Question on Twitter: Easiest Way to Shoot Lower Scores in a Week

[iacas]

Share your answers below.

And answer the question for yourself first before responding to someone else's.

Two quick notes:

1. Please weigh "easy" versus how many strokes you could expect to save." Something that's 10% harder but saves 4 strokes instead of just 1 is a better answer.
2. Please consider average 80s/90s golfers, not your own specific game.

[freshmanUTA]

Well, what worked for me was to stop trying to go for flags that are near hazards. IE, Stop going for pins tucked on the right side next to bunkers, water, etc. 

So: Aim for the middle of the green with approach shots until you can consistently hit a spot you're aiming for.

[Lihu]

Quote

Two quick notes:

1. Please weigh "easy" versus how many strokes you could expect to save." Something that's 10% harder but saves 4 strokes instead of just 1 is a better answer.
2. Please consider average 80s/90s golfers, not your own specific game.

Work on putting*** for an entire week. Actually, work on putting and chipping.

 

***The idea is that you get so sick of putting that you'll really appreciate being able to hit long shots.

[Club Rat]

Better tee shots with the driver usually lead to better scores. And course management eliminates the potential of penalty strokes for starters.

Players improve in these two areas will score better on a consistent basis.

[Austin_Sachs]

What I have learned as I have improved and keep reading about in Bob Rotella's books is that the best way to shoot the score of your life is to focus on practicing the short game, but mostly developing confidence in your putting. Since most of our strokes consist of the short game, by getting just a percentage better there it will translate to more overall success than anywhere else.

[DeadMan]

Something that would probably save most golfers a couple of strokes without any extra effort would be aiming at the center of the green on approach shots.

Best bang for your buck practice wise would be short game practice. 

[Nagah]

Don't count past 5 on any hole/magic pencil when writing down scores. In all seriousness, relax and enjoy the process of hitting shots. Cocky swing conservative course management.

 

[alleztom]

As I said on twitter - Play the longest club you can control of the tee, aim #deadcenter with your approaches.

[Smidd4]

The 80's golfer may not suffer from this as much as the 90's but not settling for bad practice strokes helps a lot. If when you take your practice stroke you don't like the result then take another one. My routine calls for one practice stroke but if I feel like it was fat or thin or anything less than perfect for me, then I just take another making the necessary correction. If I don't then it is in my head that I have to compensate during the real swing and the result is typically less than ideal. 

[Marty2019]

17 hours ago, iacas said:

Share your answers below.

And answer the question for yourself first before responding to someone else's.

Two quick notes:

1. Please weigh "easy" versus how many strokes you could expect to save." Something that's 10% harder but saves 4 strokes instead of just 1 is a better answer.
2. Please consider average 80s/90s golfers, not your own specific game.

It's hard to generalize.    Not every golfer in the 80s and 90s has the same weakness, or the same opportunity to improve a specific aspect of their game. 

In terms of importance to saving strokes, regardless of the time it takes to learn it, I would say 1) driving the ball in the fairway, 2) putting, 3) trying to get the ball close to the hole, meaning chipping and accurate iron play.   I don't think a person can even play without first learning to hit a tee shot.   After that, putting, so I am saying the most important strokes on a hole are the first shot and the last shot. 

One week?   I would say chipping.    I think that's the easiest thing to learn to do relative to the amount of strokes to be gained, and in my experience and observation of other golfers in the 80s and 90s including myself, I think chipping is completely neglected, to the point where a week of chipping practice would lead to the most strokes gained. 

I'm not saying chipping is the most important thing.   The question is, what is the low hanging fruit for golfers in the 80s and 90s.   In my observation, that is chipping. 

 

[Marty2019]

And I just want to add one thing.   The question is, what is the easiest way the average 80s and 90s golfer can shoot lower scores in one week. 

In my experience, most 80s and 90s golfers need to learn to put their tee shot in the fairway more often.   That is how they lose the most strokes.   But I don't think they can learn to do that in one week.  

 

[saevel25]

To get an idea as to what an average 80-90's golfer is. 

Easiest - Putting
This is probably the toughest to analyze how many strokes you can save. I would suspect that 70's golfers are better putters in strokes gained because they have lower putts per hole. In the end 80's and 90's golfers are going to have further proximity on their first putts when they hit a GIR. They also have more shorter putt opportunities because they have more short game chances. 

I would say they could save 1.5 strokes if you gave an 80's-90's golfer the putting of a 70's golfer with out changing anything else. 

Easy - Medium Short Game
About 2.5 strokes if you improve the golfers short game from an 80's-90's golfer to a high 70's golfer, even if you didn't improve their long game. They would get more strokes if you didn't improve their long game. More short game opportunities to save strokes. 

Medium Hard - Long Game
If you gave a 80's-90's golfer the fairway accuracy of a high 70's golfer they would only improve 0.23 strokes over 18 holes. If you gave them the distance of a 70's golfer they would improve 2.1 strokes over 18 holes. 

Also, you are allowing them to be closer to the green and also they would hit more greens because their swing is better. If you gave an 80's-90's golfer the GIR of a 70's golfer, never improving the putting, so 2 putting every hole. They would save 4.5 strokes every round. 

If I compare everything against putting as the easiest,

Long game takes too long to practice to gain those 4.5 strokes in just one week. 

I would say putting is the easiest. Take an Aimpoint Class could easily save a person a 1-2 strokes a round on missed reads on short putts. Add in a putting lesson. I could see 2-3 strokes.

So Putting is 10% easier than Short Game but saves the same strokes at 2.5. 

[Pete]

Given one week, the easiest must be course management. In one week you can learn to aim at safe targets given your likely misses. Cutting out OOB, bunkers and water hazards etc.

No new mechanics required, purely decision making. You can learn better decision making in a week.

[Wally Fairway]

20 hours ago, iacas said:

Share your answers below.

And answer the question for yourself first before responding to someone else's.

Two quick notes:

1. Please weigh "easy" versus how many strokes you could expect to save." Something that's 10% harder but saves 4 strokes instead of just 1 is a better answer.
2. Please consider average 80s/90s golfers, not your own specific game.

I think I aced this test:

1. Anything inside 20' is a gimmie (easiest way to lower your score)

2. Take a lesson, practice, read LSW

[Lihu]

5 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

I think I aced this test:

1. Anything inside 20' is a gimmie (easiest way to lower your score)

2. Take a lesson, practice, read LSW

Forgot to include this one in mine. . .this is actually key.

[nevets88]

Make golfer learn and adhere to these strategy points:

• Figure out shot zone (dispersion oval of where shots land minus outliers) for clubs evenly distributed throughout bag, learn how to use shot zone w/decision mapping (see LSW - calculate where to aim to get closest to hole safely) to aim tee shots and into green for shots under 80 yards.
• 80+ yards approach shots, aim at center of green.

Learn Aimpoint Express. Practice 4, 8 and 12 ft putts.

Try for quick full swing distance increases - driver, move ball position up if not already, hands faster, better turn back let trail knee unflex, use ground forces, jump. 

[billchao]

I'm going with pitching/short game. A week is not long enough to make any significant change in one's long game and putting practice wouldn't improve scores that much.

Better pitching however, can be learned in a short amount of time and can save strokes by simply eliminating 2-pitches and hitting the ball closer to the hole (thus making putting easier).

I would practice the technique, using bounce properly, and map out partial wedge shot zones and distances.

[Patch]

In one week (7days) for, say 4 +/- hours a day? For an 80s-90s player. 

I would have to go with the backwards, green to tee theory. A good putting stroke leads to a good chipping stroke. The good chipping stroke leads to good pitching stroke. That pitching stroke leads to better, longer approach shots. Those better longer, full swing approach shots will help with the tougher to learn tee shots. 

Since the golfer is limited to just one week to save some strokes, letting the easier parts of the game, make the tougher part of the game easier, should do the job for them. The easier parts will not take as much time to get better, which will leave more practice time for the tougher, longer shots. 

Plus if the longer, full swing shots should get the golfer in trouble for a hole or two, the golfer has their stronger, shorter game to bail them out.

JMHO because I have seeen this work.