Thanks! Having fun is definitely the most important part…
I’ve just come to believe that progress is more than lowering your handicap… you have to find the small wins in golf and eventually they will add up to big wins.
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Belated Happy Birthday!
I would love to go back to 40…well actually I had a super stressful job then so not that part of it, but I wouldn’t mind turning back the clock 15 years otherwise.
I actually did get down to about a 12 back then with more practice and play and felt like I could get to single digits, but I focused on other things (work; family) and the index kept climbing until I hit a 20 last Fall. Back down to 14 this year. Not much more time practicing, but better practice. Wish our season was longer here, but I’m working on a plan for Winter and steps to keep dropping.
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Happy Birthday !!! Your gainin on me!
Happy birthday Will 
I’ve more than a decade on you and waaay past my prime but through club fitting, continual learning and focused practice I can sometimes hit 300yd drives. Average is 250 and gaining so you’ve a good way to go yet youngster.
Like @Kevomanc I’d love to be 40 again. And like @Kevomanc I also had a stressful job then. I will not go back to that for any amount of money. Life is too short to trade in your mental health for cash.
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@BlackForestGuy - there have been some really good comments posted in here, and I trust you’ve read carefully through all of them … a lot of useful wisdom has been shared!
I’d recommend … if you have not yet … spending time reading through some of the articles on the Practical Golf website. The knowledge and insights in them will do a lot for your game!
Start with Expectations Management.
That said, as a fellow golf enthusiast who is also working hard to get “better” (whatever that means) I would strongly suggest…
#1. Patience.
2. Practice only what you were shown in your Lessons.
… And,
3. Learn the game “backwards” (as someone else mentioned above) - because…
…becoming a really good putter takes pressure off your approach shots … you can hit anywhere onto the green; become really good with your wedges because you will miss greens … so gain confidence that you can get the ball up onto the green when you do miss trying to pull off the perfect approach; become really good with your irons and “club up” on approach shots; learn to hit all of your clubs from all sorts of uneven lies and types of rough; always pick a specific target for every shot; always be careful with your setup at address and aim & alignment; etc etc etc etc.
Driving it far off the tee is great, but driving the ball into a good spot in the fairway is much better.
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Only change to the list … I heard one time from a 3 handicapper. He asked his pro for a putting lesson and he took him to the short game area. Said if he could get the ball closer to the hole from around the green, he would take fewer putts and shoot lower scores.
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Yes!! But… that’s a 3 hcp! IMHO the rest of us regular mid-/hi- cappers would do well to first get the ball almost anywhere onto the green, from anywhere / any lie around the green … then as the basic skills develop sharpen up your shot making skills.
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One thing that most golfers, regardless of their mid-/hi-cap, can do and do as effectively as a scratch golfer, is learn to hit a wedge properly. In fact, if you’re having problems swinging a wedge, there’s a good chance that
- you haven’t been instructed in its use properly or at all
- you have something in your fundamentals that if you managed to fix with a wedge, would seep back into your regular (fairway/tee) swing and make you a better golfer
You don’t need strength to swing a 60 degree wedge. But you do need
- instruction
- practice
- confidence
My contention here is that if you can swing a wedge, you can swing it well outside of your regular game, and end up closer to the hole every time. You may even find yourself holing out more than once in a season. So what I’m saying is that a “regular golfer” can end up well closer to those guys on TV from 40 yards on in. My own approach to the game is to treat putting and wedgework as essentially the same set of skills. I’ve stopped practicing one without the other. And it’s made a bigger difference in my abilities as a golfer than anything I have managed to do in other aspects of my game. An added benefit is that my sand game got much better too, well beyond the amount of practice that I put in.
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I’m guessing the pro really knows his student’s game, which is why the pro gave that specific advice. PGA Scrambling stats as a whole last year show that the Tour average was a hair under 58% Cantlay led everyone with a little over 2/3. If this student has a much lower scramble percentage, like the 5-10 percent I vaguely recall reading is true for the average golfer, then yes, that’s a lot of strokes being left out there. Not to mention that scrambling is often not a matter of the difference between par and bogey, but if you really botch it, it can be the difference between par and “other.”
For most -3s though, I’m not thrilled with the logic behind it. As I see it, to be a 3 handicap, a player is already hitting a ton of greens in regulation. Likely over 50 percent. (Comparing again with the Tour GIR, average is a hair under 2/3 and Cameron Percy leads with nearly 73%) Unless they’re much worse than expected around the greens, and are constantly taking three or more to get down, this player’s issue likely isn’t chipping/pitching, for the 6-9 greens they miss.
It’s that most of their first putts are outside of their reasonable-make range. The solutions to that—especially if the guy is complaining about bad putting—is to either improve putting fundamentals (establishing the line and speed, address, stroke) such that the reasonable-make distance increases, or honing their approaches so that they can be closer to the hole.
Our host had a chart in his “Breaking 90” piece that showed putting distances and make percentages for Tour guys, scratch players, and 18 handicaps. The difference between Tour and 18HDCP for making 2/3 of their first putts, was going from 6 feet out to 4 feet out. Two feet. That’s it.
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Great feedback. I should have been clearer. He got the pros advice well before he got down to a 3 hdcp.
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@BlackForestGuy: If I were you, I would take lessons from that guy that fitted you for your irons. He seems extremely knowledgeable and concise. It would be money well spent IMO.
I just had an on-line lesson with my usual guy in Florida this week. Those two different mishit problems I’m having are really just one swing fault. Fix that and some of my big numbers will disappear. I would have never thought they were connected. Life is too short to “dig it out of the dirt”. It’s more fun playing well.
Mike
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Great point, and I agree - along with putting, I’ve spent way waaaay more time hitting wedges into the net in garage vs any other swing practice.
I guess what I’m suggesting to the original poster … who has only played parts of two seasons so far … is…
“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”
In other words, make a “good” shot onto the green that’s within your current capabilities … and not try for that “perfect” shot at the pin (excepting maybe the occasional “green light” shot).
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I guess… but my own approach to the shot (and every shot for that matter) is to visualize what I want to accomplish first, before setting up for the execution. To me, that pretty much includes the ball rolling right into the hole unless there’s a reason to lag it or tactically place it somewhere other than the pin. Once I’ve got the visualization concrete enough to translate into execution, I’ll proceed from there.
It never occurred to me, in all my various stages of visualization, to just get it onto the green. Not from 40 yards out. Now, 300 yards out on the fairway… that’s a completely different story! But my whole schtick here is that once you cross the 40 yard line, you pull back a magic curtain, and everything you do from here on in, is New Jerusalem as far as your chances of up-and-down in two. I firmly believe that every golfer, regardless of his/her game, can “reset the clock” from 40 yards in and become a completely different golfer if they are so inclined. This may or may not be true at other distances, but everybody has it within themselves to invent a “40 yard monster” if they’re inclined to do so.
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Yeah, I take a lesson once every while with my local pro, but the guy who fitted me takes EUR 95 per hour (or 50 EUR for 30 mins) and that’s just outside my price range…
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I relate entirely with your frustration. I practice several times a week, play informal “no pressure” games with a couple of buddies, and have had lessons from four different instructors. My 34 handicap has not improved at all over two years Still to break 104. I hear a lot about the difficulties of the game. As Adam Young writes there is only one thing that matters which is the milliseconds of club to ball impact. There is no ball awareness whether the hitter is confident or a nervous wreck. I simply struggle to buy that as a significant factor in making decent golf contact.
Little is said about quality of pro instruction. Funny how a pro can often improve ball contact during a lesson, although by no means always, as I can attest. Of course, I know nothing, but is it not a key issue for golfers that pro instruction is generally poor? Driving a car for the first time is a challenge, multi faceted, yet most learn to drive with a dozen or so lessons. Yet golf can require countless lessons with little sense of improvement over time. Pro golfers willingly say what needs to happen to create that ideal ball contact. The issue is how to change MY golf swing. That means a repeatable drill. One that can be used any where, any time. Practise on the range seems to help little because most of us are not provided with that repeatable drill that we can practise. I struggle to believe that even an experienced pro can discern a swing fault by eye. You need a camera and still frames properly to analyse this. I am not in the game of pro bashing but is it not for instructors to stop and ask the question, how can we take so much instruction money, yet average golf quality has not improved over the last decade even though access to professionals for lessons has never been easier? Why is this?
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@BlackForestGuy: Yes, I looked up his rate before replying to you and I would put it on the higher side of typical but well below that of an elite instructor. BTW, his PDF booklet is 1 euro, which I recommend.
I’ve been using Skillest for my last three lessons and I am more than happy with what my instructor, Dan Carraher, has said and the drills he provided. He has very reasonable rates but you can choose from lots of other golf pros ranging from the well known to the obscure.
I’ve said this in other posts and repeat my assertion that this game is about ball striking and ball striking is about reasonable athletic ability and technique. Even Hogan has said that the average person should be able to break 80 
Take some lessons and shorten the cycle.
Mike
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Just curious, how old are you? Did you play other sports like hockey or baseball? If so, are you channeling some of those muscle memory into your golf swing? I ask age because at 70 my swing is dictated my what hurts or doesn’t hurt that day. I did play a lot of sports and was ‘ridden hard and put away wet’ too many times plus injuries and they are all catching up to me. Also I find that if I do a lot of work around the house the day before I play then all bets are off. If I take it easy and fully rested, then the results are much better.
I found the most improvement/consistency is when I go to the range consistently. I hit ALL my clubs, and then after I chip and putt. I do that once a week and then play once a week then my game is pretty consistent. If I bust up a concrete patio and haul it away, that week my game is crap.
I tried lessons and found that many of the instructors try to make my swing into a 25 year old’s swing. Will most 25 year olds dont have arthritic knees and hips and bicep tendonitis!!
The other recommendation is to play courses and tees that fit your game. Build your confidence and your game without too much frustration. Then when ready go get your butt kicked on a tough course!! If you are young and in good shape, then forget what I said and just practice, practice, practice. And if you really want to see what good looks like, volunteer to go work a PGA tournament. See those guys up close - wow. Especially their short games. Good luck and enjoy!!
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Literally LOLing!!!
And “…at 70 my swing is dictated my what hurts or doesn’t hurt that day” is such a great way of putting it. I’m “only” 65 now but chronic back spasms, some arthritis in places you don’t want it for golf, etc. does make a tough game a little tougher…
Lotta really good points in your post 
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I have a right knee (football) and now a left hip (due to knee) combined with rice krispy shoulders (snap, crackle & pop) that makes every round a challenge. Lies that have the ball well below the feet where you really bend the knees to the point I hear the grinding is very unnerving!! But I can still walk 18 (I did on Sunday). Even surfing for 35 years have put some wear and tear on the shoulders. Trying to hold on to my board as a clean-up set rolls through and tears it out of my hands has twisted the shoulder more a few times. LOL I just need a few parts replaced!! My latest challenge was a medication that made me loopy. I complained that I couldn’t concentrate, was forgetful and could only do like 2 things at a time. The doc laughed and said ‘Yep’…bastard ruined my short game!! I cut it way back and now it is manageable. I am a 12 hcp and scored a 78 at Encinitas Ranch and still in the 82-86 range at most places around here. True to form I had Friday and Saturday of hours of yard work and Sunday’s round was crap. This time I could not hit a fairway off the tee. Well maybe 4 fairways and everything was left, line drives left with a couple of hooks thrown in. It was weird, not my normal miss.
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One possibility is you’re unconsciously “guarding” a … or: another … body part during the full swing off the tee.
I’ve discovered that when I push or slice (right) it’s most likely because I’m stopping my turn and kinda pulling out of the swing. So I’m trying to teach myself to recognize when I think I’m tightening up and just try to do a smooth, controlled full swing off the tee. Work in progress!
Yeah bad shoulders do not make for good golf… You’ve probably tried all sorts of rubs and lotions and things, but I’ve had some success with MSM cream and also “Voltaren” which has diclofenac sodium in it and is now available OTC.