Golfers on a mission to improve are not lazy. If anything, the problem goes in the opposite direction. We watch videos, hit the range, go through bad rounds and look for answers after each one. We put in the time and effort and then scored the same result we scored last year.
The point is that some of our most ingrained habits feel like the right thing to do. They are not. They imitate improvement without producing it. Here are five golf habits worth taking a close look at.
You practice the strokes you already master
The 7-iron feels good, so you hit the 7-iron. It’s easier to find your rhythm, so hit a few good ones on the range and walk away feeling like you’re getting somewhere with your game.
But the shots that are costing you strokes are the 40-yarder from a tight lie, the punch from under a tree, the difficult half from an uneven lie, the 5-iron. These are the shots you’ve never touched because they’re uncomfortable and unsafe, and no one wants to experience that lost feeling.
The range session that helps your score is the one built around your weakest shots, not your favorites. Even if you look like the worst golfer, if you’re working on your swing, chances are you’re the only one getting better.
You go through your pre-shot routine without making a decision
The practice move happened, perhaps before you even gave the club a swing. You took a breath, stepped in and looked at the target. Everything looked like a pre-shot routine from the outside. But at no point did you commit to a specific target, a specific shot form, or a specific landing zone.
Mentality and commitment are the most important elements of the pre-shoot routine.
A routine without a decision is useless. It gives you the feeling of preparation without any mental work which makes preparation useful. On the course, the decision is all business. Be sure to include it.
You hit the “safe” club that you don’t actually trust
Pulling the 3-wood feels responsible. But if you haven’t hit it hard and don’t trust it completely, you’re not smarter. You’re just hitting it shorter with the same uncertainty you would with the driver.
Responsible gambling and the club you trust are not always the same thing. If your miss rates are no better with your 3-wood than with your driver, hit the driver.
You are playing the last hole instead of the current one
Having a bad hole is hard to keep going. When you then put pressure on yourself to recover those missed shots, it makes things even more difficult.
You push a little harder off the next tee, get a flag that you would normally miss, try to make a birdie out of a situation that was always going to be a rough one, and then end up with another double to recover.
This habit is subtle because it feels like competition. You are fighting and trying not to give up. But golf doesn’t reward scorecard fighting. Each hole is its own problem, and the golfer who can reset after a double and play the next hole on his own terms will go down.
You’re waiting until your swing feels right before you hit the course
This is hard for me because if I have a problem with my swing I like to work on it until it feels scratchy. However, I think there are times when this becomes limiting and delays improvement.
The swing you have on the range is never the swing you have on the course. The pressure of a real shot, a ball, real action, changes everything. No interval session is long enough to produce course-ready confidence.
More importantly, the range will never teach you to score. You should be able to keep up with the swing you have that day. Golfers who get better at scoring spend time learning to score, not trying to perfect a swing they’ll never find.
