NCG’s Golf Glossary: What is up-and-down?
What is up-and-down? Well, here at National Club Golfer we’re the publication for the everyday player and so we’ve taken it upon ourselves to give you a step-by-step introduction to the wonderful world of the golfing lexicon.
Sometimes the most obvious terms have the most interesting story, so you might find yourself an interesting conversation starter…
What is up-and-down?
Up and down may sound like a pair of maverick cops in a budget crime series but we’re not here to talk about Detective Jason Up and Lieutenant Jack Down, we’re talking about the act of getting the ball from the edge of the green and into the cup in just two strokes.
The first stroke will get you ‘up’ onto the green and the second will get you ‘down’ into the hole.
How would you use it in a sentence?
“The approach shot missed the green, but they managed to get up and down to save par.”
Any other business?
Pro golf tours keep statistics on the world’s best players that show how good they are at getting up and down.
The PGA tour have two such related statistic categories relating to up-and-downs: Sand save percentage and scrambling.
If you yourself want better up-and-down success, you need to work on chips, pitches, bump-and-runs, putting from the fringe etc. The trick is to get the ball as close to the hole on the ‘up’ part of up-and-down.
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