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Ultimate Golf Improvement Guide

Are you ready to start seeing improvements in your golf game? A lot of people got into golf during the pandemic because it was a safe, healthy way to get outside and establish a little normalcy. 

Little did they know that golf quickly becomes a hobby, then an addiction! Lowering your score quickly becomes a very important aspect of your life. If your progress has halted a little bit, you're in the right place. 

We're going to look at some tips for better golf in this article, giving you some beginner's direction. We'll also talk about the value of golf lessons. We hope the ideas below send you in the direction of birdies, eagles, and albatrosses!

Let's get started. 

Improving Your Golf Game

You can't move forward until you know where you stand. That means that the first thing you should do is to establish your handicap or get a general idea of your "average" score. 

Even if you don't have all of your old scorecards laying around, you can still get a pretty healthy estimation. It's also important that you don't lie to yourself when you tell yourself your average score. 

If you shot 91 once but you typically shoot a 105, then make your average something in the low 100s. As you go through your next few rounds, write down the areas of your game that are costing you the most strokes. 

Just keep a small notepad on hand and jot down anything notable when you write your score. These notes might seem trivial, but you'd be surprised by the trends you notice when you take the time to write things down. These notes just keep your expectations right where they should be. 

If you see that you've hit three balls into the water on a particular hole in the last month, for example, your notes will knock you down a peg so you remember to avoid the pond. Without your notes, you might try the hero shot that you usually take, costing you a penalty stroke when it goes out of bounds. 

Know Your Distances

Another massive aspect of improvement is understanding your distances. Golf is a game of precision, and understanding how far you hit with each club is of the utmost importance.

To find these numbers, you might need to invest in a rangefinder. You can also go to the driving range and get pretty accurate estimations of how far you hit. It's wise to find your carry distance as well as the total distance with the roll-out. 

You can swing confidently when you know these numbers. You don't have to wind up 15 yards short of the green or worry that your 9 iron will shoot over the pin into the water. Knowing your distances might knock four or five strokes off of your game right away. 

Plot Your Course

What's the difference between a score of 105 and a score of 85? 

In most cases, it's intelligent course management. Play the course in a way that suits your game rather than falling for the tricks of the course designer. Know your distances and make a plan for yourself. 

Find a way to reach the green in few enough strokes to allow two puts for par. This is called hitting the "green in regulation." So, for a par 5, you'd need to reach the green in three strokes. 

On a normal day, you might walk up to the par 5, pull out your driver, then smash a heavy slice that curves more than 200 feet, landing in the trees. YOu then try to play a Tiger Woods-esque cut out of the trees, looping around the hazards to land on the green. 

Instead, you just poke your ball directly into another tree and it scuttles into the fairway. You're on your third shot and you're only 170 yards into a 500-yard hole. 

The Alternative Option

Instead of habitually reaching for the driver, think for a second. You need to reach the green in three shots. You can break 500 into rough thirds, leaving you with about three 160-yard shots. 

Maybe the 6 iron is your 160-yard club. Try hitting the 6-iron three times and see what happens. 

Planning to Your Ability

You can use that logic on every hole. In addition, you can plot your course in ways that avoid hazards and set yourself up for easier shots than you'd have if you were pin hunting with every shot. 

Further, reaching the "green-in-regulation" doesn't always have to mean the same thing for everyone. For example, someone looking to break 90 needs to get a bogey on every hole. If they get one par on the whole course, they'll break 90 if the rest are bogeys. 

If that's you, plan to reach the green in regulation but add an extra stroke. Add one stroke to each hole, and call that par. Then, plan accordingly. 

Your par 3's become par 4's, par 4's become par 5's, and so on. 

Get Golf Lessons

There's a lot of learning you can do on your own. You can learn to play the game, keep a level head, and practice course management by yourself. 

When it comes to swing mechanics and the finer points of the game, though, the reality is that you need lessons. Lessons with a golf pro might revolutionize your game in ways that you haven't imagined. 

There could be tiny aspects of your swing causing massive damage to your score. Further, there might be general ideas and aspects of the game that you haven't considered before. For example, a beginner golfer might not know what the "bounce" of the club is and how that impacts the trajectory of the ball. 

A pro can also make various suggestions on equipment, practice regimens, and so much more. 

Need More Golf Tips? 

We hope our look at golf improvement ideas was useful to you. There's more to learn about golf lessons, practicing, and improving your game. We're here to help with more ideas. 

Explore our site for insights into the game of golf, lessons, practice, and more. 

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