“If you’re actually hitting 7-8 of these per round then reducing that number needs to be your top priority.”
Absolutely. I have made tremendous strides with my game this past 3 months, to the point where if I can hit my drive solid and on the fairway, I ‘believe’ I will get a GIR. However, I spray my driver a lot still - lots of sideways punchouts - all our courses are densely tree lined. I feel that if I could drive it straight - I would immediately improve my scores by 6-12 strokes per round.
We used to go to Scotland every summer and I had never broken 90, but then I got a strain in my back which severely limited my full swing and all I could do with my driver was bumble it about 150 down the middle with a kind of body swing. I instantly broke 90 and did it a few more times. There’s a lesson in there somewhere!
Ties in very well with the thread about playing to the back yardage on greens. Move your approach shots range over the target. Will keep trying that today.
I’ve never used a launch monitor for determining the distance I hit each club. I’ve never trusted the distances to be accurate. Have you found that the distances from the monitor translate well to the golf course?
Obviously there a little bit of “range mentality” which may not translate to the course like usual (hitting on the range, care free, hit it great but can’t do it on the course), but yes it will translate.
Just be sure to understand how the monitor works/is set up. Trackman can give you “Actual” results for what the ball really did when you hit it (i.e. like you were on the course with the shot). It can also give you “condition neutral” results whereby it assumes you hit the shot with no wind on a (guessing) 65 degree day. If it’s the summer and you go out and play on a 90 degree day, you’re going to hit it farther than the condition neutral.
Example - I don’t get on a monitor often but did this year. I had it condition neutral and was hitting pitching wedge 135. Went on the course two days later when it’s 90*+ and I made a decent swing with PW that went closer to 145 (some was wind, some was temp).
I think the condition neutral numbers are helpful for most players. When you see the pro’s on the range each week with theirs, they are really looking at actual results to get information on how the ball is flying (altitude impact, etc).
Bottom line - it’s helpful. You just need to understand what the monitor is telling you and apply it as needed to your on course play.
Yes. GC2 and GCquad are very accurate (sure others work too, @jon can chime in on others ). Of course you have to factor any changes in daily weather or conditions. You want to have a few sessions (hey you might of thinned your irons that day) to figure out both carry and total yardages with each club (and any specialty shots) and say over 30+ shots you’ll see your averages. Also its application will display your shot dispersion. I also do it if I make any changes to my bag (especially hybrid, DI or irons). When I’m out on the course I want to know my 165 club is my 165 club.
Practice chipping, chipping chipping!
If I play well, I might hit 7/8 GIR, which means I’ll be chipping on 10 or 11. The ability never to take more than 3 and weigh in with a fair number of up and downs is crucial
“Never say, ‘never’.”
lol ha ha
But yeah… always working on the short game! Right now my up & down ‰ is low, but am realizing the down in 3 goal fairly frequently 
Definitely a key part of the game!!
This was a great article, (Gisclairj - how did you get it to iBooks?) for me, i’ve been working on my lag putting which has greatly improved. On my last 2 rounds i’ve only had two putts, which is a big improvement. Also, from 60 yards in I have been working on this constantly for a few months. I have a soccer field behind my house and I set up a traffic cone at 60yds and smaller ones in-between ranging from 10 to 50. As a result of this i’ve seen a reduction in my scores (albeit I play a lot of 9 hole golf) 48s & 50s to now I routinely score between 41 and 43.
The next step for me is the driver, I will be taking a lesson next week. I will keep everyone posted. My goals are to be able to self-correct while i’m on the course, to learn what consistent strike pattern on the club face looks and feels like (set-up), and i know that my club head speed is 105 mph; what should my realistic expectations be for distance off the tee.
I’ve found some charts online that give estimates of driver carry distance related to club head speed.
For the ball striking and self correcting on course, I can’t recommend Adam Young’s plans enough. Those are helping me in that area a lot.
Mark Broadie is always worth a revisit… this is a good place to start thinking about strategy as we head into the golf season… Eliminating the big mistakes is going to be a much bigger win than chasing birdies…
Big fan of art of scoring. Great book. He understood a lot of this intuitively
I haven’t read the article yet but plan to. This stuff is usually valuable to a certain point.
I have to know my specific weaknesses and what I have the ability to improve - not that of other 90s golfers. There are too many possible weaknesses to apply averages to my game.
I’ve always found strategy to be the easiest part of the game. Improvement on the other hand - not so much.
Just read the article and yeah… “have to reduce the blow up holes”… not sure there is a high capper who doesn’t realize that. This game is more about execution than it is strategy. I do agree that bad shots hurt scores much worse than good shots help. But we’re all working on reducing both the frequency and the degree of our bad shots.