Tips on shooting scratch golf?

[The Recreational Golfer]

The course I play on is 6,405 yards. For me, that's long. I make pars relentlessly and minimize the doubles. I average a birdie every other round. My short game gets me a lot of those pars.

[Daniel Watkins]

For me personally, i had to grasp and understand that to be really good i needed to limit the super bad shots. You can only be as good as your worse miss. So yeah, tour players miss greens and fairways, but the good ones...the ones making cuts week in and week out dont miss by much. When was the last time you saw Matt Kucher miss a green super badly? Or the last time you saw Steve Stricker drive it into the woods?  Anyway, that's just my two cents and personal experience

[rhysstenner]

I am 0.2. Play once a week if possible. Tips Don't change equipment too often. Learn to read a putt. Chip well. Good grips and change glove out. Start young. Play with good players occasionally. Keep learning. Respect the course. Know yourself. Good rounds always need to sink 4-7 ft putts. Accumulate good scores in all conditions. Never say I would have scored so and so if I didn't double the last. Scratch golfers finish strong.

[Chas]

being pretty close to scratch I can only tell you what I do, I play or practice 5 days a week. I spend atleast 3-4 hours a week practicing my short game which is without a doubt the most important part of the game. When you're on the range dont just aim at target, practice hitting a draw, a fade, a knockdown to it. Learn how to hit every shot that you can add to your arsenal. Read golf publications, golf digest is a wealth of good information and insight from pro's playing below the scratch level. Find a good teaching pro, most good teaching pros are difficult to schedule with but are worth it. Be prepared to put $100+ into golf every week to get to scratch. Hope this helps.

Ouch! Since this isn't gonna happen I hereby - formally, officially and publicly - abandon my lifetime goal of playing scratch. Now, back to breaking 80 ...... :)

[Parker0065]

Back in 1978 as a 13 year old junior I was working really hard at trying to break 80. It finally came to me that this game sure would be a whole lot easier if I hit more greens in regulation and just two putted them at a minimum. So I put the majority of time into my iron game and broke 80 that year and never looked back. I've always been a firm believer that working on the full swing first is the easiest way to improving and has the benefit of taking a lot of pressure off your short game.

I've never understood why high handicapers believe that the short game is the easy way to go in quick improvement. Say a 15-20 handicap misses 14 greens in regulation and they will probably 3-jack at least one of the 4 greens they hit so they have to get it up and down 8 of 14 to break 80. That's a lot of pressure to put on your short game and is a bit unrealistic in my opinion.

The other thing about shot shaping is the risk/reward factor! As a scratch player I hit my stock draw every single time I can and that's about 99% of the time. For pins tucked on the right I analize the risk of missing to the right be it sand, water, or rough and go from there. But there are so many factors to the whole process. Is it the 4th hole and I'm one down or is it the 18th hole? If it's early in the round why in the world would I try to force a risky shot when I know I've got plenty of birdie oppertunities out there. If it's the 18th and I have to have a birdie to force a play off,,,then Katie bar the door,,,all bets are off and I'm going at the flag irregardless of the trouble. The only time I'm going to force myself to hit a fade is when a tree is in the way and I can't go over it! So I'll bend it around the tree and get it down by the green somewhere and rely on my short game in those situations.

Learning to control trajectory is a lot more important than learning to control 5 yard fades and 5 yard draws. Perfect one shot shape controling trajectory both high and low, and learn to hit it the opposite way for when you have no other option. Do all that and get your short game up&down; to 60% with little or no 3 putts and you'll pretty much be at scratch. By then you'll have built a solid repeatable swing with good mechanics and have put in countless hours on the range and putting green.

So the only real advice I can give you is:

Practice hard with proper instruction, and enjoy the journey! Don't worry about whether you make it there or not. The real reward is puting in the work and experiencing improvement in your game!

[joekelly]

Parker, well said and with many salient points to consider.  It is obvious however, that you (Parker) have never been a high handicapper and therein lies much of the difficulty for others to implement your ideas.

'Why on earth don't those high H'cappers just perfect the long ball, then all would fall into place'?

From my own experience and long observations of my peers, you have failed to realize that we, the high H guys, view this game as an 'arm game' whereas you see golf as a 'leg game'.  We strike the ball, or attempt to, but you swing the club and have only incidental interest the in the ball. We want to somehow control the flight but you want to control the clubhead.  These are massive differences but yes, can be addressed and worked on, but are similar to our 'mother tongue', nearly impossible to unlearn.

And please Parker, tell me how to turn back the clock to age 13, so that i too can 'go scratch'?

[soon_tourpro]

Originally Posted by joekelly

Parker, well said and with many salient points to consider.  It is obvious however, that you (Parker) have never been a high handicapper and therein lies much of the difficulty for others to implement your ideas.

'Why on earth don't those high H'cappers just perfect the long ball, then all would fall into place'?

Golf instruction isnt better than what an high handicap today can expect to do.
unless your able to be consistent in the long game, scratch game is out of reach.

[lukebisatt]

Hello , I was wondering if any one could tell me how long it would take someone my level to get down to scratch, currently I play off 10, I'm 15 and started playing golf since I was 13 and only being playing serious for 1 year I started off 24 beginning of last year and now down to 10. Also at the end of last year I was playing to around 6. I spend around 16-19 hours a week playing and practicing. And aim to spend around 16 hours per day in the school holidays. Roughly how long do you think it would take me to get to around 1 or scratch handicap , Thankyou.

[Abu3baid]

3[quote name="lukebisatt" url="/t/59191/tips-on-shooting-scratch-golf/60#post_818912"]Hello , I was wondering if any one could tell me how long it would take someone my level to get down to scratch, currently I play off 10, I'm 15 and started playing golf since I was 13 and only being playing serious for 1 year I started off 24 beginning of last year and now down to 10. Also at the end of last year I was playing to around 6. I spend around 16-19 hours a week playing and practicing. And aim to spend around 16 hours per day in the school holidays. Roughly how long do you think it would take me to get to around 1 or scratch handicap , Thankyou.[/quote] 3 months