And that's what separates the great from the good -- the quality of their misses. Jack Nicklaus once said in his best rounds he only hit 6-7 pure shots a round...the rest were misses!
That is certainly the case for me, and my dysfunctional golf game. The purely struck golf shot is a thing of beauty but it's like trying to catch lightning in a bottle during a typical round of hitting all kinds of shots with different clubs from different lies, etc.Padre, Hogan said the same thing: If we really did an honest assessment of a par round, we'd see that we only hit 1 or 2 shots exactly as planned.
The quality of our misses on the back side compared to those of OSU clearly turned the match for us.
The difference in an occasional 75 and a dissapointing 85 for me is if I don't hit a couple OB off the tee or a pulled iron shot to a green stays up instead of rolling into a water hazard.
Learning to have "good misses" is a big part of the game.