when I'm just off the green.  

The biggest key would be avoiding the sand.  

Agreed! I wondered whether Bubba went in any bunkers. Imagine trying to play a green side bunker shot with a hybrid. What a friggin nightmare!

With a little practice it's probably not that hard. Well, for me.  

I've played a game called Bag Raid. If you win a hole, the other guys get to each take a club out of your bag, putter exempted. You lose a hole, you only get one back. I had a good run of 3 holes playing in a threesome and the guys raided the top and bottom of my bag. I had no wedges and no woods, just PW - 4 iron. It's a pretty fun game. Also fun is a game where you move back a tee for making par or better, and move forward making bogey or worse.

Well I played the 1 club + putter challenge last night and my choice of 7 iron turned out to be a poor one. Even though it was a short knockers course I struggled to reach the GIR on most par 4's other then a couple of the shortest holes. The other guys selected 5 or 6 irons and for the most part were in range to reach the green in two. I also struggled to hit the par 5's in 3. So next time out I will opt for a 5 iron. In addition to that my chipping with the 7 iron was terrible which lead to me coming DFL in the one club challenge. Pretty annoying as I have used the 7 iron for chipping/bump n run shots in normal rounds with reasonable success so I expected to do Ok with it but I guess we have days where our chipping is off.

Still a good fun concept and will probably make it a regular fixture.

The guy that shot 90 just using a 3 iron a week or two ago won by 1 stroke despite some atrocious putting. I don't know how many 3 putts he had but he hit more GIR than anyone else and would have won easily if his putter had been on song. I quipped that he should have brought his 3 iron instead of his putter.

One iron plus a putter is not One Club. I guess hardly anyone remembers the correct way to play the game. Now the right putter can be a real asset in that bastardized pseudo One Club game you just played. However, I assume that everyone in that contest brought along his Scotty or his Odyssey or his Monza Corza or whatever with the fancy inserts and/or ultra MOI geometric heads. Totally wrong and f*cked tactics. What you need is a heavy headed forged 8802 style putter with a heavy stiff steel shaft and sturdy grip. I used one like that for years. It was a Titleist Tour or something like that. I could putt lights-out with it on the tiny and slick private club greens I used to play...the kind with the old traditional bent grass that had grain. Anyway, the head and shaft were strong enough that you could take a full swing with it off a decent fairway lie, short tee, or sitting up in light rough and pound it out about 200 yards. You really can't do that with today's fancy schmancy flatsticks but you can with the old timers. And Pings need not apply. So if I'm playing that game you played, I'd bring my old Tit Tour putter (after I find another shaft for that f*cker) and maybe a 7 or 8 iron. Guaranteed with that setup you'd be able to get at leas 190-200 off a short tee, maybe 165-180 off the fairway. So two full putters and one full 8 iron to your middlin' length pair 5 and you already gots your putter. Piece of cake, mate.

Yeah I guess we were playing modified 1 club plus putter rules i.e. a putter for putting, one club for everything else.

Its no fun if you have to confine your putter to just putting. Now I could make up, with what I have in my shed, a putter with a 45" driver shaft. Might have to have one of the forged putter heads bent a bit to give her some more loft. Maybe in the 3-4* range. Practice with that dude a bit off a short tee and maybe get more than 200 yards with it. So equipped and prepared, you might be able to win it next time.

Mongrel wrote:Its no fun if you have to confine your putter to just putting. Now I could make up, with what I have in my shed, a putter with a 45" driver shaft. Might have to have one of the forged putter heads bent a bit to give her some more loft. Maybe in the 3-4* range. Practice with that dude a bit off a short tee and maybe get more than 200 yards with it. So equipped and prepared, you might be able to win it next time.

When can you deliver it?   

I'd love to deliver it in person but the only way I'd get to you would be by sea or by private high speed jet. When I hit the multi-millions lottery, I'll email you. I'm thinking that the most powerful combo would be my old Titleist Tour chrome forged putter head with a True Temper Dynamic Gold S300 cut to play around 42 inches or so. It would be a beast off a low tee or decent turf lie. And if you could keep your left wrist flat through impact, not a lot of spin and great for into the wind shots. The Putter Stinger.