How do you get "good" at golf?

[WristySwing]

Or maybe the title should be "better" at golf? Sorry this is going to be a long one, I apologize. Background information is necessary I think. I've been around golf my whole (in my 30s now). I've been working in the industry for 20 years. I started out as a caddie, then worked big box retail for 15 years, and now have moved up and work at a well respected fitting studio. At every one of these places there have always been people who were really, really good at golf. And I never was.

I played high school golf against a current PGA Pro who honestly cleaned the clocks with all of us and won the tour handily. I caddied with some people who were capable of shooting legitimate mid-70s rounds at a very tough track that has hosted several PGA events during the caddy rounds/caddy tournament. I'm sure there might have been some number fudging but I saw some really good rounds for a 12-15 year old on a really tough and tight track. At the big box store there were several players who went on to play D1 in the U.S. and be pretty competitive on some of the Florida mini-tours 10-12 years ago. My manager for a spell at this store played on some second-tier PGA tours for a while before hanging it up and realizing he couldn't cut it (his words, not mine). Now at the fitting studio almost everyone is a strong single digit handicap with several of them being close to scratch, if not better. And then there's me.

My dad was a solid low-single digit for a while and got to scratch, and possibly even a + for a short spell, if memory serves. His friends when he was growing up were all solid players capable of shooting in the 60s every 10-12 rounds. They passed Club Championships amongst themselves for a few years before jobs, kids, and age crept in. They are now all in their mid-late 60s and early 70s and still for the most part are no worse than 10 handicaps, which I think is pretty great considering the limitations age puts on your golf swing and coordination necessary to play this game well. And then again, there's me.

A little about me, I shoot 81-85 most days out. For one or two brief seasons I fought my way down to a 6. My lowest round was 74 and I've broken 80 3-4x in my career. I rarely have a super high game where I shoot more than 85, but if I do, the wheels completely fall off and I'm in the 90s. However, I know this is an atypical round and am back to the low-mid 80s again next game out. I've taken lessons my entire life. First it was to get rid of an over the top slice. Now, it's to stopping "flipping" the club and sliding through impact. I've had lessons from local pros, corporations (GolfTec), and even PGA Tour level instruction. The best lessons I got were from one of the CPGA instructors when I worked big box retail. I have never felt compression like that. I've never seen distance like that with my irons. The only problem is, he doesn't teach anymore (all the CPGA positions were eliminated and his wife is/was sick so he took a job with some predictability), so I had to look elsewhere. Another problem is, nothing ever seems to stick. When I was taking lessons with Steve (the pro I really clicked with), I could hit a 6i in the middle of the club 80% of the time and have a shot cluster that looked like you could lay a blanket over it on the mat indoors. Outside, it was just as good. I took perfect divots, predictable baby draws. I actually had people stop and watch me at the range. However, it never sticks on the course. My wheels fall off.

My dad says this is from lack of playing (less than 20x per year). However, I'm a range rat. When I was out seeking other instructors and hooked up with Scott Cowx, the flip and slide had returned. We worked like hell all summer to get rid of it with lessons once every week or so. There was a spell where I went to the range every day for 2.5-3 weeks and hit balls for 2 hours hitting nothing but chip and punch shots as per his intstructions to get the flip gone. Get to the lesson, somehow the flip was worse. We would work on impact drills and by the end of the lesson, bam it's gone and looks better. Back to the drills for 2 weeks, come back and see him again and send him Instagram videos, flip is gone in the videos but at the lesson, poof it appears. Course I'm hitting everything thin and have a two way miss that would embarrass a 36 handicap, aka the flip and slide is back in full force. This year instead of dropping so much money into lessons I went out to the range and watched YouTube videos to help, same result. Range = pretty decent, course = bad.

I just don't understand how putting in this much work on the range to engrain muscle memory translates to such poor performance. So I guess my question is for those who teach or those who are "good" at golf, what is your secret? Do you hit balls until your hands hurt like I do (relatively speaking) and like Hogan did? Do you go out and play and get the battlefield promotion so to speak where you work under pressure and get the muscle memory going that way? I'm just at such a loss that this past year I actually thought about hanging up my clubs for the first time ever. I don't want to walk away from the game but it's so hard to play it when I am stalling, if not getting worse, while putting so much effort into it to get better.

Maybe I just need to stop trying so hard and just go out and play? I don't know, I'm so lost and it's snowing in Canada so I have a long time to ruminate over all of this. I don't have aspirations to be on tour, but getting to a legit 4-5 handicap is my goal.

Thank you.

 

[SNIPERBBB]

I think some guys just cant get out of their head and just play. Drills are fine but if its all you do during your practices, well you better hope the only shots you face on the course can be hit with those drills.

[sdandrea]

PLAY MORE GOLF. You said it: "Maybe I just need to stop trying so hard and just go out and play?"

I've learned a lot of lessons over the years. Here's some:

The more you worry about score, the worse your score will be.

The harder you swing, the worse the shot

The only thing you see when you look up is a bad shot

The more you add swing thoughts on the course, the more strokes will appear on the card

We love the game but it hates us. - it will drive you crazy ONLY IF YOU ALLOW IT TO.

The more you care, the worse you play

Enjoy and honor the game, have fun, take what it gives you, good or bad.

[Railroading13]

Focus on target and let everything else go? That's what I'm trying to do this year. I sympathize with your plight, I've been around a 2-5 cap and rarely break through, for a 6 month stretch I reached +, winter came and I never made it back. I'm going to do everything I can to make it back. My plan is to stop babysitting my technique and focus on the target each shot.

 

I'm also tweaking my practice so that it is 70% 100 and in, 20% driver, and 10% irons. Most important thing is to have fun and be present, focusing on the target in front of you.

[OldFrog75]

I'm a range rat also and it's a good place to groove a swing but it does nothing for practicing uneven lies like you get on a course.

[tthomasgolfer605]

Become a golf course rat, not a range rat. Ranges don't have obstacles you face on the course.

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

Not complaining or anything, but you work pretty hard. Seems like more of us should follow suit if anything just to get out in the open air.

For about 2 revisions, I could stay around a 5-6. 4-5 seems really hard. Boils down to a ton of practice on approaches I think?

Many of us high singles (assuming based upon your scores, we’re pretty similar) can hit a 34 degree 7i 165, and some on this site are much longer. However, I think I’d be willing to give up 10 yards to gain more spin like 7000 total and carry about 155. I noticed that on the driving range, I can hold the little greens better and while playing there’s a lot less roll off at that yardage these days.

I was just hitting balls with another 7 this evening, with the same swing speed as myself or even a bit slower, on the range and he pulled every shot with his 7i 165 with a lot of roll when landing. I tried his club, setup further up and hit a much spinnier shot towards the 150 flag landing and stopping close to the pin. Not at scratch level close, but definitely closer dispersion than him and the old me.

Same with PW and 9i up through 7i. I used to hit my 9i 150, but setup further up and get about 8500+ RPM for a reliable 135 carry with enough spin to almost stop dead. My wedges sometimes spin back if they land soft on a slight slope towards me now.

Golf is about distance, but it seems like hitting optimal shots with a particular club is better. That’s what I’m working on these days. Going daily to the range sounds like a great idea too.

We carry 14 clubs, seems like there’s an optimal way of using them.

I’ve only just started doing this and I feel like my game is far more “controlled” even though my scores are still in the same 80-85 range with a few blowup 89s.

Am I on to something? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, I still get to bomb my woods and hybrid.

 

[RP40]

"getting to a legit 4-5 handicap is my goal."

No offense, but what makes you think you should (can ever) be that good?

I mean golf is like any other sport, in that everyone plateaus at some point. ... Some of us it's breaking 100, some of us it's shooting in the 70s - but nobody's guaranteed any particular success just because we pound a lot of balls on the range, or take lessons, etc., etc., etc. ... Most of us plateau in our sporting pursuits in high school, or shortly there after - and from there it's all about playing smarter, and maintaining what we've got.

There's nothing wrong with having goals, if they're realistic - but if you've barely ever broke 80, when you were younger, expecting to as you continue to get older is like having a goal to date a supermodel without having a million bucks in the bank.

Get out and play the game, and enjoy yourself - which I guess was the goal when you first took up the game - and let the chips fall where they may.

[sdandrea]

I thought WLD was about distance and golf was about scoring. Seems focusing on distance alone would not add to game improvement. Just a thought.

[Hawkeye77]

You are already good at golf, you just want to get better.Never sticks on the course seems to be just part of the overall pattern? Lessons galore, all sorts of different instructors.Then YouTube to what - save money? Just a different rabbit hole.Sounds like you are basically wasting time on the range ingraining whatever your traditional swing issues have always been - if the lesson doesn't "take" in a permanent way right away, it all disappears. It takes time and focused practice to change your swing, IMO.Definitely don't play enough.A novel's worth of a post and you don't mention anything relevant to your game. Don't know what the stories of all these other people adds. You don't get better just by osmosis or genetics. Do YOU love golf? That's all that matters. If you really were a solid 6 you should be able to figure out what got you there. Not sure how you had a solid USGA 6 index for a year or a year and one-half and your lowest score is 74 and in your entire 20 years of golf you've broken 80 only 3-4 times - that one is a puzzler to me but not saying you weren't. You cite nothing about your short game, putting, driving accuracy and so on in your post. Just because you put in all sorts of time at the range doesn't mean you will be rewarded just for putting in all sorts of time at the range. But you know that.

Get out and play, keep some stats, get serious about analyzing what you need to do to improve. Although you can certainly improve your ball striking, you aren't going to magically make and monitor practicing a swing change without finding an instructor and sticking to it. Still, probably a variety of ways you can improve different parts of your game. Getting a little better at everything is going to drive that index down.

There, almost equally long-winded (hey, I read all of yours) and I AM NO INSTRUCTOR - but have journeyed from 12+ to legit 7.0 and also have a goal of getting to a legit 5, so have I some perspective FWIW (and maybe not worth much, lol).

[grantc79]

I went from around an 8 to a 3.1 in just a few months until I started dealing with life, work, and injuries.

The formula is pretty simple:

1: Don't take penalty shots

2: Don't get in bad trouble off the tee box

3: Work on short wedges and short game around the green

4: Don't 3 putt

5: Putt better generally and get to where you can make an occasional 10+ footer every round

 

Ultimately we don't need to hit 70% of fairways and greens like pros do. We just can't spend as much time in the woods and water off the tee box, 3 putting, and not getting up and down.

[MK7Golf21]

It's more than just playing more, I know guys that play everyday and still suck. It's a lot about a persons natural athletic hand eye coordination. All the guys on tour have natural hand eye coordination skills through the roof, no instructors got them there alone.

[ScratchyDawg]

"There’s no such thing as a born golfer--as a born anything. Any (duffer) can shoot in the 70s if he applies himself properly. Practicing is the necessary thing. Playing is just an anticlimax.”-Ben Hogan

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

Nice.

[Hawkeye77]

 

LOL, Hogan with a true feel isn’t real statement if ever there was one!

[sailfishchris]

i don't think anyone has touched on it. Simply.....You need to play more.

[hack2489]

Taking it 'from the range' and 'out onto the course' is, by the sounds of it your key issue.

So, how do you practice? Do you just hit the same club over and over again?

Do you ...

apply any pressure to yourself during practice?move from one club to another and only give yourself one shot with each club?do you play 'visualise' (in your mind) actual golf holes on the range? So tee off, play second shot different club, hit wedge to a distance, etc. ??do you 'practise' on course? So walking a few holes when it's not busy, hitting shots into greens from various distances? Learning misses, distances, etc?Have you looked at where you lose shots when you do play? Is it off the tee, or drive to short to reach green on your next shot? Or is it missed approach shots? Where do you miss? Are they left, right, fat? Or, is it chipping? Do you always get up and down from inside 50? What are the misses?

Effort by time hitting a lot of balls at the range does not mean you can play on course.

Sure, work on a swing change, technique, drill, etc at the range is one thing, but putting it together then needs a different approach to enable it to work 'on course' under pressure of scoring.

 

[TimK1]

The short game versus hitting more greens is always a debate on here. I have been a two handicap for thirty years. I practice about twenty hours a week but 12 of those hours are on chipping and putting. I play nine holes four nights a week in the summer. I get to the course at five. Put in 90 minutes of practice and play nine till dark.

Three things in my opinion are a must.

Be able to drive. Getting ball in the fairway at a reasonable distance

Be able to get up and down at least 85 to 90 percent of the time

No three putts.

Most Am. do not hit more than 10 greens a round. I hit roughly 12 on average. That leaves six holes you have to get the ball up and in for par. Those six holes will break any score if you can't get up and in. Three putting is a killer no matter what.

People on here constantly argue about hitting 16 greens a round, improving your ball striking instead of wasting your time chipping. It's a dumb argument. Nobody hits 16 greens a round, even most pros on a regular basis. Sure they hit more greens than us but if you look at it realistically they miss at least four to five greens a round.

Short game takes you from a 82 to a 75 without spending hundreds on lessons and endless time beating balls, which again most Am do not do.

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

Agree.

There was this one player who bet me I couldn’t hit the 150 hill top at the range. Every shot I missed he penalized me a buck every time I stuck the hill I got 2 and every time I hit the top I got a buck back.

I ended up hitting the hill with a 7i setup closer to my lead foot instead of my usual 8i which bobbed all over the place.

Was down $15 before I made this move to the 7i and we stopped when I finally broke even.

There’s something to be said about applying pressure on the range.

That was an old man 3 HC who taught me to do this. Then admitted it wasn’t trivial for him either. :-)

Nevertheless, pressure helps on the range.

To the OP, hit balls like your playing holes too. Give yourself bogies for missed targets or “missed” fairways on tee shots.

[platgof]

If you have only broken 80, 4 times, then you are asking too much. Sounds like to much expectations to be like your dad, and that is causing a lot of frustration. You are a good golfer, so be happy with that. Obviously your expectations are causing to much tension in your golf game. Just let it go and have fun. If you go back to having fun you will break 80 again.

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

This is a really great reference point. I have to admit that I have trivialized short game in the past, but this year has been an eye opener for me. Accuracy is key rather than just distance, and short game is where most of my strokes are consumed.

Still, up and down 85-90%? You’ve got to be really close to the pin to do that. I’d still argue you need some decent accuracy on the approaches.

[GSDriver]

Long ago I was a range rat. Haven't been to a range in at least 10 years, and still mid single digit handicap.

Go play, have fun, and realize golf isn't easy.

Once have a repeatable swing, just work on short game as that's where most shots gained or lost.

Don't worry about score, I don't even add up until round is over....other words, one shot at a time.

[WristySwing]

Thank you to everyone who has replied so far. This really does help me put things into persepective. I think I do need to just go out and play, and when I do practice, practice with a purpose. When I do practice it is usually with a 6i, 8i, and wedge and I just try to get that feeling of compression and if it is roughly online. In golf, that isn't good enough when you are actually playing..."roughly online" can mean sand, water, long grass and excess strokes. I see a few of have mentioned practicing with a purpose and like you are playing. I will definitely do that this year.

For those who have asked for some stats, I do have some until the end of 2018 as I didn't track this year for whatever reason. I completely forgot I had The Grint app on my phone. I have a handful of scores on there with some other basic stat tracking. I have a 58% fairways hit average, so I definitely need to work on that. Compared to PGA Tour that is top 175, so not great and needs some improvement. Putting is definitely where I am getting dinged the most. I am averaging 34 putts per round. Reading into that, that could be a couple of things, it could be I just suck at putting or my proximity to the hole is way high making it impossible for me to have a reasonable chance at having an easy 2-putt. It's definitely a combination of both for sure, but I'm wondering now which is the most prevalent trying to think back?

The few people who commented negatively saying that I could likely never get to where I want to be, that very well may be true. However, I do want to try. Looking over my stats it seems like I've had just as many 80s as I have 85s, so I've been mis-remembering scores for sure. The year that I was low, I broke 80 3x and had a number of 9 hole scores that were 2-3 over par (not sure if those count towards handicap and scoring average or not, so I didn't mention them). Since then I've broken 80 two more times according to the app, and had about a handful of 80s right on the nose, two of which were on more difficult courses than I would typically play. My typical course is 69.2/119, while the low scores were on 72.1/121 and 72.1/131 courses. There is another municipal near me that I can play that is in much better condition and is a lot harder than the course I normally play that I am thinking about joining this year. 72.7/120 for 6700y tees and 74.3/129 for the 7000y tees. 95% of my games would be from the blues as I don't think I have the length for the black tees. I have played there a handful of times and was a member there about 15-17 years ago, so I might just make the extra 15 minute drive and play there and practice more often to get better.

Thank you for all the kind support and suggestions so far! First step is to get some new 2020 equipment to help me get the ball straighter more often...I'm in the right business to do that ;) Typical WRX'r.

[SNIPERBBB]

Sounds like you're not making very good lag putts. You should be inside the leather at worst on your first putt, regardless of the length of the first putts.

 

Whats your scrambling percentage, roughly? 50% should keep you in the 70,s barring blow up holes and three putts

[WristySwing]

See that I don't know. It seems like you have to pay now to get any sort of GIR/Scrambling stats. I might upgrade, but I am also strongly thinking about getting a Cobra driver this year so I could use the Arccos app to do the same as well. In general, It seems like I am always bogeying par 3s and making bogey on 50% of Par 4s. Par 5s I seem to be schizophrenic, it's either a birdie or a a bogey. To draw conclusions from that then, it seems like my scrambling is not very good and something I should focus on. Just go out and purposely put myself in stupid positions once a week after work and try and make "par" from that spot and play a normal ball as well for score purposes. I'm thinking it might help me focus and think more about getting out of the trouble and minimize the damage...lord knows I'm no Seve or Phil.

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

I’d like to start off saying both of us can get there. Although, I don’t have this as a personal goal. Sounds like you have roughly the same distances as myself or more because if your youth?

The fairways hit and GIR are both very important to the level of the 2 HC who posted here. 10-12 GIR improves the chances.Your fairways hit being over 58% is very impressive.

One thing about PGA stats is those are for the best in the world. So, even when we play up tees to “play the same way” we can’t expect to achieve those other than as goals. Play up, get a feel for what it’s like to “overwhelm” a course. 5800-6000 yards for instance? 74 rated is certainly too long for a high single digit player. Those are scratch tees. It will mentally drain you right off the tee box.

Play with a purpose too like every shot counts, but once that shot is done, it’s done. Focus on one shot at a time. You’re out there to enjoy the game not worry over every shot you already made.

Your scores sound like a mental block. Not sure how you can shoot between 80-85 all the time with occasional 90s. My own scores range from high 70s to 89 with ESC controls in place. Without, high 70s to low 90s?

So, 80-85? That sounds like you play well, hit something like 4 birdies then somehow shut down? You might be too focused on getting those birdies then not have the mental energy left for the rest of the round? Not a psychologist, but fatigue does set in, mainly mental from what it sounds like? Some of the posters said to “just get out and play” that’s a great idea, but play with purpose on every shot and treat every shot the same. Even out that mental energy for every shot equally, because every shot counts equally.

To be honest, this is the advice given to me for years. So, I’m still trying to follow this myself.

[tthomasgolfer605]

<----- Can someone help me embed this please?

[SNIPERBBB]

You don't have to pay to know those scrambling stats. If you go over your round, how many GIRs you hit. From there you can figure out your scrambling. Ie...if you hit 6 greens, you have 12 scrambling chances. If you get par or better on 6 of those chances, your scrambling is 50%

[grantc79]

IMHO, be wary of the people saying "you need to play more" or "you need to practice more" This is the only sport that I have worked really hard at and gotten worse at while doing so at points in my life. Don't just practice, practice with purpose, play with purpose.

 

I work less hard at it but when I work at it I work for a reason. I don't just smash balls on the range. I work to improve this particular thing for this particular reason. I practice maybe 5% of the time that I used to when I was a 15 handicap, now I'm a 3 handicap. But now everything I do golf wise has a purpose.

 

Perfect example, I used to laser a yardage to a flag pick my club accordingly, and hit the ball.

 

Now I do this:

1: Laser yardage

2: Figure out whether to hit it slightly longer or slightly shorter. I almost never try to hit it the actual number.

3: Figure out where I don't wanna miss it.

4: Aim at a target that is almost never the flag.

5: Try to shape the ball in such a way to reward me for a great shot and not penalize me for a bad one.

 

On the tee I do the exact same thing based off of carrying a water hazard or avoiding a bunker.

I read chips like I read putts. Figure out where I wanna land it and then predict roll out and break of the release of the ball.

 

 

[Hawkeye77]

What?

I broke 80 once before the age of 40 (played a lot) and didn't start breaking 80 with any regularity until I was north of 50, so this is silliness.

Totally agree that for whatever reasons, we are all going to have a ceiling of some kind, but to suggest because he's in his 30s and has rarely broken 80 he can't get to a 5 handicap is incorrect.

However, based on your post, the good news is I'm expecting company this morning!