Road to Scratch

[getitdaily]

1 minute ago, virtuoso said:

We're just having some fun, dude. I've almost been banned from this forum for my sense of humor twice. I had to be on my best behavior until my warning points cleared. Now I'm back to zero points so...you know..

Wait, you were able to clear all your points? Dang...I usually break some stupid rule like forgetting I have a 6 week old bst listing open and creating another one...

 

Or colorfully describing how I don't want my driver going left. 

[virtuoso]

2 minutes ago, getitdaily said:

Wait, you were able to clear all your points? Dang...I usually break some stupid rule like forgetting I have a 6 week old bst listing open and creating another one...

 

Or colorfully describing how I don't want my driver going left. 

Clean as a whistle, baby! Now its time loose the hounds.

[getitdaily]

2 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

Clean as a whistle, baby! Now its time loose the hounds.

Dad gave me the "1 more mess up and I beat you senselessly" rebuke.

 

So.."despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage".

[SFISH]

7 hours ago, isaacbm said:

No matter how hard it seems, figure out how to play with better players. Be polite, be friendly, be inquisitive, and good players will like you. I can’t state this enough, surround yourself by people who are doing or have already done the thing that you want to do . Playing a lot of golf with hacks is not going to improve your game.
 

if you’re really serious, send screenshots of the journal that you’ll be keeping showing how much actual time you’ve put in each and every week. Having accountability to anyone will help force you to commit.

 

Cheers! Dan 

 

Thanks Dan, 

Just this week I've been practicing basically as much as i can. 

    This is the sheet that i'm keeping to track my practise and to see that i'm actually getting better, it's only Thursday on the second week so should easily be able to get to 10 hours. As well as 10 hours a week, I'm now playing 36-45 holes a week. As you can see, i've made massive putting gains so far, but haven't got to test my long game on course, only at the range so can't see if i've improved yet. Thanks for the helpful response and i'll be sure to keep posting how i'm going. 

[getitdaily]

33 minutes ago, SFISH said:

 

Thanks Dan, 

Just this week I've been practicing basically as much as i can. 

    This is the sheet that i'm keeping to track my practise and to see that i'm actually getting better, it's only Thursday on the second week so should easily be able to get to 10 hours. As well as 10 hours a week, I'm now playing 36-45 holes a week. As you can see, i've made massive putting gains so far, but haven't got to test my long game on course, only at the range so can't see if i've improved yet. Thanks for the helpful response and i'll be sure to keep posting how i'm going. 

I don't see the screen time category...lol

[isaacbm]

One of the keys to scratch GOLF is getting really good at the simple shots around the greens. Don’t spend too much time practising specialty shots that you only see once every few rounds. Instead work on 30 to 50 foot chips, pitches, lobs, lag putts, and stock bunker shots. 
I used to track my rounds in detail and one thing that always stood out to me was how many times I had 30 to 50 feet. Sometimes it was as many as 12 to 14 times in a round. Often, a good iron ends up in that range and certainly a bad wedge does. 
    Spend a lot of time seeing how many shots from 40 feet you can get inside of 3 feet. It’s the most common “yardage“ in the game.

[Nels55]

On 5/15/2025 at 8:46 AM, virtuoso said:

Yeah, I couldn't play my well earned role as a turd in the punch bowl for 6 months.

To paraphrase Caddy Shack; "Don't sell yourself short Judge you've been a tremendous turd".

[SFISH]

Played 18 holes today, shot 80, hit 9 greens in reg, 30 putts, 50% up and downs. All because of 2 silly course managment mistakes what should of been a 74-77 turned into an 80 becuase of a double and triple.

[RayPlan]

On 5/15/2025 at 11:08 AM, virtuoso said:

It was all good for awhile and then the last part of the accountability thing got a smidge creepy.

I can't believe my own golf swing accountabilibuddy would call that creepy. It's not creepy when I have to send you my swing videos on the daily 

[virtuoso]

1 hour ago, RayPlan said:

I can't believe my own golf swing accountabilibuddy would call that creepy. It's not creepy when I have to send you my swing videos on the daily 

Don’t forget your weekly screen time too.

[RayPlan]

22 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

Don’t forget your weekly screen time too.

Oh yeah. I'm doing way better this week:

 

 

This is my road to scratch.

[Scottbox]

Def keep track of your round stats using a strokes-gained app like GolfLogix, GolfMetrics, Circles, or Arccos. All of these cost a little money to use all  their features, but a subscription can be worth it. After about a dozen rounds of tracking your drives, approaches, short game and putting, you'll really find the weak points in your game.

Edited May 18 by Scottbox

[SFISH]

UPDATE:

Last 3 competitive rounds 

80 (+8)

75 (+4)

77 (+5)

 

Have been averaging 4 Fairways, 8 greens in reg, 28 putts, 59% up and down

So for practise, i've been spending most time on Driver accuraccy to give me more looks at Greens in Reg, as i would like to get that number up to 10-12. My short game is pretty solid but i'm still spending a lot of time on lag putting, so that when i hit more greens in reg i can give myself tap in pars.

 

 

[BigManSlim]

On 6/2/2025 at 5:34 PM, SFISH said:

UPDATE:

Last 3 competitive rounds 

80 (+8)

75 (+4)

77 (+5)

 

Have been averaging 4 Fairways, 8 greens in reg, 28 putts, 59% up and down

So for practise, i've been spending most time on Driver accuraccy to give me more looks at Greens in Reg, as i would like to get that number up to 10-12. My short game is pretty solid but i'm still spending a lot of time on lag putting, so that when i hit more greens in reg i can give myself tap in pars.

 

 

FWIW these counting stats are fairly worthless at least to understand where your shortcomings are relative to a population of scratch golfers. In particular, total putts and GIR are really bad metrics and don't tell you much about your game at all. I would echo what @Scottbox said about understanding and using some sort of SG approach if you are really trying to get materially better

[iacas]

5 hours ago, BigManSlim said:

FWIW these counting stats are fairly worthless at least to understand where your shortcomings are relative to a population of scratch golfers. In particular, total putts and GIR are really bad metrics and don't tell you much about your game at all. I would echo what @Scottbox said about understanding and using some sort of SG approach if you are really trying to get materially better

 

GIR isn't a terrible stat. It's probably the best of golf's traditional stats.

[BigManSlim]

50 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

GIR isn't a terrible stat. It's probably the best of golf's traditional stats.

Well I don’t like trad stats in any sport generally but I guess a better way of stating it is poor GIR doesn’t really reveal what a players issues are. Could be driving, could Be Iron play it, of course, could be both

 

 But that’s just my bias on it I suppose

[iacas]

34 minutes ago, BigManSlim said:

Well I don’t like trad stats in any sport generally but I guess a better way of stating it is poor GIR doesn’t really reveal what a players issues are. Could be driving, could Be Iron play it, of course, could be both

 

I mean, it narrows it down, though. 😄  It's not your putting or short game! 😄 

 

Not stumping for GIR. Just that it's not a terrible stat. It has a good correlation and causation to scoring.

Edited July 29 by iacas

[BigManSlim]

15 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

I mean, it narrows it down, though. 😄  It's not your putting or short game! 😄 

 

On this we agree