We all read and take in a lot of swing advice but there are some very straightforward ways to lower your scores.
Time and time again we are guilty of making the same mistakes. Follow these simple tips and spend some time on your short game and it will help to see your handicap come tumbling down.
1 Thinking you hit the ball further than you do
This is so obvious but things very rarely change. We measure our best shot and, for example, our 7-iron might have travelled 165 yards one day but then it will be going 140 the next. On the 165 day it’s probably carried 130 and rolled the rest and that’s where we get our numbers from.
It’s how far you carry the ball that is the only thing of interest. Find out what your carry distances are, the idea of practising is to know how far each club carries so you have a better idea of shot selection on the golf course.
There is so much more data available these days. See where your ball is landing with each club. It might well be that the majority of your shots are finishing up short and right so factor that in when you’re choosing your club and where’s you’re aiming.
We know this but it’s worth repeating time after time, we won’t always flush it. If you’re picking a club that you will need to flush to get to the middle of the green, pick a club that will get you to the back of the green as you’re more likely to not hit a perfect shot but you can still find the middle of the green.
2 Get it back in play
When you’ve missed a fairway, don’t think you can hit your next shot between that four-foot gap in the trees when you’ve just missed the 50-yard fairway. Get it back on the short stuff through the biggest gap possible with a nice lofted club.
The reality is that you should pretty more often than not play it out sideways and take your medicine. Even really good players will give themselves more chance of salvaging their par rather than try something silly. Don’t take a double or a triple-bogey when you don’t need to, a bogey will never really kill anyone’s score and most of us will have plenty of shots to play with.
And you’ll be amazed how good it is for your mindset to play your next shot from the fairway rather than get involved in then looking for your recovery and getting yourself into more and more trouble. Pitch it out and get yourself back in the hole.
3 Short-game practice
Practise your chipping more than you practise your long game. The fastest way to lower your scores is to not have to what I call two chip. So, if you have a chip shot whether that is out of a bunker or from the greenside, make sure your next shot is a putt.
Have a chipping lesson with a PGA Pro. It can be an easy one to quickly improve and there shouldn’t be lots of things to remember. What we want is to have a functioning short game and then we can build up that confidence.
A lot of the time it’s the delicate ones which cause the issues because it’s the commitment to such a small movement. Higher handicappers often think that it’s not going to move the ball far enough so they have this increasing speed with their hands and really fire at it to help it.
And practise it and don’t give up the first time that it doesn’t go right. It often won’t but, if you can work away on the right things, you can turn it around.
4 Don’t listen to your friends!
Which leads us on listening to those friendly people who you play golf with. My question when somebody’s always offering advice is to give them my car keys and ask them to give me an oil change, sort the spark plugs and that they may as well do the gasket while they’re there.
They look at me like I’ve got five heads and tell me that they’re not a mechanic? I reply that they’re not a golf professional either but they’re happily fixing their mate’s golf swing although they’re actually breaking it even more.
We’re surrounded by helpful people with information of old wives’ tale, like to keep your eye on the ball or that you’ve lifted your head – my advice would be to not listen to anything other than information you’ve paid for.
In this day and age there is so much info but your golf will very rarely improve by listening to much of it and it will only serve to hinder you in the long run.
5 Change your ball
Finally, and we don’t hear this too often, but change your golf ball every nine holes, if it gets that far.
Because of the ballistics of the ball coming off the clubface at speed, after nine holes it won’t be perfectly round. If you were to put it through one of those circle things, it actually wouldn’t fit through because it would often be out of shape a little bit. So you might hit a putt and it might wobble, that’s because the ball’s no longer round.
So, if your ball has lasted nine holes, get a fresh one out on the10th tee.
Even though high handicappers might be hitting it at 90mph with the driver, that’s 12 shots where the ball will be literally going out of shape before returning to its original shape. Then think about all those fairway woods and irons. That is a lot for a ball to put up with and, though it might be minimum, it will help your game.
About Ged Walters
Ged is a Golf Monthly Top 50 coach and one of the leading teachers in the North West. For more tips follow Ged on Instagram – gedwaltersgolf
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