Do you work the ball both ways?

I’ve pretty much been a “hit it straight” guy my entire life but remember reading something a while back that really made sense. Essentially it was a player talking about how your percentages are better if you play a shot shape.. I think a simple way of looking at it was if you have a green that’s 30 yards wide and you aim for the middle with a straight shot, you only have a 15 yard margin for error becaus you coukd hit it offline in either direction. If you know you will hit a certain shape, you can increase your margin of error by eliminating a miss on one side. I remember Tiger once saying this is the reason he didn’t like straight putts because you only have a half hole of error vs a putt with an invisible break means you have the entire hole to work with.

So this year I have been working on shaping shots in both directions with both my tee shot and my irons. I still play my short irons and wedges pretty much straight or with a draw tendency which is my normal shot shape. This has also allowed me to focus more on where the trouble is on a given shot and play away from it. I still struggle to hit a fade reliably and occasionally get the dreaded double cross where my tee shot starts left and draws/hooks, but my iron game has never been better and I’m probably making more pars as a result. I definitely am avoiding the short side miss (missing green on same side as flag so chip/pitch) more which has reduced the number of bogeys made from green side. All told my handicap (2.1) is as low as it’s been in a long time..and it’s fun to try new stuff and adds a part of the gane I hadn’t really paid attention to before.

I’m curious as to whether others play the ball both directions vs how many play a consistent shot shape regardless of situation.