I believed that most golf advice was focused too much on the swing. On top of that, much of that advice was conflicting. Golfers would digest swing tips, pass them along to their buddies, and get stuck in a vicious cycle of constant change (with no results).
However, I want you to avoid a common pitfall. Absorbing information and putting it into practice in golf are 2 entirely different things. You might get to the end of this book, and feel you have the game figured out. But this is only the first step for many of you.
I will give one final plea, and state this repeatedly in the coming chapters — be patient, and strive for incremental progress in your game.
For years I was a miserable golfer. Looking back, it mostly had to do with expectations that were way out of line. The type of golf I wanted to play did not match my skill level and preparation.
How do you want to spend that time? Do you want to be endlessly frustrated by your mistakes, or even above average shots? Or have your day ruined because you didn’t break 90?
Stepping back and looking at it from the outside, it should seem absurd that we choose to put ourselves through any kind of anguish for a non-professional pursuit.
You can think of the expectation management section as a core fundamental — it’s that important.
When we take up the game, the focus is mainly on the swing and “the fundamentals” like stance, grip, and posture. Nobody sets us aside and tells us what we can reasonably expect from golf.
Progress happens too slowly for people to notice; setbacks happen too fast for people to ignore.
Progress in golf is not always about significant breakthroughs; it’s more about small incremental changes that build over time. If more golfers can start to understand this concept, they will enjoy the game more and allow themselves to actually improve rather than continually make changes without giving them proper time to work.
I don’t like the word fix when speaking about golf. It implies that something is permanent or done forever. I believe you are setting yourself up for disappointment whenever you think something is “fixed.” How often have you been at the range or declared victory on a swing problem only for it to show up again weeks later?
Each time I put them down, I was filled with hope, optimism, and tons of great ideas. However, when I tried to put them into practice, I was discouraged because there weren’t immediate results, and I had too many thoughts floating around in my head while I played.
When I recall my better rounds, I have only succeeded in 2 of these areas. I shoot my average scores on most days when I’m doing 1 phase of the game very well. When things go terribly, then it’s a zero.
Interestingly, I still have never had a round where I succeeded at all 3. I have never witnessed any other golfer accomplish this feat in person either.
We have all had rounds where things go our way, and the game might seem easier. Those are the rounds we remember, and they reveal our potential. However, if you want to lower your handicap and shoot better scores on average, you shouldn’t be focusing on your best performances.
The rounds you want to concentrate on are where you score 0/3. Those days can drag you down and rock your confidence.
At least one part of your game is going to abandon you. If you can remind yourself that mistakes are OK and have the mental resolve to dig in, your scores will improve.
For the most part, it’s the same content over and over again. There isn’t much substance in the articles, and weeks after weeks, you are being given new information without giving yourself the proper amount of time to work on the last swing tip. It’s a vicious cycle that usually does not lead to success.
What happens when all of us watch these broadcasts repeatedly for years? We start to subconsciously view the game through a lens that is not realistic. I have seen golfers throw tantrums because they couldn’t land the ball next to the pin from 100y out. Others will curse themselves for missing a 12-footer. Most of these outcomes are very reasonable for their skill level and even the pros, but it doesn’t stop them from getting upset.
Over the past several years, the best player on tour from 100-125y was landing the ball just 15ft from the pin on average. The median was roughly 20ft, and the worst performer was somewhere around 26-28ft.
Think about that for a moment. The best golfers in the world cannot even come close to landing the ball within 10ft of the hole on average. If you give yourself a 20ft look for birdies, then you know you are keeping pace with the best of the best.
PGA Tour players make bogey roughly 80% of the time in recovery situations, such as being in the trees. Of course, it seems like every time we see these shots on TV there is a miraculous outcome.
If you make bogey from that situation, you’ll be matching the performance of most PGA Tour players.
The best players on the PGA Tour typically average around 4.5 birdies per round, which is truly exceptional. The median on tour is about 3.5 birdies per round, and the last place can be anywhere from 2.5 to 3.
Most of those birdies are coming from Par 5s. Scoring average by hole:
Par 3: 3.08 Par 4: 4.05 Par 5: 4.63
Golfers lose sight of the fact that you need to be on the course going through all of those trials and tribulations to gain experience. Advanced players will tell you the same thing: you need to be out on a course playing. All the preparation in the world at the practice range cannot truly simulate what goes on during a round.
His best score was 61. The next day he shot a 72 and then 76. So within 24 hours, he experienced an 11-shot swing and then a 15-shot swing.
So even a tour player can have as much as a 20-shot swing from their best to worst. One day they can show up and shoot the best round of their life, and less than a day later, they can feel clueless.
While it took me more than 2 decades to call myself a scratch golfer and tighten the range of those scores, one of the keys to getting better was limiting the damage on the days I was struggling.
Accept the fact that golf is an inherently volatile game. One day your swing can feel invincible, and all is well. In under 24hr, things can feel like they completely fell apart, and your score balloons. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are; it’s what makes this game frustrating and addictive at the same time. We are chasing the unknown.
If you can accept that your score can change as much as 20, 30, or even 40 strokes between rounds, you’re going to be in a much better place overall.
For most, if they don’t land the ball within a small window of where they aim, the shot is a failure. The truth of the matter is many of those shots weren’t that bad. Having a fundamental understanding of reasonable outcomes based on your skill level can be transformative for your game. Your mood can improve, you will make better strategic decisions, and your scores will drop.
Most tour players average 50-65% of fairways off the tee. At the recreational level, it moves to 50% or below, even for scratch golfers.
Most fairways can range between 25-65y wide. You can consider 35-45y a medium width.
The biggest limiter of scoring is trouble. Every time you land the ball in a fairway bunker, in the trees, a penalty area, or OB, your scoring potential drops dramatically.
- Light rough: 0.25-0.3 strokes.
- Bunker: 1.4 strokes.
- Trees: 1.1 strokes.
You have to accept that landing the ball close to the pin is not a reasonable expectation no matter what kind of golfer you are. Most tour players can’t land the ball within 20ft from 100-125y.
Hitting GIR, no matter how far you are from the hole, should be celebrated, not expected.
Even the top 1% of golfers barely hit more than half their greens each round.
Even scratch golfers are quite far away from the hole on approach shots of all distances.
From 10-20y, which is a relatively close shot, a typical tour player will average about 7ft from the hole. Hardly a gimme. From 20-30y, the average moves further to about 9ft.
Even on a perfectly manicured putting surface, as much as 20% of putts will miss from 12ft due to imperfections.
Be happy when you do hole a putt from just about any distance outside 3ft — that is a good shot! Be more concerned about speed control and proximity when you are outside the “make zone.”
Golfers at any level cannot expect to consistently be within 15ft of the pin once they are outside of 100y.
Putting is not as influential in scoring differential as we first assumed. He assigned 15% importance to putting in determining any player’s score. It turns out putting is much harder than we all thought.
The long game accounts for roughly 2/3 of the scoring differential. In other words, shots outside 100y are the biggest determining factor in why one golfer scores better than another.
Every shot you hit on the course is important, but as you get closer to the hole, your opportunity to score and separate yourself rom other golfers typically starts to decline.
If you want to have a breakthrough in your game:
- Build your game around hitting more GIR. I want you to become a better iron player and smarter with your targets.
- Become more efficient with your driver: keep it in play and increase your distance.
- Avoid 3-putts and have a wedge game that gets the ball on the putting surface most of the time.
If golfers pay more attention to their wedge play and putting, they can experience a faster reduction in their scores. However, that progress will eventually get “tapped out” once an adequate proficiency level is achieved.
If you only have a limited time to practice, I often view the short game as a better short-term investment.
Don’t be a gambler, be the casino.
You have to weigh the odds and try to make rational decisions on every shot, but your emotions make that very difficult to do. Once you learn optimal course management, it becomes a test of psychology and discipline.
When things started going badly, his betting became more erratic and emotional.
The interesting thing about gamblers and golfers is that they behave almost exactly the same way when adversity strikes. How many of you head to the course with optimism about how your round will turn? More importantly, how many of you know how easy it is to abandon your strategy when things start poorly?
Casinos always win in the long run because the games they design have odds that are stacked against gamblers even if they play with perfect strategy. On top of that, their real edge is how irrational people become when they start losing.
Many golfers step on the course without any kind of plan. They’re winging it from shot to shot, and are mostly playing too aggressively (or conservatively) because they don’t have a decision-making system.
Much of the work should be done before you even step on a course. It’s pretty easy to do your homework with satellite imagery and decide what club you’ll be playing off each tee and your targets.
An optimal strategy is a long-term plan, and while you don’t necessarily see fractions of a stroke on each hole, they add up to lower scores over time. While planning is important, discipline is even more critical.
Every golfer knows what it feels like when things start going poorly during their round. It can occur as early as an errant first tee shot. Panic starts to set in, your heart rate increases, and worst of all, you can’t slow down your thoughts.
I can’t tell you how many times I laid out a plan before an important tournament, only to see it fall apart by the 5th hole because of a difficult start.
While everything I discuss will be easy to understand intellectually, the real challenge will be having the discipline to stick with it. Your instincts will be to abandon everything I say when you hit a rough patch during your round (side note: all rounds of golf feature a rough patch).
- Proper strategy is easy to understand, but much harder to implement. Consider it a skill that needs to be honed, just like wedge play.
- Having a plan before you tee off will help make your decisions on the course easier, and give you more confidence when you initiate your swing.
- Eventually, strategy becomes a test of discipline. You will be tempted to abandon your plan when things go poorly in your round.
Overall, I want all of your mindsets to be focused on doing everything you can to avoid double bogeys. This is the not-so-secret to becoming a better golfer.
Aggressive decision-making, particularly on approach shots and greenside wedges, is counterproductive. Often, it results in an increase in score rather than the desired outcome (birdie).
Tour players make most of their birdies on Par 5s. They average slightly above par on a Par 3 or a Par 4.
He made sure that he never made unnecessary mistakes on Par 3s and Par 4s. Tiger mostly strategized so that his approach shots were on the fat sides of greens, he never chased pins that were tucked in challenging spots.
Think of birdies as an occasional bonus for playing smart golf. They will show up from time, but it is not a reasonable expectation to consistently make birdies.
Recreational golfers seldom make birdies, even scratch golfers!
It is much easier to prevent larger scores than to make birdies. That is the cornerstone of smart strategic play.
Every hold we play has a suggested score, commonly referred to as par. But I want to explain why starting each hole, or even your entire round, with a target score, can be counterproductive. If you are too focused on where you stand in relation to par, it can force you into making poor strategic decisions. Instead, committing to evaluating each shot separately and trying your best to make an intelligent decision is more productive.
Golfers have a hard time not getting ahead of themselves when it comes to scoring. A great start can have you thinking about shooting your personal best. Conversely, a shaky few holes to open up the round gets the mind wandering to just how bad the damage will be on that day.
Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.
Your score on each hole, or for the entire day, is partially a lagging measure of the decisions you make on each shot.
Many of you like to think of yourself as the player who regularly shoots in the 80s or whatever your target score is. I believe you will see better results if you start thinking of yourself as a disciplined golfer that plays the wise odds on each shot.
Sure, I could pull them off in the backyard or at the driving range, but the results fell short when I only had one chance to get it right.
I don’t think recreational golfers need to hit draws or fades on command. The notion that you have to shape your shot based on the fairway or pin placement sounds alluring, but in reality, you’re wasting shots if you employ that strategy.
My advice is to try and stick with one shot shape as best you can. Many tour players have made millions of dollars and won major championships with one-shot shape.
Despite executing those shots well on the practice tee, I’ve found I tend to strike it heavy or hook the ball too much in an actual round. It requires muscle memory outside of my normal swing, and I don’t find enough practice time to make it work.
Some will evoke nostalgic feelings about how the game is supposed to be played with style and artistry. It sounds great, but I’ve been around thousands of golfers at this point, and I haven’t come across too many who can actually play that way.
What I do see is plenty of golfers who are paralyzed by fear and complexity when they stand over the ball because they’ve got so many conflicting thoughts. Moving towards simplicity is the right path for almost all of you. Feeling the burden of all of your options is not making you a better golfer.
A scratch golfer has an average proximity to the hole of about 39 feet from approach shots 75 - 125 yards away. A 15 handicap’s proximity jumps to 60 feet.
His analysis shows that the long game (tee shots and approach shots) explain roughly two-thirds of the difference in scoring between most golfers.
An extra 20y off the tee is worth more to a 20-handicap golfer than a touring pro. For a tour player it would be worth 1/10th of a stroke, but for the 20-handicap it could be worth closer to 1/3rd of a stroke.
Strategy changes on approach shots. I believe that shifting into a more conservative mode will yield lower scores. The primary goal is to land the ball on the putting surface regardless of the pin position.
There is no better way to determine your average distances with each club than to measure your on-course performance. When the pressure is on, that’s when you can collect your most valuable data.
No matter your skill level, every shot you hit on the course will have a dispersion pattern.
You’re not out there with a sniper rifle; it’s more of a shotgun.
Across every handicap level, almost all golfers miss their targets most on the short side of the green rather than left, right, or long.
If you are trying to hit the ball 150y, your distance outcomes could be as short as 125y or as long as 160y. The pattern will be concentrated mainly on the shorter side for most golfers because of mishits.
There is a myth that golfers can eliminate one side of the course. I used to believe this too. You’ll often hear announcers on TV describing players struggling with a two-way miss as if it is an anomaly. The truth is that every golfer on the planet misses their target on both sides.
This occurs because it’s nearly impossible for any golfer to control where the clubface is pointing at the impact (known as face angle). We’ll explore why this skill is so crucial in the practice section, but know that no matter how your ball curves through the air, you will have to plan for outcomes on both sides of your target.
No matter where you are on the course, you have to plan for where the ball could end up, not just where you want to go. You’re playing with a shotgun, not a sniper rifle!
Your scores will rise dramatically if you cannot keep your golf ball in play. Tee shot performance is where the most strokes are lost for many golfers.
- Light rough: 0.3 shots.
- Trees: 1.1 shots.
- Fairway bunkers: 1.4 shots.
Landing your ball in the trees or fairway bunker can be just as punishing as going into a penalty area like a lateral hazard. And, of course, a tee shot out of bounds is the most significant penalty. What surprises most players is that light rough is not as big of a punishment.
I’ve been fortunate to play with and learn from some talented golfers throughout the years. I can’t think of one of them who didn’t hit their driver well and prioritize it off the tee.
He found that picking a target in the center of the fairway led to the highest possible score for a golfer of just about any level. Why? Because a certain percentage of those tee shots would go out of bounds, and the penalty is so severe that it would bring down their average score over time even though it only occurred 7-15% of the time.
For years, I lived in fear of my driver. I looked for any opportunity not to hit it off the tee and defer to shorter clubs which I assumed were much straighter. But I made two errors in judgment:
- I did not factor in what the loss of distance was costing me.
- I overestimated my accuracy with shorter clubs off the tee.
Drivers typically have 2-3 times the amount of MOI compared to a fairway wood. That means when a golfer fails to hit the sweet spot, a driver can help the ball travel farther and straighter compared to their 3-wood. When you factor in the smaller face of the fairway wood, and players who generally struggle to strike the face consistently, it’s not a surprise that a driver can produce straighter shots (or equivalent) off the tee.
To be a successful course manager, you need to evaluate each shot independently.
The biggest gain in scoring is landing the ball in the fairway regardless of its position. It is about a 1/4 of a stroke advantage versus being in the rough.
When I was learning the game, a conventional piece of course management advice was to lay up to your favorite yardage. The theory was that golfers would hit better shots when they had a full swing into the hole from around 80-100 yards versus partial wedge shots from 30-50 yards. Now that we know more specifically how much proximity to the hole plays in scoring, I would urge you to abandon that strategy. Getting closer to the hole will result in lower scores for most golfers because your proximity to the hole will decrease.
Proximity is only an advantage if you avoid the trouble.
Many assume they are more accurate with a wedge in their hands from 100 yards versus 40 yards. If most of them put this to the test, they would find out they are wrong.
- No golfer on the planet has enough control over the ball to land it close to the pin consistently.
- Putting difficulty makes it harder to take advantage of close shots.
As you can see, no matter what level of golfer you are, I can guarantee you that you cannot land the ball inside a 15-foot window on average around the pin. Even 30 feet would be exceptional. Perhaps you can do it from time to time, but it’s not realistic throughout many rounds.
Additionally, as you move further away from the hole, proximity skyrockets as handicap level increases.
As usual, the biggest challenge with strategy is discipline. Nothing in this chapter is hard to understand, and you have likely heard this advice before.
What separates good strategic players from poor ones are those who can adhere to the plan throughout a round, no matter how great or bad they are playing. Interestingly, performing poorly or very well might make the pin a more enticing target. You could think it is a way to keep a great round going or make up ground on a day that has gone poorly.
Remember, wherever you are aiming, a certain percentage of your shots will miss on both sides. Your primary goal is to land the ball on the putting surface with any approach shot. If you can do that, your expected score on the hole drops dramatically. More greens in regulation equal lower scores - it’s a guarantee.
One of the most common scenarios where golfers make mistakes are on front pins. In a sense, you’re already short-sided if your goal is to keep the ball close to the hole. It makes no sense to take on these targets. You are just increasing your chances of missing your shot well short of the green.
72% of danger is in front of the green (usually bunkers or water). Missing long is not as penal on most holes.
The hardest thing in golf is to keep executing a plan despite seeing results you are not happy with. If you employ this strategy, you will not hit every green. You will still hit plenty of errant shots that miss short, left, right, and even longer. That’s golf.
However, if you stick with it and add two or three more greens in regulation per round, it will quickly drop your handicap by multiple strokes.
With a wedge in your hands inside 100 yards, it can be tempting to get more aggressive and land the ball closer to the hole. Try to remember the lessons you learned from some of the earlier chapters. It is not reasonable to expect to land the ball within a 5-foot or even a 10-foot circle from just about any distance.
Intention is everything with wedge play. If you are trying to land your ball just on the green, you shift your shot pattern. A certain amount of balls will land short of your target and not even reach the green. So while you are focused on the best outcome, which is landing your shot in the perfect window, you have to consider what happens when you fail to execute.
Many of you understand this concept intuitively, but as the ball approaches the hole with more speed, its ability to drop into the cup becomes smaller.
Quite often, it’s done on shorter putts when we feel like we have to “jam” it in the hole. But in reality, you are making the hole smaller and smaller with more speed.
A cornerstone of course management is preparation. Making more decisions about your club selection and targets before the start of the round will allow you to play more confidently. Indecisiveness can lead to poor execution. If you want to give yourself the best opportunity to score well, it makes sense to prepare beforehand.
Studying a course before you play is a more advanced technique but undoubtedly worthwhile. Coming up with a plan before your round is especially crucial for courses you’ve never played before. Ultimately, it will give you more “mental freedom” when you play.
Remember that you cannot control what happens once you contact the ball.
You cannot fight a headwind; you must succumb to it. Almost every golfer tends to swing harder and try to pierce their ball through the wind by sheer force. Usually, swinging harder with the same club adds either more loft or spin and sometimes both - the opposite of what you need to do.
So how do you keep the ball lower with less spin? It’s pretty simple, take more club! Instead of using an 8-iron, use a 6-iron. A lower-lofted club will naturally launch the ball on a lower trajectory with less spin. There’s no need for a fancy punch shot, as some suggest. I don’t recommend altering anything in your swing. It lowers your chances of producing a solid strike, which is crucial in a headwind.
One last thing to understand about headwinds is that they will typically increase the dispersion of your shots. Whatever curvature you play will be exaggerated. Draws might turn into hooks, and fades might turn into slices. So it is pretty normal to adjust for a larger dispersion pattern, especially for your tee shots.
Tailwind tends to help less with carry distance as swing speed decreases.
However, you should be concerned about moisture on your golf ball.
Whether you are playing a morning round with a lot of dew on the course that can cover your ball or in light rain, it influences ball flight quite a bit.
Iron shots can travel as much as 5 yards shorter and drives about 15 yards shorter due to an increase in spin rate. Conversely, moisture on the ball and clubface can reduce spin with wedges. So do your best to keep your clubface clean in wetter conditions!
As temperature increases, air density decreases. Generally speaking, warmer temperatures will allow the ball to fly farther.
By itself, air humidity has no negligible effect on trajectory or distance. However, any moisture on the golf ball (morning dew or rainfall) can reduce your distances. Do your best to keep your clubs dry before each shot.
Most players think that merely showing up to the driving range will make them better golfers. Unfortunately, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Plenty of golfers are getting worse because of how they practice!
One of the main differences between highly-skilled golfers and the rest of the pack is that they practice with intent. They show up to the practice range with specific goals and a plan on how they will spend that time.
When you sHow up at the range and hit the same shot to the same target repeatedly, it’s pretty easy to build some false self-confidence. You’ll get into a groove that wouldn’t be possible on the golf course. When we play golf, we only get one chance to hit a shot, and often there are several minutes between each attempt. This disconnect between practice and live action is where golfers fall into a common trap.
Engagement and concentration is the most critical factor. If you have a plan for each shot and focus throughout the process, you give yourself a better chance of improving your skills.
The best part about all of these methods is that they are usually more fun for golfers. If you try some of them out, you’ll probably start looking forward to the practice range rather than feeling like it’s an obligation.
The truth is that all of these are variable and require the proper matchups. There is no right way to grip a golf club or align your feet at address. The combinations of golf swing techniques are endless. What works for your swing might not work for someone else’s.
Looking at the club horizontally, if you strike the ball closer to the toe of the club, it will impart a hook spin, and if you make an impact closer towards the heel, the ball will tend to slice more.
The most common fault I see amongst recreational golfers is a backswing that is way too slow. It usually results in them trying to guide the club, and a ton of bizarre movements occur along the way. When many of those golfers were able to quicken the timing of their backswing, a lot of those moves disappeared because they were not actively trying to steer the club.
Another typical benefit is that their swing speed will increase, and they can hit the ball farther.
Driving range mats do not provide accurate ground contact feedback. You could strike the ground several inches behind the ball and still hit a decent shot. But if you were out on the course, you’d likely chunk it, and the ball would land well short of your target.
But no matter what club you are hitting, it will have roughly 65-80% influence on the ball’s initial direction. So if you hit a massive block to the right or pull to the left off the tee, you can know that face angle was the main culprit.
The anatomy of a slice usually starts with an excessive out-to-in swing path. Many instructors would say anything beyond 6 degrees is where you begin to get into “extreme territory.”
To hit functional fades, the face of the club must be pointing somewhere in between the club path and the target line. If you keep your swing path of 8 degrees out-to-in, your clubface would need to point somewhere left of your target but right of the swing path. That will allow the ball to start to the left of the target but curve back towards it.
So if you start seeing pull hooks or push slices on the course, it can be confusing because it doesn’t necessarily indicate what your club path always is. The easiest solution I can give you is that it’s primarily a face-angle problem. Your clubface is pointing way too far to the left if you are hitting a pull hook. And if you see a push-slice, your clubface is pointing way too far to the right. This is why controlling where your clubface is pointing at impact is such a vital skill - it can avoid the big mistake swings.
I am very comfortable swinging in-to-out and presenting the clubface somewhere between my target and swing path. However, when I try to shift my club path in the opposite direction to hit a fade, it can confuse me so much that the face angle points way too far to the left. So instead of hitting a nice fade, I get a pull hook. We often refer to this shot as the “double-cross.” It’s one of the main reasons I don’t advocate golfers trying to play two different shot shapes on the course, which you will hear me talk about several times throughout the book.
One of the great myths in golf is that you need to “hit down on the ball to make it go up.” Many players believe (especially with irons) that they require a very steep angle of attack. It simply isn’t true. I spent hours on the driving range as a kid slamming my irons into the mat with this advice. When I got on to the course, it made me chunk the ball more with irons.
The honest answer is far more straightforward. The loft of your club at impact is primarily responsible for making the ball go up in the air. How steep or shallow your club approaches the ball will somewhat influence it, but how you deliver the club’s loft is far more critical.
There are a few ways to do this. For many, moving the ball back in your stance will reduce delivered loft, and moving it up in your stance will do the opposite and add loft. Additionally, how your hands are oriented at impact and the resulting shaft lean will also influence delivered loft. If your hands are ahead of the ball at impact, the club’s shaft will lean forward and deloft the face at impact. Conversely, you will add loft if your hands are behind the ball.
When it comes to your irons and wedges, many golfers believe they need to have a very negative angle of attack to spin the ball more and help it into the air. This just isn’t true. Striking the ball closer to the center of the face and how you deliver the club’s loft will take care of that mostly. If anything, most golfers need a more shallow descent because their swing speeds are slower than the pros.
In the past, we referred to shorter clubs as “scoring clubs” (and many still do). But as I learned more about advanced statistics and shed my preconceived notions about scoring, I now believe that the driver is perhaps the singular most critical scoring club for many golfers. Golf becomes easier if you can learn to embrace your driver, hit it farther, and keep it in play. Conversely, you can inflict quite a bit of damage on your scores with errant tee shots.
Essentially, ball speed combines your swing speed and impact location on the driver’s face.
Of all three distance factors, ball speed is the most important for distance. Increased ball speed can “overpower” less than optimal spin rate and launch angle. Generically speaking, you can increase your distance up to 2 yards for every 1mph of ball speed.
That is why impact location is vital for ball speed and overall distance. Many golfers can increase their distance without any changes in clubhead speed by learning to strike the center of their driver more often.
If the ball doesn’t have enough spin, it can look like a duck falling out of the sky. It needs enough spin for it to climb into the air. Conversely, if there is too much spin, the ball can rise too much and rob you of distance.
How high or low the ball comes initially off the face of your driver is primarily determined by the delivered loft of the clubface. Research from PING indicates that it is responsible for about 85% of the launch angle.
Therefore, playing a driver with the optimal loft plays a significant role in launching the ball at the proper angle. Additionally, while your driver might have a loft of 10.5 degrees in the center of the face, due to its design, the loft decreases towards the bottom of the face and increases towards the top. So you might deliver as little as 8 degrees if you strike it towards the bottom and as much as 13 degrees at the top.
I believe that impact location with your driver is the number one skill to develop. Modern clubs have come a long way with optimizing strikes around the face, but many problems still occur. You lose distance and accuracy as you get further away from the sweet spot.
Gear effect explains why hitting off-center strikes can alter your ball flight with clubs like your driver, fairway woods, and hybrids. It occurs on these clubs because the center of gravity is well behind the face of the club. Gear effect plays a minimal, almost non-existent role with irons and wedges because the center of gravity and clubface are much closer together.
If you had a high-speed camera at impact, you would see a driver’s face twist open on a toe strike and twist closed on a heel strike. On a center strike, minimal or no twist would occur.
One of the biggest reasons golfers struggle to transfer their practice performance over to the golf course is the variability of the game. You are doing most of your practice on a perfectly level surface that isn’t even real grass. When you get on the course, you’re faced with different lies and uneven terrain, and many players struggle to adjust.
However, that is not the case with tee shots. You have complete control over everything and don’t need to make any adjustments. It’s almost the same every time. As such, you can repeat the same setup and know that it’s optimal and gives you the best chance of success. But most golfers don’t spend the time to figure out how to do that and haphazardly make changes during their rounds.
In my testing, my strike location tends to follow tee height. If I go too low, then my patterns will veer towards the bottom of the face. If I go too high, I might start accessing the upper portion of the face.
In other words, the low tees would likely produce a negative angle of attack, and a more elevated tee would either make them less negative or even go to positive territory.
As I move it forward towards my lead foot, it takes curvature off and promotes a higher ball flight. Why does this occur? My swing path is less in-to-out further up in my stance. Additionally, my angle of attack increases further up in my stance. I now have the opportunity to make contact with the ball as the club moves upward rather than downward.
However, if I go too far forward, I find my impact tends to suffer. So generally, I tee the ball a few inches behind the innermost part of my lead foot. This gives me a positive angle of attack, and a slightly in-to-out swing path, with my optimal shots being a baby draw.
I don’t care which way it curves; a fade is not better than a draw, and vice versa. If you can remove as much curve as possible off the ball and work towards a straighter ball flight, you will find even more success. Research from PING indicates that a straighter ball travels the farthest.
Driver is the hardest club in your bag to avoid. If you want a big scoring breakthrough you must figure out a way to neutralize your core issues.
It becomes harder to control your strike, ground contact, start direction, and curvature of shots with longer clubs. Gaining more proficiency will benefit these clubs and all the others in your bag.
Randomly hitting wedge distances has become one of my favorite practice methods. For those interested in purchasing personal launch monitors, it’s my number one recommendation to use them effectively.
So what should be your overall putting practice goals? In my opinion, it’s pretty straightforward. Improve your chances of making putts inside of ten feet, and reduce your chances of three-putting as you get further away from the hole. Golf is a game of proximity, and putting is perhaps the best example. Once pros start moving outside of 15 feet, their chances of making putts drop precipitously, and their odds of three-putting start to increase.
Conversely, you don’t want to spend too much time either. If you were spending 50-75% of your time putting, you are likely honing a skill that might only marginally improve your scores, whereas more significant gains could come from more work with your driver or iron play.
Whether during practice sessions or a round, I believe most golfers place way too much emphasis on their lines. That’s not to say that getting the proper read and starting the ball on the intended line is unimportant. But I believe if you shift your focus more towards speed, you will see better results.
- We’ll continue to hone a mostly developed skill by gravitating towards what comes easily, and further gains are likely minimal.
- Spending time on shots that we don’t encounter all that much on the course.
- General misconceptions about which parts of golf will most impact scoring.
Usually, seeing top-level strokes gained data is an eye-opener. It could reveal that areas of the game where you are spending most of your practice time are already a strength, and there isn’t much “juice left to squeeze.” Conversely, there could be easier opportunities where targeted practice yields quick wins.
The three primary putting skills are speed control, face control, and green reading ability.
If you were losing strokes from the 0-10 feet range, I would suggest that face control (your ability to start the ball on your intended line) is likely your biggest issue.
Speed control becomes more paramount as you get further away from the hole.
While a lot of the advice is high quality (and plenty of it is poor), it can create a problematic cycle. Golfers show up to the range every week, perpetually trying new swing techniques. Initially, they might see positive results. But for most, eventually, they get frustrated, and they’re on to the next idea several weeks later.
When you start taking random pieces, like changing your takeaway or your wrist angles at the top of your swing, and inserting them into your swing puzzle, often they don’t fit.
Golfers have to be very careful when introducing various movements and positions they’ve seen online into their swing. If these changes are not relevant to their particular swing and what their body can do, they will do more harm than good.
I’m confident that if I sent a video of your golf swing to ten highly-trained swing professionals, they would all come to different conclusions on what you needed to do to improve from a technical standpoint. They would all find different ways to communicate what needed to change and perhaps some drills you could pursue in practice.
Let’s say you chose one of those teachers to work with and decided to commit to their plan fully. With their guidance, there’s a better chance you will see meaningful improvements in your game if you stick with the program.
Unless you have a very advanced understanding of your golf swing, I suggest most golfers get off the endless swing education train.
Overall, if you can satisfy most of these requirements, it should take around 2-3 months to make a successful swing change.
Tiger Woods publicly stated that he regrets running so much earlier in his career and attributes it to many injuries, particularly his knee problems.
Every golfer, on some level, cares about how they look to their playing partners. It’s only natural because we are only one swing away from making fools of ourselves. Golf has a way of making us all vulnerable.
Before I even hit my first shot, I started to worry about how I would play that day. I might start thinking about challenging holes on the course or what swing flaws were plaguing my game at the time.
Once I got out on the course, the fear would build. I’d look at trees, bunkers, hazards and fixate on them. As the round unfolded, frustration would mount if I hit a few poor shots and couldn’t put them behind me. On top of that, I’d start to worry about how they would affect my score for the day, and pressure would build on how well I’d have to play for the rest of the day to reach my target score.
I was obsessed with results. They dominated my mind and made it almost impossible to enjoy myself and be engaged properly on each shot.
A good post-shot routine should accomplish the following - internalize your good shots and objectify your bad shots. Most golfers don’t give themselves enough credit for good shots or even realize when they’ve hit one. Conversely, they take it very personally when the bad ones occur, and the negative feelings seem to drag on throughout the round.
Have you been wholly demoralized when you have one of your best ball-striking days, and less than 24 hours later, your swing feels like a mess? You’re not alone because this happens to every golfer on the planet.
Almost all other sports are played on a consistent field (think basketball, hockey, football, baseball, etc.), and it’s one of the reasons golfers who play other sports seem to struggle with managing their expectations appropriately. That is part of golf’s beauty and challenge.
Instead, grit is about having what some researchers call an “ultimate concern”-a goal you care about so much that it organizes and gives meaning to almost everything you do. And grit is holding steadfast to that goal. Even when you fall down. Even when you screw up. Even when progress toward that goal is halting or slow.
I would go out to play with a devastating combination - lack of preparation and unrealistic expectations. My score was the only litmus test of success, and when I felt it was out of reach, I would give up on the day. I had almost zero grit.
I found myself in a binary state - I was either trying way too hard or entirely checked out.
Having grit elsewhere in life does not necessarily mean it will translate to your golf game. I’ve played with successful business people, professional athletes, and plenty of other high achievers who undoubtedly have serious grit. But it was nowhere to be found once they teed it up. After a few bad swings, they would lose their composure and continue in a negative mindset for the rest of the day.
There are many reasons why “golf grit” is harder to develop. It’s much easier for some to give up when you become embarrassed and your ego is damaged. I know that was the case for me.
In concept, this all sounds very simple. But to this day, despite what I consider a very high grit level, there are still rounds where I have to struggle to stay engaged. And I believe on those days, it’s where you have your best chance to grow your grit and solidify these habits. This is no different than someone trying to establish a fitness routine - the moments you feel tired and lazy are the actual test.
Each round of golf usually has different acts. They can even be as dramatic as some of your favorite movies. There is heartbreak, hubris, triumph, and even redemption.
An errant drive might send me into a panic - all of a sudden, I’m walking faster and worrying about what my next mistake might be. Conversely, an early birdie might have had me “peacocking” a bit too much and wondering how well I would score that day.
Tom’s skill was the result of decades of hard work. After almost every round, he was on the range, working on whatever part of his game he felt was deficient.
He told me that he tries to do everything exactly the same when he plays in tournaments. While that might sound generic, Tom said that even the rhythm he walks and picks up his tee after a shot is identical.
You must accept that you will still make mistakes no matter how disciplined or skilled you become.
For example, if you were playing catch with a friend - would you think about what your arm and wrist need to do to throw the ball properly to the target? Probably not. If you did think about those things, you would likely struggle to complete the task and miss your mark.
He likens putting to someone driving a car on a highway. When driving, you don’t think about where your hands are on the wheel or how hard you have to press the gas pedal. However, if you suddenly see a police car in your rear-review mirror, your body will likely tense up, and you will start thinking about what your hands, arms, and legs are doing. Instead of driving the car, you are guiding the car.
Nonetheless, I believe the overall goal should be to put more conscious swing work off the course, so you can unconsciously perform on the course.
Shifting to an external focus, or focusing on the task itself, can benefit golfers tremendously. It frees your body to self-organize athletically.
I genuinely believe that most golfers have potential to hit better shots on the course if they can get themselves into a more reactive state over the golf ball. It’s not easy, but a routine can more often help you access this zone.
A good routine should be like hitting an autopilot button before and during each shot. It is so familiar that you can do it without consciously thinking about it.
One of the most challenging parts of the analysis process is acknowledging all of the trouble on the course. You’ll want to use this information to pick a more intelligent target. However, once you decide on your target, you’ll have to focus on it exclusively. This balancing act is one of the hardest things in golf and requires a lot of experience and commitment.
Overall, the goal is to be as committed to your decision as possible. Once you move on to the next step of the routine, no new analysis should be done. Think of it like mentally closing a colossal bank vault! Pulling your club out of the bag should represent the end of the analysis phase.
The execution phase is where most players struggle. You’ll see golfers spending enormous time over the ball, almost frozen in time. Usually, their minds are filled with tons of swing thoughts or fear about what could happen. They are trying to control the shot rather than letting it happen. It’s highly counterintuitive, but everyone who plays falls victim to thinking they can have complete control. You have to do your best to let go and give up control over what could happen.
Sometimes, when I’m struggling with a specific part of my game or feeling pressure in a tournament, I’ll try to bring back memories of my great shots as I visualize my target standing behind the ball. These are small reminders to yourself of what you are capable of.
Going through a post-round review (as best you can) can give you ideas on adjusting your practice routines and strategic decisions. I also find it helpful to review your mental state during the round.
- How was your overall experience? Were you in a positive frame of mind most of the round? Did you struggle with your reactions to shots? Most importantly, did you have fun?
- Were you able to be consistent with your routines?
- Did you take the time to consider the proper target/club selection?Factoring in the wind, elevation change, areas surrounding your target?
- Did you struggle with commitment to certain shots?
- Were you able to remain present, or did you worry about shots that had already occurred or future holes?
- How was your grit? Did you check out for the day early because things didn’t go well?
When your round is finished, don’t let the information disappear! Doing a quick analysis of your decision-making and emotional state while playing is helpful.