So close to breaking 80 but just can't

I get so close some days but just cant pull it off.

I needed to par the last hole and hit a perfect 5 wood off the tee to the center of the fairway and one 160 out.  Hit my iron fat and it went about 110 yards!!!  Make a nice pitch to about 15 feet from the hole but the cup is in a tough spot. Miss the putt, miss coming back for a 3 putt!  Sigh....

I had a lot of other places to make up those 2 shots earlier. Penalty on 7 and 10 !!!!

There isn't really a tip I can give you but I myself am in the same boat.  Just shot an 80 on the nose last week for my best round ever.  Just looking at your stats, your GIR percentage is really low.  In all honesty it looks like you did a pretty good job scrambling for that 81.  5/18 GIR is not a good start for trying to bust 80.  A few rounds ago I had 7 GIR on the front nine alone.  If you look you shot a collective -1 on the holes that you had GIR on.  Your putting was very nice, but expect that number to go up a bit the more GIR you start to hit.  Keep grinding.  I'm sure you can remember when breaking 90 was a chore, and now I'm guessing breaking 90 is now the routine.

I haven't seen the course in person but it looks relatively short and is about average difficulty with low course/slope ratings.  In looking at your card I'd focus on course management.  Both par 5's are sub 500yrds yet you are getting bogey and one with a penalty stroke.  The 455yrd one I would try 7i, 7i, wedge if there is trouble around.  Leave the woods in the bag.  Probably the same with sub 350yrd par 4s where I see a double.  Avoid the doubles at all cost even if it means playing for bogey.  Use clubs you can control well and even if you have a layup 50yrds from the green you can almost guarantee a 5 and an occasional par with a really good chip.  AVOID doubles and you are there.  I only see 1 3putt so I'd focus on course management.  But that's just me.

Avoiding anything over a bogey was a big factor for me when I started shooting in the 70's.  Like trackster said before, you're getting no birdie attempts which means you're also not getting any easy pars.  Hit more GIR and you'll start seeing scores fall, how you make that happen depends on where your struggling.

Hit more GIR's, if you didn't have that many 1 putts, you would probably end up in the upper 80's.

Lets look at it this way. You have a better shot at par with a GIR than you do with Scrambling. You were -1 when you hit a GIR. Your Scrambling is 30%, so your basically nearly 2 bogeys every 3 scrambling attempts. See the big disparity there.

Can OP/anyone tell me what the website/app is that the OP is using to record this data?

Golfshot on android or iphone. Free version gives plenty of stats. Paid version gives a few more stats for club distances, on-course GPS distancing. Been using the free version a while and really like it. Tried full version at the weekend and was tough to get all my club distances in when you are as bad as me without holding up play so I didn't bother. Maybe have better luck next time I'm out now I know the workings a bit better, and probably a course that is not so busy.

Awesome, thanks mate. Will give this a go tomorrow

I play with a friend from time to time that marks where he hits each shot from to track distances...seems like it should only take a second or two, but at times you wish he was just hitting the next shot instead of fumbling for his phone.  I don't know if he got to a wrong screen or something but a few times the delays have been noticeable enough that another player we were paired with asked what he was doing.

For what i can see you miss a lot off greens, so or practice your iron play or short game to get it up and down more often.

Got to try and get those doubles off the card. i only had 1 in the last 4 rounds.

Basically what i did change is, hit more irons or hybrids off the tee. Only when i need the distance or there is plenty of room i take driver.

This game is so much easier hitting it off the fairway

This has helped my scoring tremendously - if a hole is 380 or under, I'm probably hitting 3 wood, leaving about 150 in.  I think Rory said it best, more or less "Once you're good enough, is there much difference in hitting a 7 iron versus a pitching wedge?"  Better to be hitting those shots from the fairway.

I often hit less than driver off the tee but I know that I hit a much higher % of greens with a wedge than with a 7 iron (even if the wedge is from light rough).  Each hole should be evaluated individually.

As others have said, improve your ball striking.  This will put you in position to break 80 more often and hopefully you will get more comfortable closing the deal.  15 handicaps don't break 80 very often.

Thanks guys,

Your right about the GIR.  This course is kinda tight and if you are out of the fairway

something is usually in your way.  It is also a public course with lots of dirt, roots, chunky

grass in the trouble area's.

#7 has water down the left and for some unknown reason I tried to draw an iron into the green.

I over drew it and went into the water... I rarely go into the water on that hole and have actually

made my first eagle there.

#10 water left, water short, OB right.  I usually just hit a 6 iron but for some reason pulled a wood,

Straight left into the water.

The rest of the holes... bad tee shot or bad second iron shot, like you all said, make those GIR's !!

The program is golf shot but I keep score on a score card, then enter it into GS later.  I use a laser

for ranges.

Thanks again for the tips.

I am not sure if anyone said this yet. But the biggest thing I have found to improve my game is too keep yourself calm and collected. Don't put any pressure on yourself to make anything. Focus on executing. Don't add/count strokes until you are done and you will find more confidence. Visualize where on the lip of the cup your ball is going to roll over, where your ball is going to land, and how its going to come out of your lie. These little things make a HUGE difference in your game.

Just keep playing that course as you continue to work on your game.  That course is probably one of your best bets to break 80.  I say that because it's a par 70 with just an average at best course rating and average at best slope.

It's clear that you want to break 80, OP, thus why you posted this thread.  So let me ask you this question:  Would you rather shoot a 79 on that course OR; shoot over 80 on that course but in the process hit 10+ greens in regulation?

Yes it would be nice to break 80 finally and it's clear that is important to you.  I myself have not broken 80 yet either.  I've come close a few times (couple of 81's).  I would pick the GIR though if I had that question. While breaking 80 would be nice, if done on that course it would be what, at least a 10.0 rating for the round considering it's a par 70 with a slope of 117.

I bring this up because like yourself I am also trying to improve my game and at first heard people talking of breaking 80 and it seemed that breaking 80 was some kind of really special achievement.  It is special, but when you actually break down the numbers, breaking 80 may or may not be as impressive depending on the course.  I'd rather get fundamentally better with my ballstriking and since there is a very high correlation to GIR and score (at our skill level anyway), the better you get and the more GIR that you hit, the scores will eventually take care of themselves and eventually produce a sub 80 score.

Best of luck!

usually the difference in 80s to 70s is the short game.  low handicappers can scramble for the par.  even the low handicappers are going to hit some errant tee shots, but it's how you get out of trouble that takes you from 80s to 70s.  i have missed almost every GIR in a round and still shot close to par.  but a high GIR is what makes a person go from 70s to 60s.

I would strongly disagree that focusing on anything other than ballstriking is what the OP needs.  Course management and short game work can help any golfer, but that doesn't appear to be what is holding him back.  And I also disagree that GIR makes a person go from 70s to 60s, the implication being that it doesn't help you go from 70s to 80s.

Look, the OP, and anybody else for that matter (including myself), can be a poor ball striking, mid-handicapper and sink several big putts over the course of a round and break 80.  Breaking 80 one time, one round isn't the hammer that breaks down the floodgates to constantly breaking 80.

I'm gonna be blunt, and it's not to be a dick but to hopefully be constructive: this looks like an easy course even though the OP says it's tight.  It may be tougher than the course slope (and I've seen courses that don't seem accurately rated), but the slope tells me it's not tough.  If somebody breaks 80 on this course, that's great.  Now what?  Stop golfing?

The tone I get from the OP is that he wants to get better, not simply post one good score and then brag about it for the rest of his life.  If he wants to get better, he has to improve his ball striking.  'Cause if you can't break 80 on this course, going to a longer, par 72 course with a 125+ slope is really going to be an eye-opener.

Saevel and bjwestner have it right, IMO.  Breaking 80 is great, but it doesn't tell the whole story.  Figure out how to hit more quality golf shots.  Even if you don't hit the fairway, is it good enough to be playable and reach the green?  Even if you don't hit a GIR, is it around the green and in a safe spot and missed to the correct side, or is it a duff/shank/slice/hook that completely misses your target area by 30-50 yards?

Again, don't mean to be a dick and rain on your parade.  You were close, and you are apparently improving, so congrats on getting closer.  But the answer to what you are looking for isn't just "focus harder", "manage the [easy] course better", nor "work on your short game."