Hi Jay. I don’t know anything about you or your game. Improvement in this game is easiest going from 100 to 90, 90 to 80 and 80 to about 77. After that, it’s incremental. My story, is different, at one time, I was a pretty good basketball player, I had dreams of playing some sort of pro ball. I actually played with and against players that were signed to play on professional teams. As good as I felt I was, those marginal pro players were way, and I mean way better than I was. I ended up playing golf. I took lessons, I had the opportunity to play in my early 20s because I worked late evening shifts, to play every day for 7 years str8. I learned the game way different than most and I went from a poor player to a pretty good player quickly, again, aspirations of becoming good enough to hit a tour…then reality sets in. Contrare to these folks that want to sell you systems to manage your game, Broadie, Fawcett et al. You can get decent at this game using any system if you put in the work and it takes work. Golf is a hard game and just playing 1 round takes 5 hours and did u hear me say practice? Oh yeah … expensive… So let’s spend more money on a system that measures how poor I really am. Now, enough of gloom. I was taught early on to manage expectations, my first 2 lessons, I never touched a club or made a swing and my first 5 lessons after talking about the game started with a putter and learning how to chip and pitch and everything else built on that. To be honest I was lost, I wanted to bash balls. Well that’s not golf. You tell me this, where do you spend 1/2 to 3/4 of the game…it certainly isn’t on the tee box or the fairway. I dare anyone to tell me otherwise and prove me or my teachers wrong. If you learn to put the puzzle together that each stroke is an independent and individual move to get you into a 4inch hole 18 times. I watch the trackman analysis of guys trying to tighten dispersion and they are all trying to hit these dead straight shots, first how many people do you play with that hit dead str8 shots, obviously that’s the goal, but the group I play with, 2 hit really big fades, the other one hits alot of pulls, they all have gotten better because I show them how to manage their misses and tendencies better. The other part is learn your swing. The biggest mistake going on is the old thud/click. Yea hitting the ground first then the ball. Lost distance, lost control, lost stroke. To me, before anyone starts with any system, learn your swing, your tendencies, your misses. Work on making that better first, I mean Fawcetts system won’t work as well for a guy on a 425 yd par 4 that only hits the ball 225yds, you still have probably a 5w or 3w into a hole assuming you are a normal golfer. Learn to manage your game first. If you agree great, if not, great, I’m just being real. Like I said above. You can grind all you want on the practice green on 10-12 ft putts, it will build confidence for sure, know this no matter what, statistics will still say you’re gonna miss 50% or more of them, if you can even have a few of them in the normal course of play on 18 holes. I mean for a 10 hdcp, your GIR might be 6 or 7 if you are lucky and out of those how many are within 10ft? I’m just trying to be real.
I don’t know the answer to this question… I do know my wedge play from 100 yards has been an issue in my scoring… honestly, I think I just need to grind the 100 yard fairway shot and make sure I’m as good at it as I can be.
To me, that’s improving my “good” rounds because I’m much more likely to have 100 yard into the pin on my good days where I’m driving the ball well…
I guess that’s more my overall point… do we practice the skills that lower the chances of a bad day (making sure driver is in play) or practice the skills that improve the chances of a good day (hit driver farther)… I like to believe ive done a good job at improving my bad days, so now it’s time to improve my good days.
I just want to add one thing regarding scoring as a metric. I personally don’t use my score as a metric. I have had some great ball striking rounds and have shot 15-18 over par. I’ve had some rather crappy ball striking rounds, but got a few lucky bounces, made some crazy putts, chipped the ball into the hole 2 times and shot 4 over par. To me your score is what is. When I sit back, at the lunch table with the boys, we all inevitably piece together what we did well, how many mishits we all had and FINALLY, how many poor or great decisions we made for the round. Again, for example, I played our #2—2x—on Saturday. First time I toed a Drive into the ruff to 130 to a back pin, hit PW to 18ft and 2 putt par. The second time around, I hit a decent drive middle of FW, wind picked up in your face had 118 same pin. My partner says PW or GW, I said neither, I’m gonna flight an 8i to center of green, and see if I can’t get a check release. I executed perfect to 12ft, my partner just shakes his head…2 putted for par. He asked why I did that? My fairway lie happened to be a little tight and a little soft, I know I can take a 3/4 swing and cover the ball alot easier than hitting a sloppy PW that, if I chunk it slightly, is gonna come up short of target. Same hole, same score, 2 different ways to play…how did I execute? That is what I am looking for…did I make a good decision and execute that decision. I could NOT do that out of ruff I had to hit the flier… I was taught to analyze my decisions on the course…inevitably…good decisions can lead more often to good scores, and poor decisions could add a stroke more often than not. It’s like do I chip from 10ft uphill, very tight lie or do I putt it. Which is going to give me the result I’m trying to achieve. I forget what tournament it was, but TW needed par to break a record but needed bogey to win the tourney, he laid back and missed a par putt and made bogey. He was asked why he didn’t use a driver, he said driver put 6 or 7 into play. Laying back took that out of the equation completely…“Bogey is what I needed to win” it doesn’t matter if I win by 1 or 7, I won!..I hope I didn’t hurt anyones feelings…
I don’t think one score can necessarily show me how well I’m playing, but I didn’t shoot any 75s last season and did this season…
My whole point in this thread is to question what we are chasing and how we are chasing it… Are you trying to make your off days less off or be better on your best days. A number of the skills for the two correlate, but there are some places where you can work on one without impacting the other.
Strategy out of the trees is a great example… You can lower your big numbers by getting back into the fairway, but on your “best” days, this might not be a choice you have to make…
I don’t think scores or handicap indicate how good a golfer is as much as they indicate their overall potential for a round.
One of the things I’ve dedicated this season to is finding areas where I can improve and grinding that improvement (and it’s a slow and methodical process)… I’ve come to realize that ANY positive change in golf takes months, if not years to be realized… I’m starting to slowly see the work I’ve put into putting pay off, and I really got in gear back in January.
I agree with you it’s important go reflect on the decision making of the day, and see where you had bad breaks, good luck or simply didn’t make a good decision or commit to a swing… but it has to be tied to some sort of real metric…
It’s alot like working on a new recipe… you can keep trying a dish and getting different elements right, but at the end of the day if you can’t put it all together into one meal where everything just WORKS, then what’s the point… and like cooking, what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for me, and that’s OK.
We can measure success differently, and that doesn’t make anyone wrong or right. My best round had a ton of mistakes I wish I had back, and the next days 82 had a bunch of good shots and some bad bounces… Variance will always happen.
Honestly, I think the biggest challenge with golf is finding the tangible ways to measure improvement, as every round is so different. Even strokes gained can be misleading on one round trends, as one shot can skew the data (the aggregate data is much more useful)
Tiger was the GOAT because he understood what his goals were and where he needed to perform. He consistenly avoided big mistakes on the course. He also had the benefit of competition, and knew exactly where he stood…
Going into 18 with a good round are most of us willing to take a look at birdie off the table if it means we won’t make worse than bogey? If the score doesn’t matter to anyone but you, and you are one over headed into 18, does it make sense to try to shoot even par for the first time ever? or do you shoot for the part putt and walk away happy with a 73? Does it matter to anyone but you? I’d argue you can defend either choice very easily. That’s the fun of recreational golf… we all have our own goals and metrics. It’s also the biggest challenge. If we want to get BETTER we have to first figure out what BETTER is.
My main areas of focus this season has been on the mental aspect of the game and focused based off strokes gained data.
I’ve practiced my physical game less often but when I did, there was an aspect of mental training involved.
I saw my handicap drop from 4.5 to start the year to 0.7 and my scoring average improve by three strokes.
How do I measure my course performance by not using score?
I use a mental scorecard for each hole and my goal is to follow my process on all shots for a hole. If successful, I get a 1. 18/18 is the goal and the rounds when I stick to that well, I typically play well.
As for other stats, strokes gained data is extremely valuable in determining where to spend my time. I might feel like I’m not putting well only to realize I’m putting better than the average scratch golfer. So why spend time there if I’m coughing up 2-3 strokes with tee shots or approach?
As for breaking barriers, I enjoy Will Robins’ game of playing alternating holes of 2-ball worst ball and the forward tees. Teaches us to play conservatively where needed and go low when in position.
I’ll agree with you about changes to your swing and that it takes a very long time and alot of work. In my 20’s…For 7 years and actually hitting balls and playing the game probably 260 days a year; literally hitting 10’s of thousands of balls with wedges and short irons, so much so I would have to get new ones every so often because I wore out the grooves… I did put in the work to get that consistent…most likely you’re not there yet… You will find alot of it is like riding a bike. My issue… I was trying to hit a newer technology driver the same way I was taught to hit a persimmon. I mean when we learned to hit… it was about bulge and roll, I really knew nothing about launch angles, side spin, spin rates etc. It’s nite and day, but it is a tweak that took me 3 in person lessons and probably 1000 balls with recordings of the swing, 4 trakman sessions and 3 re-grips. I started in February 21 and now, 7months later I’m finally starting to reap the distance and consistency benefits of the work I put in. I did gain 40-50yds off the tee box and now I’m starting to control it. In the meantime, some other parts of my game suffered slightly, but slightly is enough to pull all your hair out! I have a very good understanding of my swing and what it does and how it performs when I’m on. A couple of things I had to come to grips with at age 62. I think my swing is the same as I always was, but trakman says otherwise, I’m less flexible and slower so the ball does NOT travel as far. I had to come to grips with that. So, you have to adjust, your eyesight and nerves are bit more off, for the worse, again adjustment of expectations. Now, this year, now that my distances were recalibrated using trakman, I still hit the same 5yd fade with my scoring clubs, I’m considering adding a 9wood to the arsenal (not fully there yet). So yea, riding the bike, I can still drop wedges close to where I want within reason. At the end of the day, I’m trying to execute shots. 18 puzzles & each puzzle requires a piece 3, 4 or 5 (6,7,8 too…hope not though) pieces. I put them together and if I thought it out decently I can break 80 pretty easily.
Good discussions in here, pretty interesting!
Coming from the POV of an average recreational bogey golfer - my larger area of concern is making the bad days not as bad. Which entails a bunch of different things, of course, and already talked about in the posts above. The main focus for me probably is learning not to compound mistakes…
There was a mention of “what does better mean?” - great point; and to me, a big part of that is hitting the ball more solidly, more crisply AND in the right direction … and doing that more often per round. If I can do that, then the good scores will … eventually … follow.
Yeah. I think a better topic might have been what does better mean… handicap? Low score? Less frustration?
I can tell you, I have a lot fewer regrets at the end of the round, but I also don’t have as many “how did I pull THAT off” moments… the two are very linked!
Still plenty of great memories of good shots… just no more crazy trick shots.
I think the approach needs to be get the high scores lower and everything will follow, but I think you can lower all scores by making sure you take advantage of opportunities when you get the green light (sending it, aiming at pins when you can, getting 10-15 foot putts to the hole) without making big numbers.
Obviously, getting better, I would like to totally eliminate the 3jack, but not going to ever happen, I will tell you it’s been 8 years since I had a 4jack. With my new found distance my GIR has obviously risen from an avg of 39% from the first 5 months from Feb to 61% in August & September of this year. Being able to unleash off the tee again with confidence that, I’m really taking Left outta play, I am hitting 8,9,and Ws into holes because I’m not bunting the ball out there anymore. My expectations are changing…When I am missing greens I need to really start working on tightening up chipping and pitching. Like I said, this past week as an example, the absolute worst I could have came away with was 78, I ended up with 76, It should have been 68 or 69 and IF everything was executed perfectly it could have been 66. So, yeah…make those 3-4 ft birdie putts…I missed them both, I did have 3, 3 jax, Pay more attention to line and speed, Make just 1 more 10-15 ft putt, I did NOT get the ball up and down from crummy lies that were within 6 ft of the greens trying to be greedy firing at pins. I also had 1 dbl in this last round because I did hit a ball into a “penalty area” and had to take some medicine. How I am thinking on the course has to change…Basically BORING Golf…to get to next level again, even reviewing what I just wrote…the total around the green play has to tighten up.
This has been the same for me. My low score at my home course is 81 and I shoot that at least once a year, but I did it several times this season. I’m still not 100% happy because I shot in the high 70’s several times over 10 years ago so the 81 doesn’t cut it lol.
I probably should be satisfied with the season as my handicap had been steadily rising the last 10 years from about 13 to 20. Last year I finished as an 18 and had a goal of getting to 14 this year which I am at right now. I hit my goal, but I don’t feel like my swing got much more consistent. I used to hit driver like a 25 'cap and my irons like a 10 and then putt like a 30. Now it’s more like I do everything like a 14 and I miss hitting irons like I used to…still no hole in one either dammit 
I feel like I’m getting really close to breaking 80 again, but if I do I probably won’t be happy for long. I’ll still be working on it though. I have started on a new game plan for winter practice because there is always next year.
Hi Kev, if I’m not mistaken we are both on the + side of 60 now. How far are you hitting your driver.? I play my course from the back tees again at 6100yds. I did play 2 rounds this year away from home at 6400yds recently, with no problems. Last year my driver and general swing seemed to deteriorate where I couldn’t hit a driver past 230yds max and my PW was only carrying 95-100. I tweaked a few things but I’m back to maxing a wedge 120yds and driver is back up to 245-255 easy. Did you notice severe distance loss after 60? Have you had a swing breakdown to see If you can pick up yardage? It is work, but I do know that adding some width to the swing, getting back into proper posture, rechecking my grip (it had become seriously weak) and I added a bit more spine and hip tilt has really been a fountain of youth for me. I’d love to hear your breakdown for us seniors.
I’m “only” 55, but certain parts have a bit of extra mileage 
I’m very inconsistent with the driver and it’s not related to my physical well being, but my swing or lack of in general. I do have to watch posture as I tend to slump or stand too tall. I also tend to sway instead of turn. Lots of issues.
I have days I can barely hit it 230 and other days where 260 is not a problem. I have no troubles hitting SW 100 and PW 125, but I have been struggling with this OTT move with the longer clubs and I tend to fly the driver 230 and plug it. My longer drivers are usually toe draws lol.
I played 9 last night and really struggled with the swing and yardage. 1st hole I hit it 250 which would have been great except I aimed left for the weak fade and hit it straight and had to pitch out of the woods. The 3rd hole is a dogleg and tees were up so I hit 3w and 210 would have been great, but I managed to hit it 240 thru the dogleg lol. I had this extra yardage, but wasn’t hitting it straight enough and long at my course is no good. I’m sure this weekend I’ll be back to short & crooked
Thinking about this topic some more and looking at my game and my stats for the past couple seasons…
I feel like my game really improved this year, but looking back at my stats, my handicap is about the same as it was last year. But my scores are a lot more consistent, and my bad days are less bad. I managed to break par twice this year, something I had never done before, and I don’t think that was due to any special skill that I practiced, I was just really “on” on those days and the putter was hot.
For my own game, the thing I think I need to work on related to this, is the “makeable” birdie putts in the 10-15 foot range (I leave them short way too often).
Other than that, I think “going low” is just due to being “on” on a particular day and variance (aka, “luck” where you’re hitting some irons close).
Interesting…I know one of the guys posts along with me and we are 60…“55”…you’re gainin on us! Anyways, I’m. like everyone else, buying new stuff, and frankly not seeing any appreciable gainis. So last year, after we got back out on the course, I pulled out my old set, especially my persimmon 3 & 5w and my TM 9.5 Burner. The balls looked bigger than the clubhead and I’m thinking to myself how the hell did I ever hit these things? I cracked the driver longer than the new investment I made into a new TM. The irons are softer lofts…so my PW on my old set was 51. So some adjustments there. It was then and there…I’m like something is wrong. Lessons and vids showed me…I lost width, some turn, grip has horribly weak instead of neutral, I really was losing spine angle on the downswing because I was lurching forward…It was a mess. So that’s when I bought a net and a phone stand and started and recorded and got lessoned up again…beating at least 100 balls a day into the net. I also purchased a small monitor to get some feedback. Then about 40 days ago things clicked…I had broken the bad habits and was executing the better habits…Hence, the ability to recalibrate my iron distances and hit the Driver off the tee with some pop. The last few weeks I have been working on eliminating the left side of the fairway. 90% of my misses are right now, If I do miss left it’s actually a bitt of a pull and is not in the woods…more like left ruff or left FW. That has dropped the scoring into mid to 70’s now. If I do get that round where the flat stick just drops a few more…breaking par again will be in the equations for me.
Yeah I have newer equipment, but can’t say I’ve gained any distance from it. I do find the newer woods to be more forgiving. About 5 years ago I went back to more “standard” loft irons and have stuck with that. I have gotten a bit stronger in the gym this year, but not sure that has made it to the course.
I had started playing much more consistent golf this year and started threatening to break 80 again, but then things got busy with work and family and I couldn’t play much and I’m struggling again. I could have fit some practice in, but I wasn’t motivated since I knew I couldn’t play. For some reason I just don’t have the muscle memory for golf. Maybe because I didn’t take up the game until I was 30. I was never a great athlete, but baseball and basketball didn’t seem as hard lol.
This to me is the biggest key. I truly envy you folks that have time to play every day…or even every few days. I aspire to get to that point asap. Between work and family and life, I’ve found that when I play more, my handicap drops quicker.
I started the year as a 12…during the summer when school was out, I got to the course more and dropped to a 10 (all time low for me)…now that school and other commitments have increased, I’m back up to an 11.5 and lucky to squeeze in 9 holes once a week.
I certainly don’t downplay lessons, technique, mental game, course management…all of those are SUPER important to improvement…but TIME trumps all in my opinion.
I have a working (completely unproven) theory that we can lower the time threshold by finding the things that actually WORK in terms of practice… I’m convinced there is something I could be doing 10-20 minutes a day that would be better for my game than an hour at the range… I have no idea what it is!
As we head into the off season, I’m going to work on speed training and strength… with a minor in short game… hoping to use the simulator at the club to dial in my wedges… Still have about 2 months of golf this season, but it’s going to be in less ideal conditions, so I’m more worried about figuring out what my offseason will be focused on.
Yeah I don’t think anyone can deny that. I found myself out of work back in 2009 and luckily I had a nice severance and played golf every other day and practiced as well. I went from shooting 90’s to 80’s and broke 80 several times.
My putting was terrible and my driver was mediocre at best, but my irons and wedge play were quite good. I thought I had at least part of the game figured out, but when next Spring came and I MIGHT play 9 holes/week I quickly realized I hadn’t learned a thing. I haven’t broken 80 since then.
I bought a net for $60. I bought a mat for another $40. I bought a stand for $8 to record my sessions. I downloaded Virtual Pro Swing Analyzer. I purchased the PRGR to analyze speed, distance and Smash Factor. I regripped my clubs. So a pretty minor investment. I did 5 minutes of stretching every day, then worked on incremental lessons that my PRO kinda owed to me to make new technology work for me. From the vids, I 100% saw poor grip. Th V in my left hand was pointing almost to the left of my chin…It’s supposed to be at minimum to the R armpit. I also saw my left arm at the elbow was breaking down and I was losing all kinds of width. I also saw (from behind) that I was standing up maybe about an inch or 2, causing me to lose spine angle. All that together, no control, fat or thin shots and all stored energy was expended by the time the downswing was hitting 4 o’clock. I hit balls every day as a daily workout instead of doing something dumb like watch TV…each day I incrementally worked on each piece. When I learned the game you wanted to impact the ball at the bottom of the swing. I had to in-grain learning to hit up on the ball. The difference is minutia…but it is a difference I was not performing. I might have had a launch angle upwards of about 7-9*, now it’s like 13-14*. You cannot hit a TM M3 like you hit a TM Burner from 1989. We were always afraid of “sky-marking” the clubhead…I bet you can find time if it’s in your backyard. I’m like an old time gym-rat…I actually love beating balls. But do it with a purpose. I also received a 12ft putting matt for a BD present years ago. I finally broke that out and stroke at least 20 putts everyday. All I can say is I gained 40-50yds off the tee, my irons are now hitting what they are supposed to go, Putter…not so much…I still suck, but suck to me is avg of 1.88…I want to see it closer to 1.6 or 1.7…how do you do that? Ya just gotta get the ball close to the hole 
It seems to come down to motivation for me. In the winter about a month before our annual FL golf trip I will have the net up in the garage, hitting balls off the mat and using foot spray and the PRGR monitor on a near daily basis even if only for 15-20 minutes. My short game will suck, but I’ll usually strike the ball decently. But during golf season, if I know I won’t be able to get out and play for a week or 2, my thought is “why practice since I can’t play?”. And then when I finally do get to play I play like sh*t.
Most of my buddies are the same. We have 1 guy in our group who doesn’t seem to need to play or practice much though. He might only play 9 holes/week, but his swing will still be silky smooth and he’ll hit his +20 yr old 12* driver 275 or so dead center of the fairway and shoot a couple over…I hate him so much lol.