Consistent Golf – The Journey From Beginner To Pro

If you ask any golfer what they need to do to get better, they will reply with – “I need to become more consistent”. However, this isn’t helpful for a coach or if you are trying to self-coach. Also this problem of consistency never goes away, golfers at every level of the game are searching to become more consistent.

In this article we’ll cover a better way to frame the consistency issues and what you can expect as you move through your golfing journey from beginner to scratch, and beyond. This is how consistency remains the issue you will battle with throughout your golfing journey.

Reframing Consistency

As golf coaches we need a specific problem to solve, this allows us to analyse impact and work out how you should practice and what may need tweaking in your golf swing. A better way to shape questions about consistency is how can I be more consistent in a spefiic domain. Such as ‘I need to be more consistent in…’

• Where I hit the ball on the club face
• The distance I hit my iron shots
• My start direction on short putts
• …

This allows you as a golfer to starting improving that specific area and more onto the next step in your journey of consistency.

Let’s dive in to the step golfers face.

Beginners

As a beginner golfer, your biggest issue is a consistent strike. You can make contact and hit great golf shots, but why do you thin and fat iron shots? The key here is to find a way to hit the centre of the club face more often and hit the golf ball before the ground. A great set-up and a balanced finish are two quick tips that will help you here.

There are many other factors of inconsistency that you will face. Such as chip shots and putting, but the ability to consistently hit the ball up in the air and generally forward is the biggest problem standing in front of you.

You can spend your time googling best golf clubs for beginners, but I would advise you to grab some used golf clubs and get out there practising, playing and having fun.

Getting down to below 20 handicap

In this step of your golfing journey, you can do it, just not every time. You can hit great drives, crisp iron shots, great chips and hole putts. However, you don’t have the consistency over 18 holes.

Off the tee your misses are often too wild, you still (unfortunately) can fat and thin simple iron shots, and your short game and putting can let you down. You hole putts, but you are by no means deadly inside 6-feet.

The key at this stage is to refine your strike and make your misses less wild. Focus on building a great golf grip and stance, this will help you control your club face angle as you hit the golf ball.

Secondly, invest time into pitching and chipping practice. This will improve your short game, but it will also help you improve your ball striking for your iron shots. Pitching is a great way to learn how to strike great iron shots.

19 to 10 handicap

At this point, you generally can get a golf ball around a course and execute most golf shots well. Your misses are less wild than the category above, but they still need some refinement. You need to keep working on your golf grip and golf posture. Also, take time to learn about ball flight and how changing your swing will affect ball flight.

Short game and putting will need refinement, moving from a high teens to a low teens handicap can be entirely done with better putting and chipping. Aim to build a great putting grip and find some great chipping drills to help you on your way.

This is also the time to re-think your golf course management – how is it best for you to navigate each hole?

This entire stage is about turning those double bogeys into single bogeys and single bogeys into par saves.

Single figures to scratch

I’ve written another article on how to become a scratch golfer – check it out for more info. What follows is the high-level picture. At this stage, your aim is to give yourself a birdie chance on every hole. Not birdie every hole, but plan to have a birdie putt.

Your misses will need to become more refined. Also, track patterns of where you miss fairways and greens. After each round reflect and fit in practice or driving range games to improve your weaknesses and refine misses.

If you can’t hit the ball over 245 yards off the tee, you will find this part of the journey hard, it is still possible, but you need to become excellent in other areas. You can look into your golf fitness, but most times I would recommend finding a great PGA pro to help you build a more effective golf swing to generate more clubhead speed.

Short game and putting become critical, and the easiest way to move from single digits to scratch is to become a great putter – in my opinion.

At this stage you know you are good enough to become scratch and you can card level par or -1 for 9 holes, but you just can’t seem to perform consistently over 18 holes. Double bogeys feel like a card-wrecker.

Scratch to mini-tour pro / +3 handicap

This is the last stage I completed in my golfing journey (to date). How do you move from a scratch to a +3 player? The answer is becoming exceptionally boring to watch. Impressive, but really repetitive. At this stage, you can shoot under par, but you can also shoot 8 over par. Your aim is to shift your game so that you can shoot -7/8 and rarely shoot more than +3.

Your performance aim is to hit lots of fairways and ensure 95% of your tee shots allow you to get to the green – destructive shots are your mortal enemy. From here, hit greens and lots of them, if you have a wedge in hand you need to be dialled in with your distance control and give yourself many putts inside 12 feet.

Course strategy should be tailored to your strengths, and executing on par 5’s is often the difference between tournament wins and top 15. At this stage, your long game dictates how high your scores will be and short game and putting dictates how low your scores can go.

You can hit every shot in the game, but the odd poor shot costs you a bogey, or worse double-bogey and you head back to your golf coach to find out how to become more consistent.

Mini-tour to the European / PGA Tour

At this stage you have the ability to shoot -6 to -8 on a golf course you’ve only played once, but how frequently can you do it? As this score suggests, your game needs to be capable of making 6 or more birdies a round, but it is still bogey avoidance that separates those who excel from those who struggle.

This is where you realise the gulf between a scratch player at your local course and someone who is just about earning a living from playing professionally.

To move from the mini-tours on to the main tour all parts of your game need to be sound, and the spread of your shots (ball dispersion) needs to be compact and consistent. This ensures you make very few bogeys.

To generate 4-6 birdies a round you really require a strength – great distance, exceptional wedge play or being deadly on the greens.

On top of being able to perform on the golf course, you’ll spend half your life on the road spending money you don’t have and will encounter many times that aren’t fun – developing your golf psychology and generally looking after yourself become a golfing foundation.

You have 10 – 15 events a year, and a wild fling at Q school. Most events are 3 to 4 rounds and rarely will you win with a score worse than -10.

If you make it through this stage you deserve your golden ticket to the big leagues.

Tour player to Major champion

I don’t have the audacity to write this section, as I have yet to work long-term with a major champion. However, major golf courses are unbelievably tough. Your long game needs to be incredible just to make the top 10 and if you want to win a Major, you’ll have to hole a few putts too.

One or two loose shots will cost you the prize and you will be heading back to the range seeking to become more consistent.

Summary

As you can see, consistency is always the issue you will face as a golfer. The type of consistency required keeps changing, but the desire to become more consistent will never go away. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and it has helped you prepare for what lies ahead.

Happy golfing – Will @ Golf Insider