There are a lot of strategies for lowering your score from hitting the range more frequently to practicing your short game more frequently. That’s good advice that will improve your score over time. What often gets overlooked is that practicing better course management is a great way to lower your score. As a bonus, it can do it practically overnight.
The difference between a good golfer and a great one is how they approach the course itself and adjust their game based on what they see. This is the essence of course management and is what you need to take your game to the next level.
In this article, we will go over several strategies the best golfers use to use the course to their advantage.
1 – Know your distances
Proper club selection is essential if you want to improve your score or just be a better golfer in general. This requires an accurate assessment of what distances you are facing. Knowing how far you are from a bunker is going to help you immensely and maybe even more than knowing the distance to the hole.
High-quality laser rangefinders are cheaper than ever so picking one up for your next outing is going to help you manage the course according to distance very well. Not needing to guess is going to take at least a couple of strokes off of your score right away.
As you make better decisions with club selection then over time those few strokes will end up being a lot more just because you weren’t picking the right clubs.
2 – Understand your bad shots
Everybody has a certain shot that they have yet to master. Knowing your poor shots will help you come up with a strategy based on your course management skills. If you understand that your poor shot is likely to put you in the woods on a particular hole, then try a different shot that may not get you many yards, but puts you in a position to play the shot better.
Also, if you know your position is bad and you struggle with a certain shot because of it, then make sure that you take advantage of some good lies in the holes leading up to it. If you can shave a few strokes where you can, then this is going to make up for the ones you are going to add according to your poor shot.
3 – Work backward
Having a game plan from the green back to the box is going to help you visualize your hole much better. Knowing what you want to accomplish at the green will help you plan your approach much more effectively.
Selecting the driver based on the par of the hole is what most golfers do. The best ones choose their driver, and subsequent clubs, based on what the fairway is presenting them. You need a strategy from the beginning and not as you reach the ball for the next shot.