Acceptable number of shots?

[stealthhwk]

While Ive decided to be more aggressive this year in regards to golf, Ive also decided to have more fun and be more realistic about my goals. ( a semi athletic guy with little practice time and resources). My scoring goal is to shoot as close to 90 or less as possible every round and Im trying to figure out a report card for myself. How many shots over that goal equals a poor outting? Any thoughts?

[Lihu]

9 minutes ago, stealthhwk said:

While Ive decided to be more aggressive this year in regards to golf, Ive also decided to have more fun and be more realistic about my goals. ( a semi athletic guy with little practice time and resources). My scoring goal is to shoot as close to 90 or less as possible every round and Im trying to figure out a report card for myself. How many shots over that goal equals a poor outting? Any thoughts?

Unfortunately, golf has no guaranteed upper limit on how bad you can be playing.

[Phil McGleno]

How about judge your game by your ball striking and play?-And if you are serious about getting better you do not have an LSW Award. You should get one.

[stealthhwk]

11 minutes ago, Phil McGleno said:

How about judge your game by your ball striking and play?-And if you are serious about getting better you do not have an LSW Award. You should get one.

Looking forward to getting Lsw but I have very limited practice time and have spent the last two years trying to empty as much as possible and get back to just playing. My head got so full of instruction and swing thoughts that my handicap went up 8 strokes and I started freezing over the golf ball. It nearly chased me from golf for good. Just not ready to start refilling my instructional tank right away. But from all the love it gets on this website, Imma have to check it out at some point.

[Lihu]

13 minutes ago, stealthhwk said:

Looking forward to getting Lsw but I have very limited practice time and have spent the last two years trying to empty as much as possible and get back to just playing. My head got so full of instruction and swing thoughts that my handicap went up 8 strokes and I started freezing over the golf ball. It nearly chased me from golf for good. Just not ready to start refilling my instructional tank right away. But from all the love it gets on this website, Imma have to check it out at some point.

Lsw will be the most efficient means to get better with limited time and resources.

[stealthhwk]

22 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Lsw will be the most efficient means to get better with limited time and resources.

Really!? My experience has always been that improvement takes knowledge and practice. It doesnt stop me from looking for the magic bullet but it probably should. Do you really think lsw can improve my game with no practice?

[Patch]

A guy wrote a book about grading one's golf game. I can't for the life of me remember the title, or author's name.

Anyway it went something like this. The golfers sets their realistic target score. Let's use 85 as an example. This number is the player's average score. Average would be a "C" grade. 1-3 shots higher (88) would be a "D" grade. 4-7 shots higher would be an "F" grade. On the low side of 85, an 82-84 would be a "B"grade, and 81 or better would be an "A" grade. You would convert those letter grades into numbers with "A" being a 5, and "F" being a 1. As I recall, his system did not work out well for him.

Wish I could remember his name. 

[Lihu]

2 hours ago, stealthhwk said:

Really!? My experience has always been that improvement takes knowledge and practice. It doesnt stop me from looking for the magic bullet but it probably should. Do you really think lsw can improve my game with no practice?

Effective and efficient practice.

[boogielicious]

5 hours ago, stealthhwk said:

Really!? My experience has always been that improvement takes knowledge and practice. It doesnt stop me from looking for the magic bullet but it probably should. Do you really think lsw can improve my game with no practice?

LSW is not about magic bullets or elaborate, time-consuming practice routines. It identifies the important things to practice if your time is limited. Second, with your ability right now, it shows you the approach to take to lower your scores.

There are a lot of ways to get practice in without going to the range for hours. The thread below was set up just for that. There are little things like mirror work that can help. You can do it while brushing your teeth. Or going to the back yard and practicing pitching for 10 minutes.

Lastly, the best way to practice is not to pound balls at the range. See the thread below.

 

[14ledo81]

7 hours ago, Phil McGleno said:

How about judge your game by your ball striking and play?

I agree with this.  At times you can score well (relatively) with some crappy ball-striking.  If you want to improve long term though, the ball striking has to improve.

[jkelley9]

I also recommend LSW for exactly your situation. It's probably more valuable to you even than most folks. Because of the fact that it doesn't focus on interpreting drills, grip, etc. through text (frustrating, in my opinion), it takes more of an approach on lowering your score through perception on statistics. For example, I learned that even though I was getting nGIR's with some solid longer club striking... I was losing a massive amount of strokes blading my wedges over the green. I broke it down to what the impact of those strokes were and they were literally often times MORE than a full stroke lost... because I would put the ball farther from the hole, in a bunker, etc. I also learned that practicing making 15 ft putts is (can be?) silly.

Also learned that when I DO get out to practice, to go by more of a 70/20/10 approach - that will be the fastest way to drop strokes and thus have a more enjoyable round.

Shot zones was also an eye opener. 

[Dave2512]

A report card would be tough using scores. At my handicap the range of best worst scores in my last 20 is around 12 strokes. Luck plays a part. I've had days I walked off the course certain I played better or worse than my score.

[DrvFrShow]

 @stealthhwk How much time to you have to practice? Once a week? Or do you only have time to play once a week?

If you have very limited time to practice, I'd work on half a bucket hitting 120 - 140 yds to a flag at the range and the other half bucket hitting driver to a target at the end of the range trying to keep your drift reasonable. If you have a consistent miss with your driver learn how to play it. You probably won't be able to fix it with sporadic practice. 

More importantly learn how to play the game of golf - this is in the second half of LSW. This is about shot selection: when to be aggressive and when not to be aggressive. When to hit your driver off the tee, and when to hit your 5 iron. Also play appropriate tees for your driving distance helps too.

[Grumpter]

If it were me I would track my overall handicap then for each course figure out my course handicap for the set of tees I am playing. Figuring in that you only beat your handicap about 20% of time I would probably add about 20% to my handicap for that course to figure out what I would deem a 'good' score. As a 9.2 Handicap at my home course my course handicap is a 10. It is a par 71 so 20% of the time I should shoot 80 or less and personally I consider 83 or less a decent round for that set of tees on that course. The 76 I shot over the weekend would be a great round. Too bad I can't count it for my handicap as I played the majority of the round as a single catching up to another group late in the back 9.

As far as having more fun I have been working on salvaging poor rounds. If I am having a poor round I eventually start focusing more on trying to make some good shots amongst the poor ones and stop focusing so much on overall score. It has made those poor outings more enjoyable for me. Some days it just all goes to hell in hand basket though and hopefully then I at least have some good company in my group.

[dave s]

Here's my take on how to limit the on-course damage that results in blow-up holes and high scores.

Spend THIS season tracking strokes (for example) on things like par-3 scoring; total putts per round; total strokes around the green from chipping to hole out; penalty strokes per round.  In short, try to identify the part(s) of your game that cost you the most strokes and practice to reduce those extra strokes taken.

Prioritize one or two parts of your game and spend your limited practice time improving one or two NEXT, (or even this) season.

Here are three areas I worked on past couple of seasons:

1. Par-3 scoring.  I was averaging 4+ strokes on par threes.  I spent range time working on hitting 120-170 yard shots more consistently to help me put par-3 tee shots ON the green and have a chance at birdies and pars.  When I corrected the root cause, (missing par 3 greens) the scoring went down.

2. Up and down around the green.  I've spent time around practice greens working on getting up and down from anywhere in 3 or fewer shots.  When we blade one across the green, the cost is always 1-2 extra shots on the card.  Practice, practice, practice. It's free at any muni / public course that I know of.

3. Holing what I call 'makeable' putts on the green.  I practice 2, 3 and 5 foot putts on the practice green before every round.  When those makeable putts show up during the round they usually go in. Eliminates a lot of 3-putt greens.

The above were areas of my game, (and maybe yours) where I was literally throwing away shots each round.  If you can improve some facet of your overall game, you'll likely be able to save some strokes and keep it around 90 all the time.  And I don't care how athletic you are, if you don't have a handle on where you're throwing away strokes and practice to get better you're probably not going to see improved scores.  Golf definitely isn't a 'just show up and I'll play well' game.  It's just too hard to be consistent or consistently good without practice.

dave

[stealthhwk]

12 hours ago, DrvFrShow said:

 @stealthhwk How much time to you have to practice? Once a week? Or do you only have time to play once a week?

If you have very limited time to practice, I'd work on half a bucket hitting 120 - 140 yds to a flag at the range and the other half bucket hitting driver to a target at the end of the range trying to keep your drift reasonable. If you have a consistent miss with your driver learn how to play it. You probably won't be able to fix it with sporadic practice. 

More importantly learn how to play the game of golf - this is in the second half of LSW. This is about shot selection: when to be aggressive and when not to be aggressive. When to hit your driver off the tee, and when to hit your 5 iron. Also play appropriate tees for your driving distance helps too.

Only have time to play once a week now that I have a wonderful little boy. Occasionally ill work on my putting at the house just to keep the stroke feeling solid and sometimes I take practice swings in the backyard. If I ever do get some range time, Im def going to divy up the bucket just the way u suggest, as that sounds like a smart plan. How do I order lsw without getting signed up for additional stuff I dont want? Ive heard lots of complaints about people being signed up for other stuff without their knowledge /consent.

[chspeed]

36 minutes ago, stealthhwk said:

 Ive heard lots of complaints about people being signed up for other stuff without their knowledge /consent.

Really? I had no such experience. I think the worst thing that happens is that you might get a little badge on your sandtrap profile - but I think you even need to ask for that! You should PM @iacas if you're concerned about their privacy policy.

 

[No Mulligans]

On 3/22/2016 at 9:01 PM, Phil McGleno said:

How about judge your game by your ball striking and play?-And if you are serious about getting better you do not have an LSW Award. You should get one.

Recently I've tried to take the view that it's about the swing not the score.

I'm trying to fix my out to in swing and have made a bit of improvement during my practice sessions.  But, when I was on the course I regressed back to my out to in swing.  I'm thinking now I need to take what I'm working on to the course.  As such, I want to judge my round on how well I've been taking my priority piece to the course.

I pushed one right Monday into the hazard but it had a baby draw on it.  I should have been happy (wasn't though) as the draw is what I'm trying to accomplish.  Got to work on maintaining the attitude that it's about the swing priority not the score.  For me, that seems to be what I have to do to actually make a swing change.