The Scoring Equation: Prioritising What Really Matters

If you’ve played golf for any length of time you’ll know how easy it is to go down a black hole of swing changes, investing a load of time and energy just to end up shooting higher scores. Don’t worry you’re not alone, pretty much every golfer at every level experiences this challenge.

This got me thinking about how golfers can avoid this. We all know learning is expensive for the human body and golf is a complex motor skill, but how can we strike a balance that gives us the best possible chance of working hard and seeing that work translate into lower scores?

With this in mind, I wanted to share the following. It is a simple concept that shares the direct line to scoring. The closer you can keep your work to how you score in golf, the higher the probability it will result in lower scores.

The further away you are from this mark (like buying a new driver based on your friend hitting it well) the more likely you are to see your invested time and money resulting in no change to your scoring.

1. Playing Stats

In first place, we have your playing stats. If you keep playing stats and find a way to improve your strokes gained numbers, or basic stats such as hitting more Greens In Regulation (GIR) then you will almost certainly shoot lower scores.

A one-shot improvement in strokes gained equals a one-shot improvement in your scores. It is slightly more challenging to say how much your scores will lower if you increase your greens in regulation by 5%, but it is likely worth a similar amount and you certainly wouldn’t be worse off.

2. Ball Flight

In second place we have making changes to your ball flight. This could be improving the distance you hit shots, refining the curvature (such as reducing a slice), or just working on making your shot pattern more consistent.

If you are directly working on this aspect, without really caring about how you swing the golf club, you’ll likely improve because it directly affects where your golf ball goes and hence affects your playing stats.

3. Impact factors

Working back another step we have your impact factors. These include:

• Centeredness of strike
• Club face angle at impact
• Swing path at impact
• Club head speed at impact
• Angle of attack
• Low point

If you are directly working on one of these, it will make a difference to your ball flight.

Working on your strike and low point control will result in better distance and improved distance control. Working on your swing path and club face control through impact will result in a straighter ball flight. While time working on impact factors doesn’t guarantee lower scores, it is the largest predictor of your ball flight and is next in line for driving lower scores.

Correcting impact factors

I wanted to add a little side note in this section. You could go about this step in two ways. Most golfers try to correct impact factors, such as getting their club face square to their swing path to reduce their slice. This is great and should be worked on.

Reducing variability at impact

However, there is a second concept many golfers miss. This is just making your impact more consistent. If you don’t actively try to change anything, but instead try to make your impact more repeatable, your ball flight will become more consistent and you will improve your scores.

Having a repeatable, ugly, high slice can take you a lot further in golf than many golfers realise.

4. Practice & technical changes

Now the path splits in two: in joint 4th place we have practice and technical changes. This is where most golfers start, but you can see we’re already at a 4th order of separation from scoring.

4. a) Practice

You know I love practice and practice done well will almost certainly result in lower scores, but it must be related to the playing stats that most hold back your scoring (that’s why we built Break X Golf) and practice must be done with a sharp focus on getting the ball closer to your target (skills games).

If you tick these boxes, practice will result in lower scores, but if you neglect the points above you can practice for 10 or 100 hours and not see your scores improve.

4. b) Technical changes

In tied fourth we have making swing changes and the same logic applies. If you make swing changes that are related to the playing stats that are holding you back, and swing changes that clearly improve your ball flight by altering the right impact factors, you will get better.

However, this is not what most golfers do. Trying to work on your arm position at the top of your backswing because ‘it doesn’t look right‘ is one of the best ways to shoot higher scores.

I’m biased, but I feel all golfers will benefit from finding a great pro to help them make logical swing improvements that directly relate to your impact and your ball flight.

Summary

Golf is an art and a science; here I’ve tried to lay out a first principles approach to shooting lower scores. That’s not easy in under 1,000 words, but I hope this framework helps you make better decisions and better use of your time over the coming months and stops you from getting off track.

If you like this approach and want more, check out the Golf Insider Lab. It’s a deep dive into all of these topics and more. I’m investing a lot of time and effort into building it over this winter and beyond, but we’re already starting to see some golfers reach new low handicaps based on the content, tasks and tools.

The Golf Insider Lab is currently under development, and I’m investing many hours into making it the ultimate resource for golfers serious about improvement. While the full price will be £199 once completed, I’m offering early adopters a special opportunity:

Be among the first to access the Golf Insider Lab at an exclusive 50% discount. Use coupon code BIRDIE at checkout to lock in this limited-time offer.

Happy golfing – Will @ Golf Insider