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Are you hitting the right shots at the wrong time or making some silly mental errors that are costing you shots? Well some of the scenarios in this video, presented by Golf Monthly Deputy Editor Joel Tadman, may well be familiar! He runs through the seven biggest strategy mistakes golfers make and suggest ways in which you can make better decisions to ensure your good swings are rewarded with good results!
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Now golfers can save a surprising amount of shots by eliminating some basic strategic mistakes which
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we are going to highlight in this video. We've come to the amazing Peter Vermilton Golf Club
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and teamed up with GolfShot, makers of one of the leading golf GPS apps that has tracked over
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57 million shots last year from thousands of golfers to provide you with the crucial data
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insights that should help frame a golfer's decision making in order to shoot lower scores
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So let's head on to the course and explain exactly what they are
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Looking at the golf shot data, it tells us that three out of the four ability levels in
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terms of categories of handicap, miss more to the right than they do the left. So that's
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an important distinction. What's also interesting is that higher handicappers miss more to the
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right than any other ability level. So if you are a higher handicapper, you're probably going to be missing more to the right. And also when you factor in that scratch golfers
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are only hitting around 50% of fairways, I think what we can deduce from this data is
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is that as amateur golfers, we're gonna miss fairways, right? So it's important that we allow for that with our strategy
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and our aim to make sure we're gonna miss it in the right spot accordingly
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So on this particular hole, it's clear that the 13th hole at Peter and Milton
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there is a little bit more room down the right than there is down the left. So it's important to allow for that in terms of your aim
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Aim a little bit further to the right to give you a wider margin for error
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And then the other thing you can do when it comes to strategy on your tee shots
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is make sure you're teeing the ball in the right part of the tee. So this hole in particular
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you can see there's a lot of trouble down the left-hand side. And if you are someone who moves it from left to right
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you need to give yourself the most amount of rim possible. So this is a great example where teeing it up
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right on the right-hand side of the tee is gonna really open up the hole
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especially if you hit a left-to-right shot. It's gonna give you a lot more room to play with
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and hopefully you can execute the shot more successfully. So I'm gonna aim just on the right edge
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of those left-hand bunkers and allow for my slight fade, it's gonna really open up the hole
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and give me a bit more room. Perfect. So follow those tee shot tips
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and hopefully you'll find more fairways, but more importantly, miss it in the right spot
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So as you can see, I've got a cracking drive down this par five, left myself in a perfect position
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Most golfers would view par fives as a scoring opportunity. But the big strategic mistake golfers make is not thinking about the importance of the second shot on a par five
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It's the crucial shot to get right to set you up for making a par or maybe even a birdie
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If you look at the stats from golf shots, it's really interesting to see that the three ability levels of categories of golfer
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they all average over par on par fives. And high handicappers in particular average over six and a half on a par five
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So clearly you could deduce that every golfer isn't really making the most of the opportunities that par fives present them
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And especially on the second shot, it's a crucial thing to get right. And the kind of consensus among teaching pros and the data would suggest that the thing that you need to do is try and get as close to the green as you can on your approach shot
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There some golfers out that might think oh actually I rather be 100 yards out and have a full shot in with my sandwich than I would be say 40 or 50 yards Oh I not really comfortable in those particular shots but actually for the vast majority of golfers trying to get as close to the green as possible is the best thing to do Obviously you want to avoid hazards or any scenario
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where you're going to get penalty shots so if there's out of bounds or penalty areas
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you need to make sure you choose a club that avoids those and on particular holes obviously
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you're better off leaving yourself with a 40 yard pitch from the fairway than you are
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a 40 yard bunker shot because that's when you can really rack up a big score. So in In this particular situation, I can see there's a bunker short left on this par five, so I
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want to make sure I avoid that with my second shot. I've got the three-wood, it's the perfect club for me
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I'm okay with hitting this on the fairway. Let's see if we can get down there and maybe even on the green and give myself a chance
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at an eagle. So I'm pretty happy with that one. So don't underestimate the importance of the second
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shot on the par 5. Leave yourself as close to the ingredients possible in a favourable
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lie and you should help your scores come down. Now one of the big things that separates good golfers from average ones is the ability to
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keep those big numbers off the scorecard. Double bogeys, triple bogeys are worse. Those
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are the scores that you don't want to have on your scorecard. If you look at tour pros, elite pros, rarely do they follow a bad shot up with another
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If you look at the stats from Golf Shot, you can see that actually high handicappers
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are making double bogeys 59% of the time and mid-handicappers are making double bogeys
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or worse, 35% of the time, which I think is quite high. And with a few strategic tweaks
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in terms of how you approach certain shots, I think we can see those numbers come down significantly
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So the really crucial point here is to not follow up one bad shot with another
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In this particular hole, you can see, I've pushed my drive down the right-hand side
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and there's trees in my way, there's a bunker in the way. Yes, I do have a gap, but there's overhanging branches
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There's a lot of stuff in the way that could go wrong. So it's important to make the sensible decision
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As I said, don't follow one mistake up with another. Take your medicine, give yourself the best chance
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of keeping off those double bogeys off your card. And if you're chipping out sideways
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like I'm gonna do here, you should be able to make worst a bogey, move on, take your medicine
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and it's not gonna ruin your round. So rather than going for this hero shot through the trees
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there's too much danger there. I'm gonna adjust my aim to the left. You can see I've got a lovely clear shot here
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to the left of the tree. Get it back in play. Give yourself a chance to get on the green
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for your next shot. And that's in perfect position. Just stop short of the heavy rough there
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Open up the hole, I can hit the green, and hopefully make a bogey and move on
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Now the next strategic machete comes down to approach shots and specifically missing
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greens or chasing tight flags. I think most golfers have unrealistic expectations about how close they should be hitting their
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irons and their wedge shots. If you look at the data, it's really interesting
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You'll see that every ability of golfer is missing more greens than they're hitting, even
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those single digit golfers as well, which then feeds into the scramble percentage
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So you look at those numbers, which I flash up on the screen here you can see even the best ability of golf are only getting up and down from around the green when they miss the green up to 33 of the time So clearly missing greens is a problem if you want
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to shoot lower scores. And there are a few things you could do with your strategic decision making
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to help improve, put the odds into your favour. I think the first thing on an approach shot is
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really just to aim at the middle of the green. So ignore where the flag is. If it's on the left
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on the right, don't go chasing those flags. It's going to give you more chance of missing
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the green, not getting up and down leading to a bogey. I actually think most golfers
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regardless of your ability, would probably score better if there were no flags on the green and you just had to hit to the middle of the green. So that would be my kind of
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one option. My second option would be to think about where the trouble is on that particular
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green and if you're going to miss it, make sure you're missing it on the appropriate side or the side that's going to give you the best chance of getting up and down. So
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For example, if there was a flag at the back and there was a big runoff behind the green
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obviously going long is an absolute no-go. So make sure you're choosing a club that's going to leave you short of that pin and therefore
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it's going to eliminate that trouble and give you the best chance of making a pard, hopefully
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keeping those bogeys off your card. So those are the two ways you can approach it
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You can see here on this particular hole there's a tree on the right, a bunker on the right, so I'm going to favour the left-hand side here
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That's clearly a much easier up and down if I am going to miss the green
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So really be specific with your aim and zone in on that spot just left with the pin
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The safer side should give you the better chance of making a good score
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I'm happy with that one. It's just left with the pin, cutting back nicely
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I'm happy with that one. I've got a makeable birdie chance there
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One thing to also think about with the Golf Shot GPS app in particular is it does offer
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club recommendations based on your real-time data, so what shots you've actually been hitting
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on the course. It knows how far you hit each club, and that should help you hit the right
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shot, the right club, at the right time, and make sure you don't miss those greens
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Now, we've all done this, haven't we? We make a bogey, and the red mist sets in. We
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storm to the next tee, pull driver, and hit your ball in trouble. You're compounding one
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error with another, and it's really important in terms of not making that strategic mistake
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of ignoring what lies ahead on a particular hole after you've made a bad score. You look at the
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stats from world number one, Scotty Scheffler, he's one of the best in the world because he doesn't
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follow up a bogey with another bogey or worse. If you look at the data from golf shot, it's
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interesting that high handicappers, they're making around 12 bogeys around, but more importantly
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they're making consecutive bogeys 70% of the time, which is quite a lot, I would say. Actually
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high handicappers are making consecutive bogeys 59% of the time. So clearly there is a problem
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with amateur golfers compounding one error with another. And that's why it's important to not make that strategic
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mistake and really try and reset your mindset when it comes to arriving on the tee, if you have made a bad score
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trying to start again in your head. And you can see it here now, this is a classic example
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of a golfer, he's clearly annoyed about what's gone on the previous hole, he's not looking and assessing what lies
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ahead on this particular hole, he's got his head down, he's reaching for the driver straight away
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he wants to release that pent up frustration and anger of what's gone on previously
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but that's going to cost him on this particular hole because there's some bunkers in play for him
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off the tee with driver and lo and behold hits the driver and he found those bunkers So I think what the strategic advice in this particular situation is try and start again when you get to a tee
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Obviously you know accept that bogey can be a good score on certain holes if they're you know
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difficult holes and you get a shot. Accept that bogey can be an okay score. Don't compound a bad
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score with another strategic error off the tee in terms of club selection and hopefully you should
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see your scores get a little bit lower. Now the next strategic mistake golfers make is ignoring the skill of lag putting and how
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that directly correlates to the number of three putts you have during a round of golf
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You look at the stats from Golf Shot, it's clear that every ability of golfer is three
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putting at least some point during the round. It's especially prolific with high handicap golfers and those three putts can really kill
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the momentum of a round, they're incredibly frustrating and obviously they're going to
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hurt your scores. It would be really important, especially in your practice, to come up with some sort of
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system where you can judge the pace and control the speed of your putts from long distance
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We know that the stats say that actually golfers are not hitting it that close on their approach
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shots and as the ability level or handicap goes up, your proximity to the hole is really
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going to get quite wide and you're going to be left with a lot of long putts from 40
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50 feet. So it's important to have some sort of system that is able to judge the distance that you're
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hitting those putts. For example, you could have some sort of system where you're looking at the backswing length
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kind of whether the club goes back to your toes, just outside your toes, and that's going
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to help you work out how far the putts are rolling at those different backswing lengths
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That's a good starting point, I think, to be able to adjust the distance and change the
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distance based on the distance you have to the hole. So, for example, on this particular putt, this is about a 35-footer
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I know I need to swing it just outside my toe to get it to the hole
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Would you look at that? Oh, it nearly went in. Just slipped out
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But it's gone about two foot past, perfect pace. So incorporate some sort of system into your practice to get a better control of distance
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and judge the pace a little bit better and that should help reduce the number of three
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pass. Now the final strategic mistake golfers make is not tracking their shots using technology
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or benchmarking their performance against golfers of a similar ability. There's an awful lot of
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technology out there that allows golfers to gain really crucial insights into their play
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especially ones that utilize strokes gain. Strokes gain is the metric that all the leading
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tour players really use to understand exactly where their strengths and weaknesses lie
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and that allows them to dedicate practice time to the right areas of the game
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to ensure they're proving on their weaknesses and making progress on their performance
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And Golf Shot is an example of an app that offers auto shot recognition and auto strokes gained
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So you can seamlessly track your shots, get some really crucial insights into your play
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It's broken down into different areas of the game and you can see how you compare with golfers
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of a similar ability to you to really understand where you need to improve
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So if you go through that process, invest in some technology like golf shot it should really give you a much clearer
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window into where you need to improve
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