As most of your probably remember there was a topic called Road to break 90. Since I already accomplished that and even had 2 rounds at 82 next step is breaking 80. I know it’s gonna take a while b’cos that 82 rounds went really smooth without many really bad shots.
But hope this topic will again keep me more motivated (not that I need it really).

I’m playing mostly at my golf course so I know it quite good right now and If Im gonna break 80 this year it’s going to be only on this course.

Unfortunately didn’t have much time to practice or play last 2 weeks. Only play 2 events in Summer Cup (9 tourneys every Wednesday, stableford , best 4 score counts). 37 week ago, and 36 yesterday.

It was a strange round yesterday and it’s something I struggle the most lately- big numbers. I can play really solid and then one or two (3 yesterday) holes where I blow up. Usually it’s because bad tee shot, really unfortunately lie (like yesterday where I have almost not swing at all between trees) etc
But I think that I’m too aggressive in those situations. When I had bad tee shot and I’m in huge rough I’m trying to hit miracle shot and score a par. I believe that if I use like 60* wedge, hit it on the fairway and going for a bogey would be much better.

Here is yesterday scorecard (don’t look at distance as they are f*** up)


What’s good- 9 GIR and many of them from 120m+ (best one from 154m from the rough with 6iron)
34 putts- also happy with that. But in my previous topic I mentioned how putting is good for me lately. Of course I jinxed in. LAG putting was horrible last 2 tournaments. I made many 2m 2nd putts to save par, but LAG are depressing.

What was bad- of course those triples…
Also #1 hole, it’s short par4 (~ 246meters = 269yards) I was pin high and perfect lie (not on the green) atter tee shot, about 5 meters to the hole and didn’t make a birdie…
<70meters shots, with lack of practice time lately I lost a feeling from shortish distance, I’m very often very close to the green after tee shot and could not make a birdie
#6 par3 (125m) into the wind and was in the bunker. It was raining for 3 days, and it was a mud not a sand... digged to deep on 1st attempt, 2nd was decent

Am I going to break 80 this year ?
Btw my current HCP is 13.4

If you have the ability to hit 9 GIR then breaking 80 this year shouldn't be a problem. I would focus on your putting, 34 putts in a round leaves a lot of room for improvement.

Don't be surprised if you break 80 on a different course. The first time I ever did it was in a junior tournament on a course I had never seen before, and it was harder than my home course. Good luck!

Since you play the same course a lot, are there certain holes where you tend to make the big numbers more frequently? I would look to adjusting strategy on those holes if so.

For example I used to play torrey pines a lot when I lived in San Diego, #4 south course is a super long nasty par 4 that plays into wind, I would often hit driver, then 3 wood, and sometimes make a huge mess of it. Then one day I said screw it and hit hybrid off the tee into the fairway, hybrid again to around 80 yards, wedge on, and easy 2 putt, I could use that strategy and pretty confidently make a bogey on a really hard hole. Pretty sure my EV for the hole was much higher going that route than the miracle times I hit the good driver and perfect 3 wood and made par.

^
thx for advice
I checked previous rounds to see if there is a pattern but I think there isn't, maybe #10 which is very interesting hole (which actually I have a different approach than others)

played another tournament yesterday, shot 86 and again 3x triples..
my putting was even worse than before
made 2 birdies in a row
missed another birdie putt from 1.5m

Happy with the fact that even with 3x triples I still can shot in the 80's
Very unhappy with my mental game around the green- wasn't visualizing shots, didn't have a confidence with my shots. Need to work on this

3rd tourney of Summer Cup is this Wednesday and 70's in in the air

one more thing. Since my HCP dropped a lot they are putting me in a flights with the best guys in this club. Still don't believe how guys with such a horrible swings, postures, grips, no mental game etc are the best in the club.

I'm going to own them so much in near future

all the people that know me says I'm the most humble man around. So believe me this is not a pride, just a confidence and reality

gl, pretty good hcp considering were u started

hoping to beat 100 this year

lack of pratice seems to be a great excuse but from doing a tad of reading on course management- i think its alot of lack of thinking and just mindless walking abt swinging random clubs....

shot 96 (with 2shot penalty for hitting a flagstick on last green while putting)

I guess I should go back to "road to break 90" thread

bright side:
-I believe I can't play any worse
-made a birdie

On Saturday there is an interesting tournament "Iron man", as you probably guess only iron6 and shorter clubs. Should be fun

?????

last hole, flag was at the front of the green, I mi**** my approach and landed at the end. had about 15m putt.
Someone take out flag and laid it down about 3m next to the hole. I was concentrating on the hole and didn't notice it. Then misread the green/mi**** and hit a flag.

that's a 2 shot penalty, right?

Yep.

i'll append my quest to break 80 here...

shot 83 yesterday on pretty open course. 86 the other day on very tight 6000 yard course.

on the 83, took stupid triple and double back to back holes with decent in-regulation approaches to the green. tried high risk shot from bunker and got way too aggressive on a par putt

I almost achieved this today myself. Did 81 on a pretty open and easy course (It was slightly windy though), and if it weren't for some duffed tee shots early, I probably would have done it easy. The main reason I scored so well was I never made worse than a double bogey.

Fyp

Gonna be at 80 soon boys. Had 7 girs tonite in 12 holes. Then my friend and I's cart broke down and we started walking and carrying clubs. I got super tilted and my last 6 holes were atrociuous. I went from playing some of my best golf ever to the worst. Total 180 in frame of mind. Went from golf mode to "F this" "f that"

Carrying is awesome.

How often do you practice your short game? That's almost always the quickest path to breaking 80 from where you're at now.

lately not that often- about twice a week for 2hours

but going to put some more time in it since my putting is horrendous

so if you're saying twice a week for 2 hours i can safely assume its more like once a week for a half hour but yeah get to work on your short game ASAP and you'll get there soon imo

figured i'd quickly tell you my story of going from an 80's shooter to a 70's shooter.

i picked up the game when i was 15. i had been to the driving range maybe 5 times in my life before that but had only played on an actual course once when i was like 12.

so i got a job at a golf course and started playing a ton since it was free. fast forward ~8 months later and i barely make the JV squad of my high school team.

the summer following that JV season i decided to work really really hard on my short game, and by the end of the summer was shooting the the 70's consistently. was #1 varsity the next season from start to finish.

sure my swing got better but i attribute the quick and rather drastic improvement to my short game practice.

don't be scared of thinking you can start shooting in the 70's consistently within a few months. but playing ~10 rounds a month is <<<<<<<<< putting in ~7 hours a week around the chipping/putting green.

best of luck, i'll be following this thread to see when you breakthrough!

my game is one big mess currently

irons- when I feel it I hit it perfect (of course perfect imo), but I'm so inconsistent
driver- disaster last few weeks, no distance, no direction, no feel in my head
putter- still bad, but at least I'm starting hitting it on the line more and more often, pace is a big problem right now

don't think I will break 80 soon, not sure when I'm gonna break 90 again

LFC - spend as much time as you can on the putting greens, seriously hit over 100 6ft, 12ft, 18ft. Then to finish do like 50 3-4 ft putts, and if u miss one start again. Ul shave like 5-10 shots off a round in no time. Before u play knock in a good few putts that you know you'll hole, amazing for confidence.

funny story on putting about tiger woods. i'm reading a book on him right now called "follow the roar". pretty good book. very good writer.

anyway, when tiger was in LA (northern end of town) he needed somewhere to play/practice. a guy at a club i'd barely heard of (across from universal studios) helps him out. tiger shows up with only putter and some golf balls. doesn't want to do anything else. spent 12 hours over 2 days trying to make all 3 balls from the toughest long putts on the putting green. talk about targeting perfection.

i'm pretty close i hope to breaking 80. tons of 82s and 83s and 37's and 38's sometimes on courses that aren't that easy and/or that i don't know at all.

here's what i'm working on:

blowup holes are the obvious nemesis. learn to hit 3 wood and 5 wood off tee and then use them. i am just starting to implement this and it looks extremely promising. now it's more the mental part of sticking to it (a friend and i talked about how hitting driver is so enjoyable, but if you want to score you have to get away from that mindset)... as a note, somehow i could never hit 3w off a tee that well and hadn't been hitting it that well off fairway for a long time. but i really put tons of thought and effort into fixing this. and i think this is the one club where a proper fitting makes a massive difference. every other club i find i can hit fairly well no matter what stick i hit but 3w is just so prone to slice i find.

figure out what i need to hit out of deep rough to advance the ball 150 yards and more.... looking for insight from others here. hybrid seems obvious answer and in my case may fill in yardage gap too.

learn to hit driver straight.

figure out my alignment. wider stance = more consistency. narrower stance = better best shots but some horrible misses. but i think i need the consistency

accepting the fact that my average 5w shot is probably just as good as all but my best 3i or 4i. like many here, i remember the 3 iron i stuck on the pin over a bunker from 205 yards ONCE. gotta figure out my yardages and practice delofting 5i and punching 5w to fill in distance gaps.

wedges, wedges, wedges... and try to get away from overly relying on 60 degree wedge.... was at pro tourney a few weeks ago and they are astoundingly good at wedge play.

learn trouble shots. attempting low, high, hook, slice shots when necessary just kills me. i'll try to hit low hook and end up hitting big pull. very bad. but i think just pitching out all the time is too wimpy (sometimes for sure)... at LA Open, PGA pro's just astounded me at how good they were at getting around trees. never saw a bad result at all.

sand has been killing me recently. took out 56 SW thinking 60 degree could do job. it can't.

moving my set up i think to D, P, 3 and 5W, 19H, 5-PW. 53, 56S, 60... again have to figure out 180 to 220 yards but they are hardly the money strokes in trying to break 80 (break 70 maybe)

one other thought regarding my tiger woods story (spending 12 hours over 2 days trying to make 3 impossible putts in a row) is that i think it's useful to try to figure out how to hit 2 or 3 shots exactly the same in a row. gets you really thinking about balance, tempo, target contact point on the ball etc.. basically hand position and tempo i'd think.

one last thing i'll add that adds to my previous point. it will amaze you how much doing alot of chips and pitches will help your long game. just feeling impact. it can be somewhat boring of course. a pro i took some lessons from also had my hitting balls with my feet together (john jacobs preaches this too and i consider him one of the very best teachers). anyway, hitting with feet together really helps improve swing feel alot.

how often do you practice vs play?

i have found while trying to improve that actually playing golf is usually just a step backward. of course, playing 18 holes is a lot more fun than practicing, but if you want to really improve than playing a lot might be hurting your game.

first there's the time wasting aspect. in a round of golf you take 3-5 hours to hit 50 shots and 32 putts. you could get that done in the practice area in an hour.

but more importantly, when you're playing 18 holes, you're not thinking about your swing mechanics. or at least, you shouldn't be.

i played golf last tuesday- i couldn't hit a draw to save my life even though i had been hitting a draw all week on the range. the way we swing is different on the course, for a lot of different reasons that aren't all that important. on the range you can check yourself on video, use alignment, and work to groove your swing to where you want it to be. can't really do any of that on the course.

i was thinking the exact opposite. hitting balls at the range lulls you into false confidence. constantly tinkering to get the proper ball flight. you can't do that on the course.

at least try to hit balls with a purpose. maybe replicate a round so you are never hitting driver back to back.

agree totally on golf rounds taking a long time.

can't say i can make sense of this. you think that if it's a stripe show on the range that you're pretty much doomed when you step on to the course?

so if you shouldn't tinker with your swing on the range...and you shouldn't tinker on the course...you just shouldn't tinker? works for bubba watson, probably won't work for 99% of golfers.

you may go to the range and just whack em around without thinking about a thing but that's not how i practice. hopefully it's not how LFC practices!