Here is a bit of advice I wish someone had given me when I first started testing my ability on actual Golf courses.
KEEP TRACK OF YOUR SCORE AND STATISTICS!
The key statistics being the total number of Fairways hit per round, and your success percentage. The total number of Greens in Regulation per round, and your success percentage. The total number of Putts taken per round, and the average number of Putts per hole. Figuring these statistics out is easy. You’d be amazed how few Golfers actually bother to do it though.
In case you aren’t familiar with these terms I’ll go over them with you. A Fairway hit is any tee shot on a Par 4 or Par 5 that ends up in the Fairway. So if you play a course with eight Par 3s, eight Par 4s, and two Par 5s. Then you could have a maximum of 10 Fairways hit. If you only hit 5 of them, your success percentage would be 50%. A Green in Regulation is any shot that lands on the Green, and leaves you at least two Putts for Par. So your tee shot would have to land on the Green to count as a Green in Regulation on a Par 3. Your first, or second shot would have to land on the Green to count as a Green in Regulation on a Par 4. Your first, second, or third shot would have to land on the Green to count as a Green in Regulation on a Par 5. Every hole provides a potential Green in Regulation, so if you got 6 Greens in Regulation on an eighteen hole Golf course. Your success percentage would be 33.3%. In order to figure out your putting proficiency. Just count the total number of Putts you made in the round. Then divide that by the number of holes you played. That will give you your Putts per hole average.
Knowing these statistics will enable you to set reasonable goals. Beginning with something attainable like 3 Fairways hit, 3 Greens in Regulation, and 45 total Putts will help build confidence. These goals aren’t as simple as you might think. Depending on the course it could be extremely difficult to hit the Fairway, or have your approach shots hold the Green. Greens with a lot of break can turn into four Putts. Setting goals will help you develop one of the most underrated aspects of Golf. The mental Game. Before I began keeping track of my Statistics. My Club selection on the Tee became a simple process of which club can I hit furthest towards the hole without going past it? More often than not I was pulling my Driver out of the bag for every Par 4, and Par 5. There’s a reason why PGA tour Pros don’t do that. It isn’t because they hit it so much further than we do. It’s because they take into account the locations of hazards. I’m not just talking about Bunkers, and Water. A narrow Fairway is a hazard. A poor angle to the Green is a hazard. Before I began tracking Fairways hit. Missing the Fairway was less important to me than getting as close to the Green as possible. Which more often than not meant landing in the rough. Being 50 yards away from the Pin in deep rough seemed better than being 100 yards away from the Pin on the Fairway. I was completely wrong. You know what to expect from a good lie. You’ve hit so many shots from a perfect lie at the Range. You can practically predict what will happen when you strike that ball. I know that I hit my Pitching Wedge around 100 yards from a nice lie. I couldn’t give you an educated guess how far I hit it, or any club for that matter out of the deep rough. So being half the distance to the PIN but in the rough leaves me with a total gamble of an approach shot. I don’t know how far it’s going to go. If it’s going to come out straight, or if it’s going to come out at all. The amount of stress that single shot can put you through isn’t worth the extra 50 yards. This takes me to the next statistic you should be tracking. Your Greens in Regulation. Taking aim at the Green from the Fairway provides you with a reasonable chance for success. Trying to get there from the rough, a bunker, or through some trees is a snowballs chance in hell unlikely. Consequently this will adversely effect your putting. For example you are playing a Par 4. You reach the Green in 4 after a series of poor shot selections. How desperately do you want to sink that first putt? Get away with a Bogey on what was a brutally frustrating hole. You’d want to sink that first putt really bad. Try to imagine how rattled you would already be just having reached the Green in 4. Then add the additional stress to one putt. In this situation it wouldn’t surprise me if you finished that hole with a triple bogey. The mental focus and skill required to make that putt can be too much for a beginner to handle. Now what happens if you played that same hole cautiously, and chipped up on to the Green in 3? You still didn’t get yourself the Green in Regulation, but you reached the Green stress free. Your first putt is relatively stress free. If you make it you save Par, and a miss will probably leave you a tap in Bogey. As a Beginner a Par is awesome, and I’ll gladly take tap in Bogeys all day. In this situation I would consider a double Bogey highly unlikely, and your chances for Par pretty good. That’s what happens when you concentrate on reaching the Fairway safely off the Tee. It then provides you with a decent chance of reaching the Green in Regulation. Which in turn gives you an opportunity to two putt for Par, or Bogey.
As a Beginner I play a lot of shorter courses. I might only pull out the Driver once, or twice in a round. In some cases not at all. The result is that my scores have greatly improved.
There is a hole on one of the courses I play often where I used to pull Driver every time. I averaged a double Bogey on that hole teeing off with the Driver. Now on that same hole I tee off with a 6 hybrid instead. I give up around 75 yards on average off the Tee. I now average just a little over Par. I play it almost a full two strokes better. Simply because I rarely miss the Fairway, and reach the Green in Regulation half the time. If that doesn’t make you a believer in hitting the Fairway, and reaching the Green in Regulation. Then I don’t know what else will.
Beginner’s guide to Golf