Lower Your Golf Score by 3 Strokes Quickly

Regardless of your skill level or your handicap, if you are a golfer, you are always looking to find ways to lower your score. Unfortunately, there is not some magic pill you can take or trick that we can give you to do that. But the good news is, if you focus on just ONE of these fundamentals at a time, there is a good chance you can lower your golf score by 3 strokes quickly.

The key with this approach, is to take just one of these tactics and work on it for the next few rounds until you see a difference in your score. Then, move on to the next one to try to knock another stroke or two off the scorecard.

The Barriers

There can be an infinite amount of reason why any golfer can be stuck in a certain score range or handicap. It will likely be different for every golfer as well. What may work for you may not work for your playing partner.

The biggest barrier in improving your golf score is not having the right information to improve. You need to be true to yourself and really break down your strengths and weaknesses.

If putting is a tough aspect of the game for you, and you are consistently three putting or worse, then you will need to spend more time on the putting green practicing and working on putting tips.

More than 50% of a golf score comes from shots of 100 yards or closer to the cup. If this isn’t a highlight of your game, then spending less time trying to crush a driver off the driving range tee and more time on the chipping greens and sand traps is where you should be.

Once you have identified your real weaknesses, then the real improvement can begin.

Using the Right Practice Tools

Going to the driving range to practice your golf stroke is a great way to improve, but if you are buying a bunch of tools and items to help with your swing, you may be wasting your time and money. There are several tools that are worth the time and effort put into practicing with them, you just have to choose the right ones.

The Lag Shot is a good tool because it helps find the right tempo, sing plane, and lag for your golf swing. It is a slightly heavier weighted 7 iron with a blue, whippy shaft that helps find a smoother more consistent swing plane. You can hit balls with it or just work on your swing.

The Total Golf Trainer is another great tool because it is a long term swing fix for every ailment imaginable. Working with this tool on the range will help you find a more consistent swing and help lower your scores quickly. It helps train the wrists, the arms, the hips and the swing plane.

The Strategy Side of the Golf Swing

If you haven’t had time to get out and practice your swing, you can lower your score by using a little more strategy with the swing you already have.

The first strategy is to try to get the ball as far down the fairway as possible, off of the tee, but keeping it in the fairway. Bombing a drive 300 yards is great but if you end up in the high grass, or worse, out of bounds, it’s not going to help your score.

The next tip is to make sure you take enough iron on your approach shots. Over 80% of green missed, is missed short. So, make sure you get the ball all the way to the green so that you can be putting your next shots and not chipping them.

Last but not least, consider using hybrid clubs instead of long irons. Especially as we age, the technology in hybrid clubs allows a higher handicap golfer to hit longer shots of 160 – 220 yards more accurately than with long irons.

Course Management

We can also lower our scores just by how we choose to play a certain course and manage it. Avoiding hazards and choosing safer shots over riskier ones can help manage our scorecard a little easier.

Avoid bunkers. Bunkers are a relatively skilled shot that can get tougher the further they are from the green. If you can avoid them and stay in the short grass, your scores will drastically improve.

Work backwards from the hole to prepare. There is usually an ideal route to every hole for every golfer, you just need to find it.

Finally, preview the course before you play. Try to get a yardage book or check out the course layout online. There are plenty of apps that have most golf courses in them. Get as much information as you can about the course you are about to play the day before, or the morning of. This will help you plan out some of your play and allow you to just visualize and execute.

In Conclusion

Remember, don’t try to do all of these at once. If you take one of the three aspects and just focus on it for a few rounds, you should be able to shave 1-2 strokes off the score card. Then you can move on to the next approach. Rinse and repeat until you have reached the 3 or more strokes you were looking to consistently shave off.

If you’re looking to practice your golf game in Toronto, stop by The Sand Trap and try our professional grade golf simulators.