Golf instruction is always evolving, but the best tips stand the test of time. In GOLF.com’s Lifetime Tips series, we’re highlighting some of the greatest tips that teachers and players have shared in the pages of GOLF Magazine. Today, we have four easy tips for scoring lower scores from our August 2007 issue.
Golf is an impossible game to perfect. No matter how good you are, there is always room for improvement.
This axiom is what makes the game so engaging – and so frustrating. Even on days when everything works, there are still ways you could have done better. This is what keeps us coming back.
Because of this, golfers are obsessed with learning how they can improve. In 2007, legendary instructor Dave Pelz capitalized on this and joined the GOLF magazine for a small research project in which he identified four areas of focus that golfers can improve to score lower scores.
See below.
4 key areas to score lower
If you want to improve your playing skills, you need to know exactly what needs to be improved. It won’t help you empty a bucket of distance balls with your driver when it’s your putting that’s killing your score.
I realized this 30 years ago when I first started measuring the skills of the PGA Tour players I worked with. This was before laser ranges, so I had to walk the distances before the tournament and then run outside the ropes during events to mark where the players were marking their shots. I used hitting patterns and scores to identify weak areas and help players turn those weaknesses into strengths. This research-based guidance formed the foundation of my teaching career and of the Score Play Schools, and today it remains a driving force within both.
Last summer, the PGA Tour offered me his ShotLink laser technology and software to study amateur games. With their help, Pelz Institute of Golf staff measured every shot from more than 300 amateurs on four holes over four rounds at Arrowhead Country Club during the PGA Superstore World Amateur Handicap Championship in Myrtle Beach, SC. (And I didn’t have to make any runs!) The purpose of our research was to compare amateur skill to that of PGA Tour players (as measured by ShotLink) and use this data to help you assess where your game lies within that skill spectrum. Knowing this, you can pinpoint where your game needs more work and how hard you need to work on it to become a better player.
1. Driving
Your big problem: Poor balance, direction and target selection are killing your accuracy and range.
3 Reasons Why Your Numbers Are Bad
1. Poor balance: Professionals don’t lose their balance – or change their foot position – until they’ve finished their move and left. You swing your driver so hard that you fall off balance.
2. Excessive swing: Pros rarely swing their driver 100 percent. You try to hit the ball as hard as you can with your driver, trying to squeeze every inch possible out of your swing.
3. Bad intention: Professionals aim to the right or left side of the fairway, anticipating that the ball will bounce or fade back to the center. You have no aim direction bias, nor do you favor one side of the tee box to compensate for your tendency to hit drives to the left or right of your setup layup.
3 ways to upgrade
1. Throttle back: Commit to “rocking within yourself” and end up in balance without moving your feet. This may mean using only 85 to 90 percent of your available power (or effort), but your results will improve because of it. Good balance is essential to good golf. You can’t hit drivers repeatedly on the road without it.
2. Favor fading: Aim left if you usually wait. I know you don’t want to play for a piece and would rather take a chance on hitting a forehand (or even a draw), but this attitude hurts your results. Always play the best you can with the game you brought to the course that day. If you want to eliminate your scale, work on it during string practice. On the course, aim to the left side and stop your car in the short grass.
3. Play for accuracy: Do whatever it takes to hit the fairway, even if that means hitting a 3-wood or a hybrid off the tee. If you give up 10 percent of distance for 10 percent more accuracy, you’ll get lower scores.
2. Par-3 game
Your big problems: Poor shooting, finger shooting and poor target selection.
3 Reasons Why Your Numbers Are Bad
1. Poor contact: Pros more often contact the center of the clubface, making it easier to control the distance their shots hit. You make contact on the toe of the club face. As a result, variable and less than maximum energy is transferred from the club to the ball. (More than 90 percent of amateurs failed to reach the flag, no matter what club they used.)
2. Incorrect numbers: Professionals know how far they hit each club in their bag and rarely overestimate how much distance they will generate with their club of choice. You pick teams based on the expectation of hitting them almost perfectly and getting the ball exactly right into the hole. The problem is that most amateurs don’t hit perfect shots very often. (Even amateurs who hit a solid putt mostly missed the hole.)
3. Wrong choice of target: Professionals calculate pin position and hazard locations when selecting their landing targets. You aim directly at the flagstick, no matter how close the hazards are to the target.
3 ways to upgrade
1. Cut the cut: As you move through the hitting zone, move the clubhead down and out toward the target. This will curb your tendency to cut the ball and toe it. Practice this by hitting balls three inches into a three-foot, two-by-four piece of wood aimed right at your target.
2. Go long: Choose the club that will get you to the back end of the green. The ball will end up behind the flagpole if you catch it clean, but no harm is done, as your shots are rarely fair enough for you to make the next shot anyway. Choosing a stronger club will bring your average shots closer to the hole, leave shorter shots and keep you out of hazards, off the green.
3. Be open-minded: Study the firing patterns on the right. Imagine hitting 100 balls on this par 3; which pattern will your pictures fall into? From now on, when you play a par 3, look for the safest area on the green to hit your shot pattern (not your perfect shot), regardless of where the flag is.
3. Shooting in the bunker
Your big problem: You do funky swings in the sand
2 Reasons Your Numbers Are Bad
1. Poor technique: The pros play the ball forward in their stance and use an almost standard wedge swing. They open the clubface and hit the sand to get the ball out, but otherwise their swing mechanics are smooth and normal. You make unique, funky swings in the sand. (In analyzing the game at Arrowhead Country Club, we saw hard swings, vertical-V swings, backspins, players falling back, players stopping their swing immediately after impact, etc.)
2. Poor low point control: Professionals practice making sure their club hits the sand the same distance behind the ball every time. You never hit the sand in the same place twice. Sometimes you contact the ball in front of the sand – or hit too close behind it – and send it flying onto the green. Other times you hit the ball too far back and leave it in danger.
2 ways to upgrade
1. Play ahead: Try this: Hit a normal wedge shot from the grass. Note how your separation is forward (towards the target) of your center of gravity. This same swing that contacts the ball before it hits the ground on fairway shots can also serve as your sand swing. It will hit exactly two inches behind the ball in the sand if you simply place the ball forward, outside the bottom of your left foot.
2. Give yourself space: Play on fairly safe sections of the green. Based on ShotLink data, tournament pros should aim dead on this flag because they will end up within about 10 feet of the hole. But if your average putt distance is longer, it would be wise to aim to the right where there is more green to work with.
4. Placement
Your big problem: Spacing, line blocking, and not reading the break enough are hurting your rendering performance.
2 Reasons Your Numbers Are Bad
1. Leaving it short: Professionals rarely leave fairways (10 to 25 feet) short of the hole. You leave many possible kisses short. You would score significantly better by not leaving so many short shots. Look at the distribution patterns of the second shots remaining after the first shot missed. This “left-to-short” phenomenon was surprisingly consistent across the amateur handicap range, but almost absent for the pros.
GOLF magazine
2. Low Play: Professionals play more breaks and miss more shots on the high side of the hole. You almost never play enough breaks and leave a high percentage of missed shots down the hole.
1 way to improve
1. Focus on speed: Many golfers complain of pulling or pushing after missing a putt. These complaints are indicative of too much focus on the line, without enough attention to speed or distance. The truth is that the speed of a putt determines how much it breaks, and therefore usually controls its line (left or right) as it approaches the hole. Besides, most players don’t read the right line in the first place.
Having said that, do me — and your game — four favors this season: (1) Focus moderately on spin shots beyond the hole; (2) Allow a little more rest on every putt you see; (3) Recognize that for every putt you leave short, you’ve thrown away a chance to hole it; and (4) Realize that until you’ve missed as many putts on the hole as possible below, you’re still not reading enough average rest. Do these things for me and you might just start acting like a pro.
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