Biggest Strategy Mistakes In Golf
We've analyzed millions of golf shots, courtesy of Shot Scope, to identify the key strategic blunders made by amateur golfers. In this exclusive feature, we dive into the data to show you where you're going wrong and provide actionable advice to improve your course management and decision-making on every hole.
Video Transcript
Hello, everyone.
Neil Tappin here from Golf Monthly, and welcome to the London Club, where today we're looking at the seven biggest strategy mistakes that golfers make.
Now, the information we've got for you in this video comes courtesy of the guys at Shot Scope.
Shot Scope have a unit called the V2, which consists of a GPS watch that I've got on my wrist here, that gives you all the distances you'll need while you're out on the golf course, plus a load of, tags that you can put into the butt end of your golf clubs that allows you to track all the shots you hit during a round of golf.
Now, Shot Scope have aggregated all of their data from all of their users, to provide us with some really interesting findings.
And in particular in this video, we're gonna focus on some of those really simple mistakes that you might be making that could save you shots going forward.
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Where do you think you're throwing away shots?
How do you think you could improve?
We'd be really interested to hear your thoughts.
But let's head out now onto the golf course here at the London Club and look at the seven biggest strategy mistakes that golfers are making.
80% of missed greens are missed short, so 47% are short right and 33% are short left.
And if you fall into the category of missing short of pin high more than you think you should, then there are a few different things to consider within your own game.
The first is how consistent is your ball-striking?
Now, it will depend on your handicap.
As you improve, your ball striking, of course, gets better.
But if you feel like your ball striking isn't quite at the level that your handicap is, it can be a really quick and easy way to improve.
There are a whole host of free online tutorials out there that will help you strike the ball better, will help you catch the ball, and then turf, and that sort of really powerful strike through impact that could make a big difference.
The next point relates to your equipment.
Is your equipment forgiving those slight heel and toe strikes that might be call- causing you to come up short of the green?
If the answer to that is, "Mm, I'm not sure," then perhaps a more forgiving modern set of irons might just help you out.
And thirdly, how far do you hit each club in the bag?
Obviously, this is where performance tracking technology like the Shot Scope V2 can prove really handy.
Finding out how far you hit the golf ball on the course when you're faced with different lies and different weather conditions and you're under pressure is really useful, and it can be very different to how far you hit the ball on the range hitting shot after shot from the perfect lie.
The other thing is it's also worth finding out how far you carry each club in the bag because the, your total distance will largely depend on ground conditions, whereas knowing your average carry yardages will make a big difference to knowing what club you should hit in what situation.
So for instance, this is the third hole here at the London Club.
We have water short left.
You really don't want to be coming up short.
The pin is sort of just beyond halfway up the green.
The front of the green is 127, middle of the green is 142.
So you really need to make sure that whatever you do on this hole, you pick a club that you know carries past 127.
And if all you know is that you hit your 9-iron around about 135 yards, well, you don't know whether you carry your 9-iron over 127 yards.
So it's something to think about.
So if that, if you fall into that category, do some work, on, on the range in practice.
Find out how far you carry each club in the bag, and use those as your go-to numbers going forward.
It could make a really big difference to your game.
Right, so the next one on my list relates to which club you should be using off the tee.
And what you're looking at here are the average distances players are able to achieve with their driver versus their 3-wood.
And usually, players are giving up around about 30 yards between driver and 3-wood, which is roughly what we would expect.
What we didn't expect to see, however, was that players were o- off the tee using a 3-wood were only 1% more accurate.
Now, that's something that's well worth considering c- because, and it's something that we've said in some of our videos in the past, fairway woods are the hardest golf clubs in the bag to get right.
Obviously, small head, long shaft.
You're standing a long way away from it.
You've got to hit the ball a long way, so you've got to make a big, full athletic swing.
Fairway woods are hard to get right, and it is difficult to find something that you can really rely on so that you end up using it well when you need to most, when you're competing out on the golf course under pressure.
So there are a couple of things to consider here.
Firstly, is your fairway wood a golf club that you really can rely on?
If it is, then fine, keep it in the bag.
If it's not, then perhaps you go down a d- different route.
Perhaps you leave the 3-wood behind, carry a 5-wood.
Use something that doesn't quite go as far, but that you do feel confident using and confident using under pressure.
And the other point about the data that we've seen here is that if you're gonna not go for driver in order to use something that you know can hit, you can hit straight, then make sure that you take a club that you do know you can hit straight.
So you would expect to be far more accurate with your fairway wood off the tee than just 1% over your driver.
Guys, there's real food for thought there in terms of your strategy off the tee.
What do you do when there are bunkers in play, like there are here, when there's trouble up there that you need to avoid?
Do you go with, do you just stick with hitting driver and take your chances, or do you try and hit the fairway with a more of a safety option?
If you go for the latter, make sure that you choose something that you are gonna hit the fairway with more often.
And for the majority of people out there, it might not be their fairway wood.
Okay, so the next point relates to how aggressive your strategy is when playing into the greens.
And what we're gonna do here is we're gonna take a look at the number of birdies players are making on average versus the number of double bogeys players are making on average, and we're gonna split the numbers up based on different handicap categories.
So what you're looking at here- Is the average number of birdies per round.
So for category one player, two birdies per round.
Category two, it's roughly one birdie per round.
And then once you get above a handicap of about 12, really golfers are not making very many birdies at all.
But conversely, take a look at the double bogey numbers.
So handic- handicap zero to five, roughly making one double bogey per round.
Category two golfers are making two double bogeys per round.
And then above category two, again, the double bogey numbers really increase very quickly again.
So the point here, for a lot of players, the fastest way to improve is not to make more birdies, but to make fewer double bogeys.
And in the situation that I'm in here, this is a real, a really good highlight of exactly where players go wrong.
So the flag here on the 18th green on the Heritage Course at The London Club is perched way over on the right-hand side.
It's a real sucker pin.
And by going for it, you really are bringing bogeys and double bogeys into play, no matter what your handicap.
And I think for a lot of golfers out there, especially higher handicap players, it is worth thinking about playing golf to the center of the green more often.
So what I would suggest to, to you to do is next time you go and play golf, try and play to the center of every single green.
Whenever you're faced with a, an, an approach shot to the green, doesn't matter if you've got 100 yards or 200 yards in, aim for a point on the middle of the green.
That's where the GPS watch comes in really handy.
It gives you yardages to the very center of every green.
Work to those yardages, try and hit the middle of every green, and then take a look at your scoring averages.
Take a look and see what's happening to your birdie percentages versus your bogey and double bogey percentages.
Because I think that for a lot of players, taking the flag completely out of their mindset might improve all of those numbers.
It might help them make more birdies, but it will definitely help them keep bogeys and double bogeys off the card more often.
So in this situation, really I would need to be avoiding that flag on the right-hand side, aiming for the middle of the green, trying to make par, taking double bogey certainly out of play entirely.
Right, let's give it a go.
Well, my miss is definitely a miss to the right.
I've aimed for the center of the green.
I pushed it a fraction, but I'm still left of the flag.
I'm definitely not in any bother, and it's that sort of thinking that can really save your shots out on the golf course.
82% of putts hit from outside five feet are left short.
It's an incredible stat from the Shot Scope data that we've been given, and it is based on what people are doing whilst they're competing for real, and it's something well worth thinking about in your own game.
Now, Dave Pelz did a bit of research a few years ago that said that the ideal pace at which you should be hitting your putts is to get the ball rolling about 18 inches past the hole.
That's where I've got the tee peg here.
That means the ball will be rolling fast enough to roll over any imperfections on the green without being bumped off line, without going too fast and putting you in danger of three-putting or lipping out if you hit the putt on a good line.
So pace control is a really crucial factor when it comes to, your success on the greens.
Now, there are a whole host of really great drills that you can do, to hone your putting, speed.
So placing, tees around the hole in a box to make sure that you get that ball rolling just past the hole.
The more work you can do on your speed control, the more likely you will be to putt the ball just past the hole.
And if you can do that more often, chances are you might just hole a few more putts.
It's often said that when it comes to pitching, you're better off leaving yourself a little bit further back so that you can make a full swing.
The idea being that if you make a full swing, you can make a more committed swing, and the results ultimately will be slightly better.
But the Shot Scope data doesn't actually back this theory up.
What you're looking at here is the average proximity to the hole data for shots hit from 50 yards versus shots hit from 80 yards, and both from the fairway and the rough.
Players are hitting the ball closer to the hole from closer to the green.
It's something well worth thinking about in your own game.
If you've always tended to lay up to a further yardage, well, perhaps just consider it.
Perhaps keep some stats of your own to find out if you are hitting it closer from further away, 'cause it might be that you aren't.
And if you aren't, then a little bit more of an aggressive strategy off the tee or from the fair- fairway with your layup shot might pay off, might pay dividends.
So the shot that I've got here, this is just around about the 62-yard mark.
This would be a fiddly shot for me, but perhaps I'm better off hitting a shot from here than I am from 30 yards further back.
Let's give it a go.
Little bit long, but I'll take it.
Should you be carrying hybrids or long irons at the top end of your bag?
It's a question that every golfer needs to ask themselves.
And as far as the Shot Scope data goes, it's fairly inconclusive for lower handicappers.
So for category one and category two golfers, it really does depend on the individual and the individual's game.
But as the handicaps increase, so hybrids tend to be far more successful.
And I'd say the cutoff point seems to be around about the handicap of a 13 mark.
Golfers with handicaps of 13 and over tend to be more successful with hybrids.
For a 20 handicapper facing the sort of shot that I'm facing here of around about 180 to 200 yards, a 20 handicapper is almost twice as likely to hit the green with a hybrid- as they are with a long iron.
It really is food for thought, and I'm sure it's something that a lot of you out there have considered and thought about in your game.
If you are a high handicapper carrying long irons, just be wary.
Think about it.
Keep some stats of your own.
Find out how successful you are from further out from the green.
If you find out that you're coming up short a lot, a lot of the time from further out with your longer irons, perhaps it's worth swapping out your three and four irons for hybrids instead.
And finally, are you more likely to miss right or left off the tee?
It's really invaluable information to know.
So, the Shot Scope data reveals that for the majority of golfers out there, they are more likely to miss right.
It's 58% right versus 42% left.
And it's really about knowing your game and understanding your shot patterns, understanding where you are most likely to miss.
Now, the best players in the world, they don't always hit great shots, but what they do understand is where not to miss, and they understand what they're most likely to do.
You could bring that into your game.
So a hole like this, this is the 10th hole here on the Heritage course of the London Club, you cannot go left off the tee.
And if you are a player that is more likely to miss left, you can build your strategy based on that knowledge.
You can say to yourself, "Okay, the mistake I'm not gonna make is I'm not gonna snap and hook one into the water.
That's where the card-wrecking sco- score comes from.
For me, that water on the left here is a huge danger."
Whereas if you're somebody that misses more often to the right, you'll know that that water on the left-hand side is not such a big danger, and you can take a more aggressive strategy.
I know that in my game, I'm much more likely to miss right than I am to miss left, so I'm confident and happy with driver.
That's what I'm gonna hit here.
And having a simple strategy based on what you are most likely to do can really help your game.
It's about managing your misses and going from there.
It can make a huge difference.
As predicted, I've missed it slightly to the right-hand side, but I'm fine.
I'm in play, and I can attack the green from there.
So there you have it.
Those are the seven biggest strategy mistakes that golfers make, based on the Shot Scope data, and there are some really fascinating insights in there.
I don't think it matters whether you're a category one player or if you're just starting out on your golfing journey.
There are some really simple findings in there that could help give you some guidance on the best and quickest way to possibly improve your game.
Guys, please do leave comments below.
Is there anything that you want clarification on?
Is there any more information you want from the stats?
We'd be more than happy to help out wherever we can.
Please also hit the like button if you like the video.
But for now, from the London Club, it's goodbye.
