Stuck in the 90s

[folker]

Spinoff of the stuck in the 80s thread. I'm stuck in the 90s. Been playing about 3 years or so. Quickly got my scores down consistently in the 90-95 range. I'll have a great day when everything goes my way and shoot a 90. Then I'll have a horrendous day and feel like I've never played before and shoot a 95. I have shot as low as 42 for 9 holes. I putt well and rarely 3 putt. My problem is getting close enough to make birdies or save pars. I really strugle with my shots into the green more so with a 7 or 8 iron than with wedges but anywhere from 100-140 out I know before I swing that I'm not hitting the green. This is really where I wastes strokes. Any tips on improving my iron accuracy? If I could improve my GIR I know could be shooting in the mid 80s.

[goblue107501]

Take a bunch of lessons to figure out how to hit the ball better. Once you do that, every club in the bag will yield a better result and the scores will go down.

[devilsadvocado]

Sounds to me like you are counting wayyyyyy too many strokes if you want a reasonable chance at breaking into the 80's. Here's a little trick that's worked for me:

1. Do not count fairway strokes or drives in which the ball does not travel further than 10 yards.

2. Do not count strokes in which you miss the ball completely.

3. If the ball goes O.B., but you find it, then only add half a stroke.

4. Putt a 3 putt cap on the green.

5. If you hit an awesome drive, but a bad second shot, have another go at it free of charge.

Hope this helps. Best of luck.

[steelernation]

Sounds to me like you are counting wayyyyyy too many strokes if you want a reasonable chance at breaking into the 80's. Here's a little trick that's worked for me:

Or just keep score with an eraser equipped pencil.

[steelernation]

Spinoff of the stuck in the 80s thread. I'm stuck in the 90s. Been playing about 3 years or so. Quickly got my scores down consistently in the 90-95 range. I'll have a great day when everything goes my way and shoot a 90. Then I'll have a horrendous day and feel like I've never played before and shoot a 95. I have shot as low as 42 for 9 holes. I putt well and rarely 3 putt. My problem is getting close enough to make birdies or save pars. I really strugle with my shots into the green more so with a 7 or 8 iron than with wedges but anywhere from 100-140 out I know before I swing that I'm not hitting the green. This is really where I wastes strokes. Any tips on improving my iron accuracy? If I could improve my GIR I know could be shooting in the mid 80s.

Depending on the ESC determine what your maximum hole score can be, that may help a bit ......You play a lot like me.

I dont lose strokes on the approach, I lose them off the tee. I play 4 or 5 pars and a birdie per round then some bogeys. To top it Ill have 3 triples or a couple quads. I usually shoot 92 to 95 but have a couple rounds under 90, the courses I play are fairly hard.

[folker]

I'm pretty good off the tee and around/on the green. It's in the fairway that I have my trouble. A par is like a birdie for me.

[pittpanther]

Spinoff of the stuck in the 80s thread. I'm stuck in the 90s. Been playing about 3 years or so. Quickly got my scores down consistently in the 90-95 range. I'll have a great day when everything goes my way and shoot a 90. Then I'll have a horrendous day and feel like I've never played before and shoot a 95. I have shot as low as 42 for 9 holes. I putt well and rarely 3 putt. My problem is getting close enough to make birdies or save pars. I really strugle with my shots into the green more so with a 7 or 8 iron than with wedges but anywhere from 100-140 out I know before I swing that I'm not hitting the green. This is really where I wastes strokes. Any tips on improving my iron accuracy? If I could improve my GIR I know could be shooting in the mid 80s.

First of all, don't beat yourself up for being a bogey golfer. If on your bad days you shoot 95, I think you're doing better than most golfers in the world...

To shoot under 90, you need PARs! As a fellow bogey golfer, there are two solutions to your problem: 1. Long approach shots need to get ONTO THE GREEN! Up until this point in your golf career, you really didn't care WHERE you hit the ball, as long as you hit it. Now to be successful, you not only have to hit the ball well, you need to have a definite target in mind, and always be trying to hit that target. Hitting at the range gives a false sense of improvement, because if you make good contact and hit the ball well, you might not think about the fact that you wouldn't have hit your target. You have to know your natural ball flight, work on your alignment, and choose the correct club for the distance. A good test - can you get on the green at all your par-3's? If not, your approaches need continued work. If you can't GIR a 135-yard par-3, with a perfect lie, then it will be more difficult to GIR from 180, out on the fairway with a less-than-perfect lie. 2. Missed approaches need to lead to Up and Downs Practice those chips, you need to come within 5 feet of the hole to have any chance of up and down. 3. Also, a bonus tip - you'll never break 90 with triple-bogeys on your card (because you can't yet make birdies to help offset them). Triples need to be removed completely. Doubles need to be rare, so that your pars can take you below 90, instead of just offsetting your double-bogeys. Wow, this is really easy to write down - too bad I can't yet do any of these things...

[bkoguy07]

Sounds to me like you are counting wayyyyyy too many strokes if you want a reasonable chance at breaking into the 80's. Here's a little trick that's worked for me:

lol, you sound like my friend... John is that you??

[folker]

I have eliminated triples and most doubles through course management and checking my ego a bit. I am literally a bogey golfer. I'll often play 18 holes without a single par or birdie and still shoot low-mid 90s. I'm pretty consistent...consistently average and I want to be good. It comes down to iron play for me I guess. I can't remember the last time I birdied a par 3. I have a better chance of reaching a par 5 in 2 than in 3 if that makes any sense at all. lol

[pittpanther]

I have eliminated triples and most doubles through course management and checking my ego a bit. I am literally a bogey golfer. I'll often play 18 holes without a single par or birdie and still shoot low-mid 90s. I'm pretty consistent...consistently average and I want to be good. It comes down to iron play for me I guess. I can't remember the last time I birdied a par 3. I have a better chance of reaching a par 5 in 2 than in 3 if that makes any sense at all. lol

At this point forget about birdies - you need pars! Birdies are nice, but you can't rely on them at this point in your game, so don't worry about seeking them. That being said, your chips should be getting close enough to the hole to at least make birdie possible. Up and Downs, right?

Look at your home course and identify the likely par holes for you - par-3's of 150 or less, par-4s under 400, par-5s around 500. Make it your goal to par some of these! I have a 212-yard par 3 which is not a possible par hole for me - I play this as a bogey hole. All bets are off if you're still duffing shots - a duff in the fairway or a duffed chip, can easily turn into double-bogey. Ball striking is important. I had two pars over the weekend, but duffs led to 3 triple-bogey holes, so no breaking 90 for me...

[ks8829]

to shot in the 80's or 70's your focus should be on the short game and not so much on your approach to the green. I always record my putts and up and downs during my rounds.

if your just off the green within 20 yards how often do you get up and down to save par? how many putts per round do your have?

I record the following during every round:

Putts per hole, front and back nine, total
up and downs to one putt to save par or even to save bogie.
greens hit on regulation
fairways hit

If you record these stats during a round it may become clear where your time practice should be spent. most likely the short game around the green to allow you to play consistent and play in the 80's and even in the 70's.

my last round I only hit 8 green out of 18 and shot 6 over, however, I got up and down 5 out of 11 attempts to save par and had only 29 putts for 18 holes.

[Shindig]

How do you play the par-5s and par-3s? Which do you prefer?

When I was setting out to break 90, I figured that if I could average bogey on the par-3s and 5.5 on the par-5s, I could average bogey on all the par-4s and have a shot to spare to break 90. Are you losing shots in silly manners on one of these?

I find that, today, when I don't break 90, it's because I played my par-3s and par-5s poorly that day.

[folker]

I prefer par 5s to par 3s. I feel I have a legitimate shot at birdie on any par 5 that is 500 yards or less and anything worse than bogey and I'm suicidal. I just recently started keeping stats. My home course is 9 holes and I only keeps stats on it. I average less over par on par 5s. My course has 2 short par 5s and I average 5.69 and 5.75 on them. I average about 1 over on the par 3s and over 1 over on par 4s.

Fairways: 49%
GIR: 23%
Putts per hole: 1.88

[Shindig]

I prefer par 5s to par 3s. I feel I have a legitimate shot at birdie on any par 5 that is 500 yards or less and anything worse than bogey and I'm suicidal. I just recently started keeping stats. My home course is 9 holes and I only keeps stats on it. I average less over par on par 5s. My course has 2 short par 5s and I average 5.69 and 5.75 on them. I average about 1 over on the par 3s and over 1 over on par 4s.

Alright, the next item is why you're averaging over bogey on par-4s when you're capable of under bogey on par-5s. Are there any particular par-4s that bother you? Please describe the hole and how you typically try to play it.

[folker]

My average score on the par 5s is really a bit deceiving. As I said they are short par 5s in the 465-480 range that play more like long par 4s. They are really rather easy holes. Basically they are par 4s spotting you a stroke.

[Shindig]

My average score on the par 5s is really a bit deceiving. As I said they are short par 5s in the 465-480 range that play more like long par 4s. They are really rather easy holes. Basically they are par 4s spotting you a stroke.

Then the next question is: how do you play the par-5s you have? Do you go for them in two, or do you lay up?

As for the par-4s, how long are the ones that give you trouble? Is there a comfortable chipping or pitching spot that you can reach in two easy shots, perhaps take an easy bogey on these holes?

[folker]

I generally go for the par 5s and most of the time end up 10 or 20 yards off the green, chip up, 2 putt par. 1 out of 20 times I will either make or stick the green and proceed to 2 putt birdie. The par 4s I struggle on are in the 350-375 range. Usually end up with a short iron or wedge into the green which I will hit about 20% of the time. My chipping and putting while improved is not good enough to make up for a 20% GIR. It seems when I play other courses with longer par 4s in the 425 range I tend to play them better than the shorter ones and I wonder if that's because I have already subconsiously resigned myself to the fact that I'm probably not going to hit the green from 175 yards out and it takes some pressure off me.

[folker]

As far as a comfortable chipping spot on the par 4s on my home course there really isn't at least not for me. 2 of the 3 that give me the most trouble your shot into the green is over water which gets in my head. The other hole your second shot is blind over a slope onto the green. You can see the flag but that's it.