Bobby Jones’s most famous book is titled, Bobby Jones on Golf, and has a deservedly sterling reputation. It is a compilation of selected columns that he wrote for syndication to daily newspapers from 1927 to 1935.

A book he wrote later, as a book, titled, Golf Is My Game, is equally rewarding. The instruction portion is more to the point in many places, and reads as a unified piece of instruction rather than a collection of thoughts on various subjects.

Chapter 8 is titled “Management.” He means both management of the course and management of your temperament. He has a bit about expectations that, if absorbed by any golfer, will make every outing much more enjoyable. I quote:

1. I must be prepared for the making of mistakes.
2. I must try always to select the shot to be played and the manner of playing it so as to provide the widest possible margin for error.
3. I must expect to have to so some scrambling and not be discouraged if the amount of it happens to be more than normal.

End of quote.

These admonitions come at the end of an extended section where Jones explains that in an average round (for him) of four to six under par, there would be only one or two shots “that had not been mishit to some degree,” and in his best rounds, only five or six.

By keeping expectations reasonable and accepting the course and the playing skills you bring with you that day, it is entirely possible to become someone who always gets more out of his or her skills than would seem possible.

What more can any golfer do than that?

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I suspect that most recreational golfers feel comfortable playing into a green from under 160 yards, maybe as far away as 170. I also suspect they feel all right playing shots of about 200 yards or longer into fairways. That 30-yard gap in the middle, however, is the problem that many of us have yet to solve.

If we face a shot from within that gap, we’re trying to hit a green. Not many of us can hit a green reliably from that distance. It’s not just us, either. Touring professionals have a gap as well. It’s just that their numbers are different than ours.

There’s a chart in the book, The Search For the Perfect Swing that shows the percentage of greens hit, from which distances, in a professional tournament in England in 1964. The data show that the percentage of greens hit from 150 to 180 yards was fairly consistent at 75-80 percent. At the 190-yard mark, the percentage of greens hit dropped to below 50 percent. Remember that in those those days that they hit to 180 yards with a 4-iron.

So at some distance, there’s a sharp drop-off for everyone, and it’s sharp. What do you do about it?

1. Learn to hit the long clubs straighter. Obvious on paper, but pretty difficult to do in real life. If the pros can’t do it, we can’t either. Let’s try something else.

2. Sharpen your short game. This is better. You’re probably going to miss the green from such a distance, but if you can get up and down you’ll be O.K.

3. Lay up. If there is real trouble around the green, bad trouble, it’s a losing bet to think you can avoid it from a long distance. Play short of it and trust your greens game (chipping and putting). By real trouble, I mean water, and bunkers, especially if you’re not a good bunker player or they’re deep and plentiful. You might take four shots to get down from the fairway following this strategy, but if you can guarantee that, it’s better in the long run than trying for three and most of the time taking five or six.

Recreational golfers should emphasize 2 and 3. These are two ways to play within the capabilities you now have and that you can likely attain to. I don’t mean for you to play timid golf, and this isn’t doing that. It’s getting the most out of the game you have and not asking more from it that it can deliver.

What do you do when you have a shot that falls inside your distance gap? Post your solution in a comment below.

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Slow play is everyone’s bugbear. Well, maybe not for the slow players.

But to get around the course in less time, you don’t have to play faster. You only need to play more efficiently.

This is what I mean. Say your group is at the tee. One member is on the tee box, teeing off. The other three members are standing way over there by their carts.

The one guy tees off, and the next one up walks up to the tee box, goes through a routine and hits. Then the third member walks over to the tee box and so forth, and finally the fourth member walks over and hits.

Or this.

The first member is on the tee box and the second member is standing beside it. The first member hits, and right away the second member steps onto the tee box and the third member walks up to it.

The second member hits, the third member walks on the tee box, and the fourth member walks up to it. The third member hits, and the fourth member steps on the tee box. And hits.

Can you see that the second version could easily save almost a minute in getting the foursome off the tee? Multiply that by 18 and you get a significant saving in time over the course of the round by doing just that.

No one had to hurry. No one had to rush. It’s just that the entire group played more efficiently. That’s all.

Everyone doing a little thing added up to a lot of time saved. That is the faster play strategy.

Here are a few more examples.

From the fairway, when someone is hitting and you’re next, you can begin surveying your shot at the same time the other player does. (Out of courtesy, don’t pull your club until the other ball is in the air.) In other words, be ready.

On the green, read your opening putt as soon as you get there instead of waiting until it is your turn. Mark your ball, clean it, and put it back down unless it’s in the way of someone else’s putt. That way there’s no waiting when it’s your turn. I watch the four old guys ahead of me get on and off the green in a hurry, and this is how they do it.

Just doing those three things could save close to an hour over eighteen holes. That is, if you can convince your buddies to give them a try.

It all comes down to this. Paying your green fees does not give you the privilege of holding up your group and the the groups behind you by playing at any pace you choose. By giving back a bit of what we think we might be entitled to, everyone benefits from the overall goodwill that’s created.

Playing efficiently is a painless way to do it.

Can you think of some others? Post them in a Comment below.