6 Things All Scratch Golfers Do That You Don't

In this video, you will learn the six things that scratch golfers do that you don't. Now

I'm not a scratch golfer. I'm very close. So I've enlisted the help of ShotScape and its vast

data set of actual scratch golfers so that you will learn exactly what you need to do

to get down to scratch. Shall we get started? the first thing that scratch golfers do that you don't is they have an intimate knowledge of how

far they hit each club they know exactly how far each club sends the ball in terms of carry distance

as well as total distance they know how much playing a fade shot will affect the distance

versus a draw shot and they also know how far they can get each club in terms of maximum distance

They know if they swing as hard as they can what the maximum yardage they can get out of each club

and actually if you look at the ShotScope data scratch golfers have only a 20 yard gap between

their average distance with each club and their performance average. Now performance average

removes things like mishits, poor strikes, chips out from the trees so it gives you a better

indication of how far you hit each club and that 20 yard gap is good for a scratch golfer increases

to 27 yards for a 15 handicap golfer so clearly getting that gap as small as possible is key and

actually if you do use shotscape products you get a really good sense of how far each club goes it

will tell you what your average is what your performance average is and also what your maximum

or your longest shot you've ever hit with that club is so it's really good useful information to

have on any particular given shot like I've got here I've got 165 yards to the flag and there's

bunkers short left and short right so I know that I need to hit a club that's going to cover those

bunkers because the most common miss that amateur golfers struggle with is short of the green

obviously because you're miss striking the club a lot of the time and scratch golfers do a better

job of striking their iron shots consistently and obviously if you can strike your clubs more

consistently you're going to get more consistent distance out of it the other end but the most

important thing is pick a club that you know is going to take those hazards out of place so I know

7-iron here I've got 160 yards to cover that bunker I know this club is going to be plenty of

club to take those bunkers out of play so let's see if we can put that to the test here with this 7-iron

pretty happy with that one. So definitely invest in some technology, get on a launch monitor

find out exactly how far you hit each club and just like a scratch golfer, you're hopefully

going to be finding more greens with your approach shots. Okay, the second thing that scratch golfers

do, which feeds off the first one in terms of knowing their numbers, is they pick smarter

targets when they're approaching the green and this is a classic example here. There's a lot

going on and the three things that scratch golfers do when choosing a target for their approach

is they veer away from tight flags. They try and leave themselves an uphill putt where possible

and they absolutely know their cover number. So the cover number, you know a lot of golfers work off fronts of the greens here

but as you can see here, the front of the green is here, but then the lip of the bunker is a lot further on the green So you really need to know what your cover number is So what is the distance you need to carry the ball take all the trouble out of play you see this bunker here this bunker here it a similar distance up the green so if you know you can hit a club that going to cover

both of those bunkers that's going to leave you in a much safer spot than if you hit a club that's

bringing the bunkers and other things into play so again this is a really good example this pin

is tucked super tight to that right side of the green and just over that bunker so scratch golfers

are picking smart targets they're veering away from that pin they're aiming at the middle of the

green and they're going to try and leave themselves an uphill putt where possible it's not always

possible on this particular hole you probably want to be just past pin high putting back down this

way so scratch golfers are hitting seven more greens in regulation on average than a 15 handicapper

so clearly hitting more greens in regulation is going to help your scores come down so if you can

do those three things you're hopefully going to leave yourself far fewer sort of nervy chip shots

or short game shots around the green that you're not going to be comfortable with and you're not going to get up and down that often scratch golfers don't hit perfect shots all the time

they miss hit shots but what they do is they allow for that with their aim with the distance

they're trying to hit the ball and that distance is not always to the pin it's to the safest spot on

the green now the third thing that scratch golfers do that you don't is avoid those blow up holes

those holes that you compound errors you go from making a bogey to double bogey maybe a triple

bogey and if you look at the shot scope data you can see there's a big difference in the number of

double bogeys that 15 handicappers make per se versus a scratch golfer scratch golfers are only

making 0.2 double bogeys per round so clearly they're managing their misses a lot better because

if you look at the driving accuracy data from shot scope you can see actually scratch golfers

are not hitting many more fairways than a 15 handicap only three percent more so clearly

it's not about finding more fairways it's about minimizing the risk with where they hit their t

shots and not finding those that big the big troublesome hazards that you get on the course

fairway bunkers trees or penalty areas scratch golfers as you can see from the data are much

better at hitting fewer t shots that land in those situations so there's a few things that i think you

can do when it comes to your aim and your strategy on a hole like this particularly one here we've

got here on the 17th hole at Fulford Heath Golf Club. It's very tight, there's trees on either

side but there's also a penalty area down the left so clearly right is the favoured side that you want

to be on and obviously with your strategy and how you aim it you can try and mitigate that as best

you can and one way is obviously to aim down the right and favour that side and you know if you've

hit a draw shape allow for that aim a little bit further right or you could really try and curve

the ball away from the trouble. That's something that's worked for me in the past is having a shot

shape that you know is going to go one way and you can allow for that with your aim and move the ball

away from the trouble that's going to ensure your ball hopefully stays in play if you do get in the

trees you're not trying to take on that miracle shot you're taking your medicine chipping it out

knocking on the green making a bogey at worst and you're not making those really penal double bogeys

so this particular hole i know there's more trouble down the left so i'm going to aim down

that left side I'm going to make a really exaggerated move to make sure the ball curves

away from that trouble and therefore we should be able to keep the ball in play

and avoid those blow up holes. There you go a little gentle fade started on the left side of the fairway cut back to the middle of the fairway I absolutely delighted with that and do very well to make a double bogey or worse from

there. Now another area where scratch golfers are especially good is on the greens and that is in

particular avoiding three putts. Three putts are the silent killers on your scorecard and if you

look at the data from shot scope you can see you can save yourself four shots around just by avoiding

three putts through far better distance control from long range obviously it helps to be pretty

solid from that inside six foot range as well but lag putting is the key to reducing three putts and

there's a few things that golfers can do to improve your lag putting obviously the one of them comes

down to reading greens but when it comes to reading greens from distance really focus on that final

third of the putt. When the ball's slowing down it's going to break a lot more than at the start

of the putt where it's moving faster so really focus on the final third of the putt, look at the

slope around the hole and see what the ball is going to do when it's slowing down. The other

thing you can do is have a little bit of a system for controlling your distance so I like to use the

stroke length to adjust my distance versus things like you know speeding up my tempo. I think having

a system whereby you just change distance by how far you move the putter is going to give you more

consistency in the long run so I know that if I move the putter back about 12 inches that's going

to send the ball 10 foot and if I move it back another 10 percent that's going to roll the ball

20 foot and another 10 percent is 30 foot so if you've got a system in place for controlling

distance that's certainly going to help but the last thing that I think is going to probably help golfers the most is just that consistency of strike scratch golfers don't miss the middle of

the putter all that often obviously it helps if you've got like a mallet putter a more forgiving

putter that's going to mitigate the strike pattern moving around if you do miss the middle but

striking the ball out of the middle of the putter phase is going to give you more consistent distance

at the other end so a drill that i would thoroughly recommend to all golfers out there watching is

this t-peg drill so i've put two t-pegs just outside the width of my putter here and obviously

the goal is to swing the putter through the t through the gate and not hit the t-pegs that means

I know I'm going to be hitting the putt out of the middle of the putter and that's going to improve

my my distance consistency so try those few things it should definitely help improve your

lag putting from distance if you're rolling the ball close to the hole from distance that should

reduce the number of three putts you have. Now another thing that scratch golfers do that you

probably don't is they treat shots from within 70 yards as a scoring opportunity if you look at the

the data from ShotScape you can see 20 handicappers and above averaging 5.6 holes where they have to

take multiple shots to reach the green from inside 70 yards whereas a scratch golfer is down at 1.6

so they very much see as I said shots from within 70 yards as a scoring opportunity they're getting

on the green first time most of the time but also when they're getting on the green from that distance

they're getting it pretty close to the hole so they're going to give themselves a chance for a

birdie or a par. So I think there's a few things that I've taken away from this data. The first is

that you really need to practice your pitch shots like not a lot of golfers actually practice

pitch shots from between 40 yards and 80 yards. You see a lot of golfers practicing their putting

and chipping before they tee off and obviously their long game on the range but those in distances are actually really important so it important a you practice them but b if you can practice them try and practice off grass because when you hitting off a mat it can really mask your areas in your ball striking if you do catch the ground slightly heavy on a mat

the club just glides along it and you strike the ball pretty cleanly whereas if you're striking the

ball fat on the grass you're going to chunk the ball 10 20 yards in front of you so try and practice

on the grass where possible and the other thing you really need to do when you're pitching is

have a system for controlling distance right so for me choose your favorite club to pitch with for

me it's my 54 degree wedge and I like to make three swings to control this so I know with my

54 degree wedge if I swing my hands to sort of hip height that's my 50 yard shot if I swing it

to sort of belly height that's my 70 yard shot if I swing my hands to shoulder height

that's my 90 yard shot and then the full swing goes about 105 yards with a with a 54 degree wedge

So have a system that controls distance for you and obviously practice that on the grass where you can

That should hopefully improve your pitching performance and your scoring ability from this distance

Nip that one nicely. Okay, and the last thing that scratch golfers do, and by no means the least important

is they really lean into their strengths. Whether that's playing to their favourite yardages, trusting a certain shape off the tee

they know what they do well and they build a strategy around that and no such example is

better here than this particular shot they've missed the green they've really short-sided

themselves and you know probably a scratch golfer a good golfer could pull a flop shot off here from

a tight lie more on more occasions than most abilities of golfer but the percentage play is

to play a pretty standard chip shot past the pin and give themselves a putt for the par scratch

golfers they don't hit perfect shots a lot of the time and the reason they're scratch golfers

is they don't compound errors which they clearly have made here by missing the green with another

error by duffing it in the bunker or blading it over the back of the green they play the percentages

and give themselves opportunities to make par and take the double bogeys off the card so in this

particular situation we're not going to go for that mega high flop shot we're going to play it

safe just play a pretty standard elevated pit shot take our medicine give ourselves a putt coming

back the other way which we might make for a par but at worst a bogey

So there you go play it safe, take your medicine, keep those big numbers off the card and more

importantly play a shot you're comfortable with under pressure you know that you can pull it off

that's going to help your scores come down. So that concludes our look at the six things scratch

golfers do that you don't. If you're already doing some of these already well done you

you're already on your journey down to scratch and if you don't definitely worth giving some of these

a try it's going to help you lower your handicap hopefully over the next few weeks and months if

you're interested in trying any of the shotscape products that we've featured in this video i've put some links in the description so you get your hands on those whether it's range finders

golf watches anything that's going to help you get more insights on your play and accurate

distances to the hole which we've talked about how important that is and don't forget to check

out all the other videos on the golf monthly youtube channel there's definitely going to be something there that's going to help your game