Breaking 90 (or myself)

PARlance

Well,

I've been ruining long walks now for a year or so and I'm absolutely hooked. I've been regularly coming on here and just reading anything golf related to stop the itch for a few hours.

I was meant to create this thread last night in advance of todays round as I had decided that I was just going through the motions (albeit enjoying every minute of it) when it came to my game. My golfing career to date consists of about 25 rounds so far, taken 3 lessons and spent an awful lot of time up at the range.

Whilst I know I've come on a fair bit since the start, I haven't been tracking it and I was afraid I'd just plod through the summer, possibly improving a little more but the fear was that I'd just continue to enjoy the game without giving myself the little kicks up the a*se that I need. I'm not going to go all PHarry on it, I'll still enjoy it while trying to push myself... hopefully.

Up until now I've very rarely scored myself, normally letting others do it and taking little interest in my overall score. I've been just happy to be out on the course hitting the odd decent shot. From the few rounds I've taken note of, I've went from approx 120 at the start to about 105-110 strokes recently.

I am not a member of any club yet, I think I've looked into every possible option at this stage (two or three times at least). But I've done the maths and I think it makes sense for me to continue to just pay and play for the next while. I will get country memebership with a club down home (Mayo) before the end of summer as I want to get my GUI, until then I'm happy to play random course in the big smoke and surrounding areas.

Anywho, I'm boring myself now, I've started this thread in the hope that it spurs me on to break 90 before this year is out. It'd mean a drop of approx 15 or so shots I reckon. I'm hoping that 5 solid months of golf from June-Oct may see me drop the 3 shots average i need a month. I'll post my scores and any problems I'm having along the way.

I'd greatly appreciate any help, criticism even, along the way. I hoping this will give me that little push I've been missing to date by getting me to arrange that mid-week game or by forcing me to decline those fri/sat pints in favour of a round (pun intended)

I'll grab a cuppa and smoke and give quick summary of todays round.

PARlance

Well, today was my first day of what hopefully is an enjoyable half a year or so of trying to get a round under 90.

1;24pm tee off in Elmgreen was booked thanks to mate from home (M.C.) I had great intentions to take this round more seriously than previous ones. Left myself plenty of time to get there half an hour early and spend a while on putting green etc.

My complete stupidity put paid to this, whilst at one stage I was 600 yards from the course, I took the wrong turn and viola, 45mins later and having left MC there waiting, we tee'd (if thats how you spell it) off 15 mins late. Great intentions of doing the right prep gone.

Still, I decided to stick with the plan and try to focus on my game moreso than before. A bogey on the first after missing easy par putt was still a great start..the next few holes went pear shaped, an 8, 6 and 7. I managed to bring it together and finished front 9 with 51.To my surprise, reaching 100 was still possible. (Elmgreen is Par 70 but I wasn't worried about that). It COULD be my first round in double degits.

BOOM, an 8 on the 10th was like a kick to the nads. I was chipping onto green in 3, rolled down twice, then I 3 putted, disaster.

I would have lost it at this stage before, but my new found focus told me to keep the head, a 5 on next par 3 wasnt great but still an improvement. I went onto bogey the next 4 par 4's. I wasnt counting as we went along but I knew I'd be in with a chance to break 100. Followed this with another bogey 6 on the par 5.

Onto the Par 3 17th. A fn 6...same as before...chipping onto green and rolling back cost me 2 shots, I was gutted.

It was only then I decided to total my score...I needed a par on the Par 4 18th to score 99... I was fuming about the 2 wasted shots at the last but said I'd give it a lash.

Solid drive and approach seen me 5ft off the green. A nice little chip left me with less than a foot for par... Creamed myself, grinning from ear to ear. Slotted it away.

After I finished patting myself on the back we sat down to total MC's score...sure I'll re-check my own while I'm at it!
Fifty FN three I said, I had incorrectly totaled my the front 9, I had scored 53 as opposed to the 51 I had thought. To say the smile had gone would be a slight understatement. SUCKER PUNCH. I'd 101 strokes instead of 99 that I thought walking off the 18th.

Anyway, looking back I'm still happy as it was my best round to date. Really noticed an improvement whilst I concentrated more on my game. Chipping and Putting let me down big time, and I'm normally ok at short game. (the 4 chips that rolled down went with 6 very putt-able misses.... I alway have these but normally it would normally be 5-6 big mistakes rather than the 10 today)

I'm raring to get out again and I reckon that if I can get a few rounds under 100 by the end of june that I may be still on track for getting under 90 by end of year.

PS I'll be honest with this, and my bad rounds will be reported as they happen.

stockdam

Good luck.

What level of golfers do you play with? Try to get a couple of rounds with good players. Watch to see where they are much better than you are. Watch the rhythm of their swings and how they setup. You can learn a lot just by watching good players and the pace of their swing and the way they deliberately take their stance.

Rather than be goal oriented I'd concentrate more on getting your swing better and then the results will follow.

PARlance

Thanks Stockdam, I'm lucky enough (I think its a plus anyway) to have a mix.

A group of mates, 5 of us from home, are just starting out, no world beaters are we, but I'd be leading the pack (they may disagree). The drive to stay ahead of the lads is nice incentive.
On the other hand I have work colleges and dublin mates that are all very keen golfers. They'd range from 7-13 HC. And I'm hoping to draw as much out of these guys as possible.

And I'd be 50/50 in getting out with each.

Over last few weeks I've started to try to draw from the lower hc guys a lot.
I've gotten lucky recently, the guy off 7 has moved nearby, and I got up to driving range with him last week and he extended offer to go up anytime. I had played a few rounds with him before but he's old school in golf terms (or what I perceive to be anyway) in that he'd never give advice on the course. He started giving me pointers at the range and had said he wanted to say a few things on the course before but he doesnt agree with giving advice when playing. The pointers he gave at range have made a big improvement so I hope it continues.

Thanks again, and I see where you're coming from, I know the swing comes before the scores, but the target will focus me on getting the swing up to scratch a bit sooner I hope.

ssbob

Hi Mate,

Great thread. Hope you keep it updated.

I am slightly ahead of where you are at now, a couple of months ago I was fixated on breaking 100 but hadn't even broken 110, joined a club and immediately my game improved as I was playing 6-9 holes every two or three days so my touch around the greens has improved although there is still a lot of work to do here. Anyway I broke 100 and then got 95 about 10 days ago so moving in the right direction.

From what I can see, you just need to get on a chipping and putting green somewhere, even one evening a week for an hour, this will help you alot.

Good luck with it.

alxmorgan

Gotta agree with ssbob there on the putting/chipping focus.

For example played a Par 4 on Saturday. Pulled my drive way off line. Pushed my iron shot into right rough off green. Good chip and a good putt and I have par. Two crap long shots + two good short shots = par in this case.

Short game, short game, short game as lots of people have told me and its finally getting through

Reading Bob Rotella on a flight last week and he reckons if you're not spending 70% of your practice time on 100 yards and in you're not trying to be as good as you can be. Hard to argue with him.

Aesop

My advice would be to ignore how you are scoring while you are playing but be a statistician once you get home. If you focus too much on your score while you are playing you are putting yourself under a lot of pressure while you are playing. As a beginner you are just making the game harder for yourself. Just focus on one hole at a time and completely forget what happened before that, good or bad. Don't bother counting up your score till you go in. If you are playing with a good player try and play a matchplay (or skins) game, it will make you focus on just one hole at a time.

When you get home though have a good look at your score. The reason I say this is because your scoring patterns will tell you what areas of your game you need to work on. This sounds obvious but there are a lot of 18 handicappers who spend all their time putting and chipping and they wouldn't hit a single greens in regulation (or fairway) in a round. Likewise there are a lot of guys trying to hit 300 yard drives and they couldn't hit an up and down to save par or bogey. This is especially important at the start when you are trying to break a 100. It's not intuitive to know what you should be working on. How many fairways do you hit in a round, how many duffed irons, how many putts, take into account how your chipping is affecting your putting numbers, can you get out of bunker and get it on the green. Also not a bad idea to get a lesson, especially at the start. Learning the wrong thing and changing it is a lot harder than learning it right at the start.

To break 90 the above still holds true but hopefully at that stage you have a repeatable swing so it nearly always comes down to the short game. That and avoiding the one big score in a round that will make a complete mess of your card. If you figure that one out you might let me know

dines08

If you happen to have an iPhone or any smart phone I'd highly recommend the GolfShot application. I use it for all casual rounds. It keeps track of all major statistics for you as you input your score on each hole. It's got a massive database of scorecards and really helps you see where you need to improve. For example, I've 21 rounds saved to my app, my driving accuracy is 49% fairway 15% missed on the left and 36% missed right. My greens in regulation is 44%. My scrambling is 22% and sand saves 33%. My average scores on par 3's is 3.6, par 4's is 4.3 and Par 5's is 5.7. That is just an average of all my casual rounds. It becomes very easy to see the areas which cost you the most shots. I'm in no way affiliated or advertising the application but it is free and if it helps you as much as it had me then go for it.

ssbob

dines08 wrote: »

If you happen to have an iPhone or any smart phone I'd highly recommend the GolfShot application. I use it for all casual rounds. It keeps track of all major statistics for you as you input your score on each hole. It's got a massive database of scorecards and really helps you see where you need to improve. For example, I've 21 rounds saved to my app, my driving accuracy is 49% fairway 15% missed on the left and 36% missed right. My greens in regulation is 44%. My scrambling is 22% and sand saves 33%. My average scores on par 3's is 3.6, par 4's is 4.3 and Par 5's is 5.7. That is just an average of all my casual rounds. It becomes very easy to see the areas which cost you the most shots. I'm in no way affiliated or advertising the application but it is free and if it helps you as much as it had me then go for it.

I have also got this app and find it extremely handy, while my stats are not as good as you Dines08, I can see the area(s) in my game I need to work on:D

dines08

I wasn't as true to myself as I should have been to begin with. Deleted 2-3 of the poor rounds to boost the average. That was months ago now and I keep track of all my scores to see where I need to improve. My average is +11 and my official handicap is 15 so I'm going to work on getting that down. It gives you a goal and really shows you where you are at in terms of scoring. I've only been playing golf 14 months so I'm very happy with my progress.

PARlance

Thanks ssbob, great to hear someone improving like that, gives me hope that I can do it too. I hope to keep it updated. First disastrous round will tell

There's a P&P not to far away, the last time I was there the greens were like the surface of moon, but an hour or so chipping at least will be helpful.

PARlance

Thanks everyone for the advice.

The general consensus is to get my short game sorted.
So I've had a think and seeing that there's a P&P 5mins up the road, I'm going to spend the next month working on 100yrds and in. There'll be plenty of rounds in between but I'll stay away from the range in favour of short game outside of rounds.
Will start tonight with a hour or so up there.

Hoping to get out for a round on Weds and Thurs so my problems will be fixed with the hours practice tonight

Dines08, I said I'd be different and get an Nokia N8 rather than iPhone or other more popular smartphones...Now I'm different and have a sh8t phone with no apps!

Aesop, thanks for your advice, v helpful post. I'll take it on board and I have taken 3 lessons already(late last year). I've none planned but I'll look into getting one over the next month. Unfortunately I've got a horizontal personality coupled with a short attention span, I find that I need to keep having a glance at scorecard to keep me focused. I find the little bit of pressure actually helps me around.

PARlance

Just a little update, got in 2*1.5hour short game sessions before playing a football match that ended with a dead leg. Left me idle over weekend but have a round booked in castleknock tomorrow evening.

Never played it before and looking forward to it, will give update afterwards

PARlance

I'm an all or nothing kinda guy

Played 12 holes in Stepaside Public Course this morning and have evening tee time in Castleknock tonight...cant wait, first time to play Castleknock so any advice welcome.

Was really happy with my golf earlier, I def seem to be on an upward curve...for now.

Drives were solid (albeit, you'd have to run 10 mins and throw you ball in a ditch to find trouble on some of the holes...oh god, am I turning into a golf snob ) and irons were working well. Putting let me down again but its a work in progress.
12 played.
3 pars, 5 bogeys, 3 d bogeys, 1 t bogey


Starting to find my distance with the clubs,
Driver 200-230 (have eased off swing and prob only 70%, its helped to get rid of slice)
hitting the 3 wood and hybrid v sweet, approx 180-200yrds and starting to
7 iron 150-160yrds
8 iron 135-150
9 iron 120-135
PW 100-120
54* anything between 50-80
64* off green to 30

Seem to have a problem between PW and 54* yardage, I'm guessing I should replace that SW I left in some bunker??

Also seem to be struggling with 5 & 6 iron... didn't have much need for them today but took 5iron out twice and shanked it...I think its a mental thing but would appreciate any suggestions.

ssbob

ajcurry123 wrote: »

I'm an all or nothing kinda guy

Played 12 holes in Stepaside Public Course this morning and have evening tee time in Castleknock tonight...cant wait, first time to play Castleknock so any advice welcome.

Was really happy with my golf earlier, I def seem to be on an upward curve...for now.

Drives were solid (albeit, you'd have to run 10 mins and throw you ball in a ditch to find trouble on some of the holes...oh god, am I turning into a golf snob ) and irons were working well. Putting let me down again but its a work in progress.
12 played.
3 pars, 5 bogeys, 3 d bogeys, 1 t bogey


Starting to find my distance with the clubs,
Driver 200-230 (have eased off swing and prob only 70%, its helped to get rid of slice)
hitting the 3 wood and hybrid v sweet, approx 180-200yrds and starting to
7 iron 150-160yrds
8 iron 135-150
9 iron 120-135
PW 100-120
54* anything between 50-80
64* off green to 30

Seem to have a problem between PW and 54* yardage, I'm guessing I should replace that SW I left in some bunker??

Also seem to be struggling with 5 & 6 iron... didn't have much need for them today but took 5iron out twice and shanked it...I think its a mental thing but would appreciate any suggestions.

You should pick up a 52 degree Gap Wedge.

Also don't hit your 5/6 iron out of the rough, not enough loft and ease off on the shots like you are doing with the Driver.

PARlance

thanks ssbob, I have 64 & 54 degree, was thinking 48 degree might be better, would you still go with 52 degree?

kincsem

Try a few rounds of pitch & putt (not par 3) with a medium loft wedge and a putter. This would waken up your short game. I know you want to hit the big shots with the driver but you need to practice the score/making/saving clubs too.

On most courses you should be able to get within fifty yards of the green in regulation. A pitch to the centre of the green and two putts would see you pick up a lot of bogeys (+1). Eighteen bogeys is a 90. If you duff a drive or approach shot a wedge shot up the fairway will get you back on track.

ssbob

ajcurry123 wrote: »

thanks ssbob, I have 64 & 54 degree, was thinking 48 degree might be better, would you still go with 52 degree?

Well in my bag I have:

60(LW)
56(SW)
52(Gap)
48(PW)

TBH i don't think us high handicappers should have anything above 56 degrees in our bag! So hard to hit the LW good.

PARlance

kincsem wrote: »

Try a few rounds of pitch & putt (not par 3) with a medium loft wedge and a putter. This would waken up your short game. I know you want to hit the big shots with the driver but you need to practice the score/making/saving clubs too.

On most courses you should be able to get within fifty yards of the green in regulation. A pitch to the centre of the green and two putts would see you pick up a lot of bogeys (+1). Eighteen bogeys is a 90. If you duff a drive or approach shot a wedge shot up the fairway will get you back on track.

Thanks kincsem, seems so easy when its put like that, and that's the frame of mind I'm getting into.
Re wanting to hit the big shots, I'm actually taking the month off from going to driving range and hitting the big boys. I was down west, Mayo, over the weekend and no P&P close by but managed to get 2 rounds in on Balla Par 3 course. Lovely little course. I also went up to the driving range, only brought 7iron-54degree just in case I was tempted to take out the driver.

PARlance

Well, got quite a bit of golf in over the last week.

Played 16 holes in Castleknock, really enjoyed it, course was probably most demanding I've played so far. Struggled a bit at the start but managed to get my head around not knowing the layout after a few holes. Constant checking of map was required

Ended up scoring 24 off 21 (self imposed handicap), which I'll take (only played 16 holes), plenty of room for improvement and a lack of concentration left a lot of points on the course.
Got my first birdie of my short golfing career too on the Par 4 5th...that'll keep me going for a while.

Also played 2 rounds of Par 3 in Balla GC in Mayo over weekend.
First round wasn't great (level of alcohol in system getting the blame) scoring 79, however, went out again the next day and wasn't quite as hungover and scored 72. Happy enough with that, I'm being pushed on by the fact that I can see a relatively easy improvement of 5-6 shots coming, just need to keep the head a bit more.

Playing Westmanstown tonight so looking forward to that.... Am fairly clocking up the hours at this stage... Time well spent

Going to do best to get into double figures for the first time tonight, if you don't hear from me, I didn't

jj72

ajcurry123 wrote: »

I was down west, Mayo, over the weekend and no P&P close by but managed to get 2 rounds in on Balla Par 3 course. Lovely little course. .

Glad to here you enjoyed it,
Yours truly has the course record there!!

veetwin

Yeah let us know how w'town treated you..It's my home course!!

PARlance

jj72 wrote: »

Glad to here you enjoyed it,
Yours truly has the course record there!!

Nice1 JJ72, are you from around that neck of the woods?
How many shots do I need to drop from my 72 to get your record? I'd say at least 5

PARlance

veetwin wrote: »

Yeah let us know how w'town treated you..It's my home course!!

Hey Veetwin,
I loved it out there!
I may be a bit biased though as I broke 100 for the first time ever, and I broke it well, went around in 95 strokes.
Got of to a great start with a birdie (1st) and 3 pars in the first 7 holes.
Blew up on a few holes, have to get rid off those bloody 7's and 8's from the card. (Especially on Par 3's... was nearly down an 8 iron)
Apart from blowing up on about 4 holes, I had a great round by my standards. 1 Birdie, 5 Pars, 5 Bogeys...

Course was in good nick I thought, thought I was going mad at one stage, until playing partner agreed, that some of the greens (2 anyway) played an awful lot slower than the others. Have you found this? (the 3rd was first one we noticed)

Figo69

Great little blog there...great to see some honesty in this forum instead of the usually bull****.

If there one tip that a mate of mine learnt, when in doubt of your wedges from 80yards inward, use a longer iron , choke down and go for a chip and run or even use a hybrid.

Once you can mastered the chip and run from all angles, you will indeed no doubt will break 90 soon.

Keep up the good work.:):):)

PARlance

Figo69 wrote: »

Great little blog there...great to see some honesty in this forum instead of the usually bull****.

If there one tip that a mate of mine learnt, when in doubt of your wedges from 80yards inward, use a longer iron , choke down and go for a chip and run or even use a hybrid.

Once you can mastered the chip and run from all angles, you will indeed no doubt will break 90 soon.

Keep up the good work.:):):)

Thanks Figo, did quite a bit of that today and it worked well... I was out by myself in stepaside public course a few weeks ago and an elderly man asked if he could join me...hesitant at first, I said, sure why not... He gave me a few tips that day and the chip and run was the one he said was the one to remember!

I'll be honest and say that when he first showed me it, I said to myself, "yip that's grand for an old timer but I'm not a chip n run player(or didn't want to be)"... I suppose it just wasn't a "sexy" enough shot... Anyway, I'm a convert now, I saved quite a few shots today with it. Looking back on it, that old man probably saved me a few quid on a lesson that day too.

Kinda a bit shook by the 95 today, I thought I'd struggle to get a sub 100 by the end of this month...having fun updating this... might lay off the golf for a while and prolong the 90

Pretty sure I've just jinxed myself

jj72

ajcurry123 wrote: »

Nice1 JJ72, are you from around that neck of the woods?
How many shots do I need to drop from my 72 to get your record? I'd say at least 5

Nice work breaking the 100... 90s only around the corner. Ya from that area surely. Take 23 shots off and you can hang your card up beside mine

veetwin

ajcurry123 wrote: »

Hey Veetwin,
I loved it out there!
I may be a bit biased though as I broke 100 for the first time ever, and I broke it well, went around in 95 strokes.
Got of to a great start with a birdie (1st) and 3 pars in the first 7 holes.
Blew up on a few holes, have to get rid off those bloody 7's and 8's from the card. (Especially on Par 3's... was nearly down an 8 iron)
Apart from blowing up on about 4 holes, I had a great round by my standards. 1 Birdie, 5 Pars, 5 Bogeys...

Course was in good nick I thought, thought I was going mad at one stage, until playing partner agreed, that some of the greens (2 anyway) played an awful lot slower than the others. Have you found this? (the 3rd was first one we noticed)

If your getiing that many pars and bogeys in a round it won't be long till you're shooting in the mid 80's. As you say getting rid of 7's and 8's is the key.

Have to say I haven't noticed any big difference in the speeds of greens but thats probably because I'm so used to them. The greens there took an awful battering in the frost and are only really recovered in the past 6-8 weeks.

PARlance

jj72 wrote: »

Nice work breaking the 100... 90s only around the corner. Ya from that area surely. Take 23 shots off and you can hang your card up beside mine

I'd say we're close enough neighbours so, from Breaffy and used to play a bit of ball for Manulla yonks ago! I'll get to work on those 23 shots so:) I'll come back to you in a few years when I'm half way.

The course is in a nice condition at the moment. A great way to spend a few hours at the weekend when I'm down from the big smoke.

PARlance

veetwin wrote: »

If your getiing that many pars and bogeys in a round it won't be long till you're shooting in the mid 80's. As you say getting rid of 7's and 8's is the key.

Have to say I haven't noticed any big difference in the speeds of greens but thats probably because I'm so used to them. The greens there took an awful battering in the frost and are only really recovered in the past 6-8 weeks.

On reflection Veetwin, I probably got a bit of I'm playing well so can use a decent golfers excuse syndrome. Will be out again over the next few weeks for sure.

PARlance

Well,

It's taken me a day to post this, depressed as hell after hitting the driving range yesterday morn.

I had been doing well in avoiding going to the driving range... Was only meant to work on short game for June. Did two quick round off P&P at weekend and a good hour on the putting green. However, I'm blaming Rory for me cracking, I just couldn't resist the urge to go up a smash a few.

I couldn't hit a football as its turns out, it was my most frustrating time playing golf in a long long time.

I had been watching Rory for the four days, then straight onto youtube for about 20 different lessons and decided I needed to change my swing...I mean how else could I win a US Open

The one positive I can take for it is that I've been able to see, for the first time, a fault in my swing (Up until now I've been taking advice from others)
I found out that on my back swing, I'm moving way too far off center(to the right) and my right leg is also locking.

I find myself in two minds...do I continue as is (and maybe save changing swing to winter time up at range) or do I bit the bullet now. Although I was playing with a "bad swing"... I had been improving over the last few weeks.
When I went back to my old swing for the last few range balls, I was hitting it fairly decent again.

Would be interested to know what peoples take on changing swing is. Do you: try to fix as soon as you find out?
wait until season is over (or when you'll be playing less frequently) and "fix" at the range? or
just carry on as normal, forgetting about changes, happy with the way you're playing at present?