How I became a single figure handicap golfer

Introduction

Hey, welcome back to the channel. Now this is episode three of my brand new Weekly Wedge series. If you’ve missed the previous two episodes then don’t worry, I’ll put a link in the description below and I’ll also share a link to the playlist at the end of this video. But this week I’m going to share with you some of the methods I have employed over the last few years to bring my handicap down from 22 to 7, which I would consider to be a fairly decent handicap. Now if there are any of the tips or methods I have missed in this video, then drop a comment below, let me know what you would recommend people do to reduce their handicap, and of course if you have any comments on any of the tips I share then please drop them in the comments area below. Whilst you’re there, if you get value from this video, remember to hit that like button, and if you want to be notified about future releases of this series or other videos, be sure to hit that subscribe button to show your support to the channel. Now let’s kick things off with my first method or tip to help you reduce your handicap.

Tip 1: Play Golf with Better Players

My first tip to reducing your handicap is to start playing golf with better players. When you play weekly medals, you probably gravitate towards playing with your usual playing partners or your friends, which is fine, but maybe consider once a month booking in with some scratch golfers or low single handicap players. What you’ll find in playing medals with these players is you’ll learn how they navigate the course differently compared to the rest of us higher handicap players. So, for example, they may set up on the tee in a slightly different position, they may decide not to use a driver when usually players would grab the driver, they may look to chip to different areas of the green, or little things that you will watch and you’ll be able to pick up on will become very, very useful. You’ll also find that sometimes when you play with these players they’re quite keen to share little bits of knowledge and experience or golden nuggets with you to help you improve your game. So once in a while, consider playing with slightly better golfers, and the likely outcome is you will become a better golfer in doing so.

Tip 2: Consistency with Golf Balls

My second tip is all around consistency. If you want to become a single figure handicapper then you need to be consistent, and a quick win is actually start playing with the same make and model of golf ball. Quite often what I’ll see when I’m playing golf with other players is they will lose a golf ball and then grab any old golf ball from their bag and start playing, and then if you lose that ball they’ll take a different ball. And what you’ll find is if you use that method, you’re going to see inconsistencies with the golf ball. It could be how it comes off with the club face, it could be its flight, how it reacts on the green, how it feels when you’re putting. But if you swap out your random golf balls for one consistent make and model, you’ll get used to using that ball and you’ll find that you know how it feels when you putt, you’ll know if you need to hit them a little bit firmer or softer depending on the type of ball, and you’ll know especially around the greens when you’re chipping how that ball reacts off of the club face. It doesn’t mean that you need to go out and buy a brand new bag of Titleist Pro V1s, you might want to just go and buy a box of Noodles or Pinnacles, whatever you feel like, but try to stick with the same make and model next time you are buying and using golf balls. And as a side note, if you want to benefit from 10% off at Mail Order Golf, just use the discount code Andy’s Golf Blog at checkout and you’ll be able to save a little bit of money next time you’re ordering some golf balls. I’ll put a link in the description below to take you straight to their product page.

Tip 3: Practice Your Short Game

My third tip, and something that I have found incredibly beneficial over the last few years, is to practice, practice, practice your short game. One of the get-out-of-jail-free cards I have in my golf game is my short game because I have invested a lot of time in practicing, and there is no excuse for not practicing short game because you can practice in your house, in your garden, you can practice on the golf course whilst you’re playing, and you will definitely see your handicap drop from forming a good high-quality short game. Now what I like about practicing short game is you don’t necessarily need to go to a PGA professional, you don’t even need to watch videos on YouTube, just grab a couple of your wedges, drop some balls around the green, make it difficult for yourself, and practice getting up and down from those tough conditions. If I look at my Shot Scope performance stats last year, I averaged 47% scrambling, which means in almost one in two shots I managed to get up and down, and when compared with a five-handicap golfer in terms of Strokes Gained, I was actually gaining over two strokes on them. So short game for me is something that’s easy to practice and has huge rewards, so if you’re looking to shoot better scores, working on your short game will definitely help with that.

Tip 4: Work on Long Range Putting

My fourth tip is to consider working on your long range putting. Now if you look at the golf green at the golf course during a medal or maybe in the evenings, you’ll see lots of people practicing their putting, but generally they’ll be practicing putts for maybe two, three, four, five foot, which are still important putts because quite often those are the putts that we need to try and make to save par. But one of the areas that I have seen a huge improvement in is my long putting because I’ve invested time and effort into practicing. You see, when I looked at my Shot Scope performance statistics for the year 2022, across that entire season I averaged 11% three-putts, which was far too many. So when I went into 2023, I decided to spend more time working on putts from maybe 20, 30, 40 foot away to the hole to try and get the ball nice and close, resulting in two putts rather than three putts. Now there was a bit of information gathered behind that consideration, and that was using Shot Scope once again, because from my approach play from between 100 and 150 yards, I was finding that my approach proximity to the pin was 40 foot. So on average I was leaving myself 40 foot away from the pin, and that’s something that I think is quite common with higher handicap golfers. So rather than just practicing those short putts, focusing on the longer putts where you’re likely to be finding yourself on the green after your approach shot, looking to try and get those putts from 20, 30, 40 foot into a range of maybe six or seven foot will make a massive improvement and reduction to your three-putts.

Tip 5: Make Better Decisions on the Tee

Tip number five is to make better decisions on the tee. Now quite often when we have a higher handicap or maybe are new to golf, instinctively we’ll just take the driver for those longer holes, but that’s not always the best play. If you take a driver on let’s say a 420 yard par 4 which is quite tight off of the tee, if you lose that ball you’re then under pressure with your third shot on the tee, not just to lose a ball but to keep that ball on the fairway to give yourself a chance of maybe hitting the green with your second shot. Now let’s say for example you find the fairway and you’re hitting your what is then your fourth shot, having lost the ball, you’ve got to hit maybe 180, 200 yards to the green. If you miss that green, you’re probably going to make a six or a seven at best on that hole, and that’s assuming that with your fourth shot you’re actually on the fairway. If you’re in the rough or you’ve lost the ball, that score is going to go up, and all of these things can contribute to higher scores and a higher handicap. Something that I have made a conscious effort with over the past few years in reducing my handicap is playing smarter from the tee. So if I’m playing a hole that I think is going to be really tough, it’s maybe narrow and long, I won’t always take my driver. I’m focusing on keeping that ball in play. So it maybe hitting a four or five iron off of the tee, still leaving myself maybe 220 yards to the green, but then deciding just to play as a par five. So I’ll hit my second shot to maybe leave 40 or 50 yards from the green, and then with my third shot there’s a good chance that I’ll get that onto the green and close to the pin and maybe putt out for par. But at worse, I’m probably looking at making a five with two putts. Even in the worst case scenario, it’s a six. It’s not ideal, but it’s likely going to be less than it will be if I lose a ball and then struggle to get to the green in three or four shots and then find myself making a seven or an eight. So next time you’re standing on that tee, don’t always feel that you have to take the driver. Sometimes just thinking about your club selection can have a greater impact on reducing those scores.

Shot Scope Discount Information

Now in this video so far I have been talking about my Shot Scope performance data. If you’re interested in finding out more about the Shot Scope devices then feel free to check out my other videos on this channel. I generally use the Shot Scope X5 golf watch which gives me GPS information on the golf course and provides me with access to over 100 tee-level statistics about my game when I leave the golf course, and that’s much of the data I have used to help improve my performance and reduce my handicap. Now, if you’re interested in saving some cash on the Shot Scope devices, just enter the code Andy’s Golf at checkout on the Shot Scope website—there’s a link in the description below—and you can save 15% on Shot Scope products.

Tip 6: Play Level Fives (Target Scoring)

Tip number six is to play level fives, and what I mean by that is play every hole as a par five. This will add up to 90 and it’s a really, really good way of improving your scoring and reducing that handicap. You see, the mistake I made when I started playing was I always focused on the par for the course, which is usually let’s say 70 or 71, and I was putting in cards of 110, 115, and I was coming off the golf course really despondent. Then I decided that I wanted to set a target of breaking 100, so I went about employing some of the tactics I’ve already discussed in this video and working hard to shoot more consistent scores, and slowly I brought my scores down to around about 100. And then I decided I’m going to play level fives, so every hole was a par five, and I’m going to try and break 90. And what I found is by employing this method and focusing less on the par for the course and more so on the par that I want to play to, I managed to turn those par threes maybe into bogeys, so I felt like I was gaining a stroke because the par was actually a five on my card. And sometimes when I was playing the par fives, if I did manage a birdie that was a huge result. If I managed a bogey on a par 4, that’s okay because that was par, and quite quickly I found myself shooting more consistently close to 90. Then obviously with a little bit of hard work I managed to break 90 more often and I adjusted the target to then become 80. And now what I find is when I play, if I don’t manage to break 80, I actually leave the golf course really quite frustrated. So over time, just adjust those pars. You might want to start by when you’re breaking 90 adjusting the par threes to become par fours instead of the fives that they were before, and quite quickly you’ll feel happier, you’ll feel you’re making more wins on the golf course, and you’ll reduce that score.

Tip 7: Learn Your Club Distances

Now tip number seven is to think about learning your club distances. Something that many golfers are guilty of is just assuming that they hit clubs a certain distance, so maybe their friend will hit the seven iron 150 and they’ll just assume, “yeah, seven iron goes 150,” but that’s not always the case, and it’s really, really important to play good golf to know how far you’re hitting your clubs. Now there are loads of ways that you can measure this information. You can go for a gapping session with a PGA professional, you can go to the driving range and hit some balls and try and work it out, you can use TopTracer at the driving range, you might want to invest in a small device like the FlightScope Mevo Plus for example, which allows you to track how far you are hitting your shots and then access this data from an app, or you can use a device like the Shot Scope X5 golf watch which is what I use. Now this automatically tracks my performance data on the golf course and then I get access to my club performance within the app. So I’m able to see how far I hit each club on average across a defined period. So this information is actually useful because on the golf course I know based on my past performance how far I hit each club. As an extra tip, if you’re playing an approach to the green, more often than not you will come up short, because if you look at your distance and think, “okay, I hit 180 with my five iron for example,” that’s usually if you’ve hit a fairly good one, but that’s not always going to be the case. So if you lose a little bit from maybe not a pure contact, you might come up 170 for example, or even shorter. So look at the distance to the pin or to the target on the green and then add an extra club. By taking an extra club, even if you pure it, you’ll go through the back—there’s less danger usually the back of a green compared to the front—but if you don’t quite connect with it as well as you were hoping, you’ll probably come up a little bit shorter, and because you’ve had an extra club that will likely find your target. So if you want to hit more greens and hopefully get your yardages right, learn how far you’re hitting your clubs and then always consider adding one more club when you’re playing to your approach shots to the green.

Tip 8: Play to the Middle of the Green

My final tip in this video is to consider simply playing to the middle of the green. Now I was always guilty of being too aggressive in the golf course, constantly trying to play to the pins, and what will generally happen is on a round of golf you’ll get some pins which are in favourable positions, but you’ll get quite a lot that will be tucked behind greens or be sitting on the ledge at the back of the green or we’ll have bunkers on the left-hand side of the pin and you may be short-sided. So think carefully about where you’re playing your approach shots to. Something that I have done over the last few years is focused on just aiming for the middle of the green. More often than not I will hit my target or at least maybe run through to the back or come up a bit shorter, but I’m not putting myself in danger. If I’m trying to flight the ball over a bunker to a pin that’s tucked right behind it and I end up maybe landing on the right-hand side, chances are I’m going to be short-sided, running away from the pin, and I could be looking at maybe making a bogey or a double bogey. So where possible, when you’re playing your round, just look for the center yardage of the green, because if you’re a fairly competent putter, you’ll be making two putts, maybe even a single putt, you may occasionally make a three-putt, but you know what, the chances are if you’re hitting the greens in regulation and landing in the middle, you’re probably going to be walking off with far more pars and far more birdies. Now something that you’ll see when you play with better players, going back to what I mentioned at the beginning, is quite often that’s how they manage their game. They’re just looking to basically hit fairways off of the tee and the center of the green. If they can land it in the center of green, they’re going to give themselves chances of birdies, at worst they’ll probably be making pars, and that is how you can improve your handicap.

Conclusion

So there you have it, those are some of the tips and methods I’ve used over the last few years to reduce my handicap from 22 down to 7. Now I’ve largely done that without actually going to the driving range or without lessons, I’ve just done it using those methods and I strongly would encourage you to consider implementing some of those in your golf game. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, if there are any tips or methods that I’ve missed that you want to share with other people, please do drop them in the comments area below, and of course if you want any more information about any of those tips I’ve covered then drop a comment and I’ll get back to you. But remember if you did enjoy this video, please do consider hitting that like button. If you want to check out the videos from the last few weeks, you can find them on screen just now and I’ll see you in next week’s video.