How to Turn Every 50/50 Golf Shot Into An 80/20 Win
Kit Alexander is joined by Top 50 coach Adam Harnett to run through shots where success and failure comes down to a coin flip and shows you how to flip the odds in your favor.
Video Transcript
Imagine you're stood over any shot on a golf course, and I tell you the chances of success versus failure, well, it's just a coin flip.
That is the reality for so many scenarios, because Shot Scope data tells us a lot of them are just 50/50 whether you hit a good shot or a bad one.
Well, we're here to flip those odds in your favor.
I've come down to Blackmore Golf Club, and top 50 coach Adam Harnett is gonna identify those shots and tell us how we can improve our chances.
Keep watching to lower your scores.
The first of our coin flip situations that Shot Scope is telling us is 50/50 is single figure golfers hitting the fairway with a driver or three wood.
Adam, perhaps a little surprising that single figure golfers, so pretty good players generally, technically speaking, are only hitting the fairway 50% of the time.
Why is that?
And what can they do to improve those odds, stack it in their favor?
The way I would always think about it is with the whole layout, if I'm trying to lay up short of a dogleg- Mm-hmm or I've got bunkers, fairway bunkers that are in play with driver, then I might think about three wood.
Mm-hmm.
If there's nothing like that and I can fly the fairway bunkers with my driver and there's no dogleg and no problem with total distance- Mm-hmm I'd definitely be pulling driver.
One thing, we've got the GPS here with the Shot Scope.
You've got the watch on- Yeah as well.
You need to be informed, don't you, on the tee?
When there is danger out there, like we've got two fairway bunkers here, if there's water in play, anything like that, you have to know where that is, A, to avoid it, but also to stand on the tee with a bit of confidence knowing that, okay, this is gonna cover that or it's not going to run into it, don't you?
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think, you know, the way that we should think about doing this is how we practice.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
So I like to give my players practice games.
And when they're away from me from their lessons, I kind of wanna know what they're doing.
So a great practice game for this is, is a goalpost game.
Mm-hmm.
All right?
So when they're on, even if they're on the golf course, but mostly when they're on the driving range, pick two targets.
So you might, it might be, flags on the driving range.
It might be trees in the distance.
Think about those as goalposts, and record how many drivers do we hit.
14 in a round for, for m- for most, I would say.
So try and hit through those goalposts and record your scores.
Mm-hmm.
So you're replicating basically what you face here out on the course.
You're giving yourself a fairway to aim at on the range, and therefore there's consequences to the shot as well.
And there you'll be able to see any trends you develop, like if I'm missing more to the right, more to the left.
If there's certain big misses that might punish you, you can then target those in your practice and your technique improvement, and also build that into your strategy on the course.
Absolutely.
I think knowing your shot shape is so key.
And by, yeah, practicing that and, and learning your dispersion, you know, that's a huge topic in golf.
And, yeah, we should definitely pay attention to that.
Okay, Adam.
Yeah.
Let's see it in action.
Let's see you hit the fairway.
You know where the bunkers are.
Yeah.
You know that's the right club.
Let's get one in the short stuff.
In the short stuff.
Chance to attack with your second shot.
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Our next scenario is that the average scratch golfer will hit the green between 100 and 150 yards 50% of the time.
Now, they are two somewhat different shots.
From 150, which is where we are right now, and 100 yards.
But starting at the longer end of that spectrum, Adam, what does a scratch golfer, or any golfer really, want to be focusing on from here to make sure they're putting for birdie with their next shot?
One of the biggest reasons is being too, direct at the flag, being too aggressive.
Okay?
It's easy to look at the flag and go for it, particularly as a scratch golfer 'cause they're good players.
Okay, now, so knowing your dispersion and knowing your miss is super important here.
So for me, I know my miss is left, so I can't ever aim really at a left flag from this distance.
Because if I miss left, I'm shortsighted, and being shortsighted i- is the absolute worst thing.
I don't mind missing the green with lots of green to work with, but I don't wanna be shortsighted from here.
Mm-hmm.
If you are playing safe and going towards the middle of the green a little bit, what sort of margin are you looking to aim away from the flag to the safe side?
I suppose it depends a little bit on the individual.
Jack Nicklaus once said, "Never aim somewhere where a straight shot will hurt you."
Mm-hmm.
So we've gotta be careful we're not aiming at a bunker or we're not aiming too far off the green, if you like.
Mm-hmm.
but enough margin so that our shot shape is gonna allow us to miss, and our miss move towards the flag and not away from it.
Mm-hmm.
Now, if we get a little bit closer down towards 100 yards, 110, we're there, we are wanting to attack from that position really, because those are the opportunities you want to walk off with birdie or at least a very good look.
Now, I've got a couple of wedges here.
I've got your 56 and your 50.
We're looking at about 100 yards.
Yep.
Which one are you reaching for and why?
Well, I could definitely hit my 56 100 yards, but it would be a full swing.
Mm-hmm.
And with a full fast swing, spin becomes a problem.
It's very easy to create too much spin, for the ball to slide up the face, and actually for us to come up short, particularly if there's a bit of wind around.
Mm-hmm.
So spin control from 100 yards for a scratch golfer is really important.
So I'd be going down to my, my gap wedge, my 50 there, and I'd be looking to try and take off maybe a little bit of the swing so that it's a bit more of a three-quarter swing to try and reduce the spin and be way more accurate with my distance control.
Brilliant.
Well, you've talked the talk.
I'm gonna give you back your iron now, and we're gonna see you hit this green and set up a birdie chance.
Okay.
That is 100% a green found.
So just remember, if you're out at the sort of 150-yard mark, don't go chasing those pins.
Give yourself a little bit of margin for error.
And when it comes to attacking with a wedge from 100 to 110 sort of yards, maybe club up a little bit, reduce that spin so you can really control that shot and set up a makeable birdie chance.
Now for the dreaded and all-too-common miss short.
From here, at 100 yards, the typical 25 handicapper will miss half of their shots short.
Go out to 150 yards, and that stat rings true for a 20 handicapper.
So it's clear, Adam, way too many golfers coming up short from these kind of positions.
Why is that happening, and what can we do to make sure we are getting it on the green?
Yeah.
I mean, a lot of golfers, you know, knowing your yardages is so important, as we know, and that's why we use these watches, that's why we use our GPS on the course to really understand our yardages.
What we can do on the golf course, I like to give my golfers a practice game, a game that they can use a scorecard for and record their score and see how they're doing with this miss short.
And the way that we would do this is from 100 yards, if you hit the green, you're gonna give yourself a par on the card.
If you miss the green short, you're gonna give yourself a bogey on the card.
And if you hit on the green and pass the flag, that's gonna be the birdie.
That's the one we're looking for.
Brilliant stuff.
We've got an LM1 launch monitor down there as well.
Of course, you can use it when you're out on the course, when you're practicing as well.
So important to know your yardages, and not just what your country Sunday best is when it comes out of the screws, but your actual average, so you can build that into the club selection.
Correct.
Yeah.
and just making sure, I, I think one thing from 100 yards is every golfer should have a club that they know is their 100-yard club.
Mm-hmm.
And if we've got that, then we can work up and down from it, and I think that's a really nice reference point for most people.
Brilliant stuff.
I absolutely love that game.
I use it myself.
And we're gonna rate you.
Okay.
No pressure.
All right.
One shot.
Is he going past the flag for that birdie on the card?
Ooh, a bit of backspin.
Oh, it's just short.
Bit of backspin on it.
There's a little bit of wind up there, but we'll give you that.
It was a great shot anyway, so there you go.
Make sure you're taking enough club by knowing your yardages and how far it is to the pin, and use that helpful game when you're out on the course.
It will really help change your mindset.
The average 10-handicap golfer is only hitting the green from this sort of range, 75 to 100 yards, 50% of the time.
Right, Adam, that doesn't feel like a very high number to me.
Let's flip this in our favor.
What are we doing here with a wedge in hand to make sure we know how to hit that green and do it every time?
Those stats definitely can be improved if golfers have a nice idea and some structure with their distances within this yardage.
Mm-hmm.
Okay?
So you'll see a lot of this from the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, likes to use a clock face method.
So we're talking about maybe a 9:00 position here with the left arm, a 10:00, 10:30, and then more of an 11:00 position.
So we're kind of going anywhere from a, a half swing to a not quite full swing.
Mm-hmm.
We don't really wanna have big full swings from this distance.
Very hard to control spin.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Hogan once said, "Find me a man that hits his wedges full, and I wanna play him for money."
And I think that probably says it all.
So therefore, you're just building up your matrix, aren't you?
You work out how far you hit it with each of those swings.
Absolutely.
If you carry in two or three wedges as well, it will be a bit different with each of those, and then you get a nice bit of gapping, and it's about understanding how to apply that on the course.
Absolutely.
I remember when I was a county golfer as a kid, we built exactly that, a matrix on a piece of paper, and we had different clubs.
We even had different grip heights that we would hold the club on.
Mm-hmm.
And we'd have lots of different yardages with different trajectories.
So if you can build that, you only really need a few- Mm-hmm you know?
And then you can really start to get some nice benchmarks.
Yeah, something that the PGA champion Aaron Rai does with every club through his bag, has those dif- three different grip positions, three different swing lengths, and that gives him a whole load of different yardages and shots he can hit with each one.
Right, you've told us about it.
Okay.
Let's see how good your matrix is from those county days, Adam.
Come on.
Okay.
So this is about 70 yards.
Let's give it a go.
Oh, that's on the money for distance for me.
The matrix still works.
There you go.
Do what Adam does.
Have those three different swing lengths.
Try some different grip lengths as well.
Work out exactly how far it goes on average for each one of those, and then you'll be able to hit a lot of different yardages in this all-important 75 to 100 yard scoring zone.
We've moved to the green for our final scenario, and it is that golfers who have handicaps in the 20s miss 50% of their putts from three to six feet.
Adam, you've set up a brilliant little drill here to help golfers of all standards improve in this area.
Yeah.
This drill is, in, in fact, one of David Howell's favorite drills.
And if you know, know, David Howell was one of the best putters of all time, and he liked to do this north, south, east, west drill.
So effectively, we're putting a ball on, four balls around the hole, north, south, east, and west, from three foot, four foot, five foot, and six foot.
So the aim of the game is to hole each ball- Mm-hmm and then move back a foot.
Hole every ball, move back a foot, and so on.
You can either do this game as, I would call it, as a scorecard game- Yeah where you, where you putt all of the balls and record how many you score, or you can do it as what I would call a completion game- Mm-hmm which means if you miss one, you go back to the beginning again.
So it adds that bit of pressure as if you were on the golf course.
If you're doing that completion game, you wanna set a few hours aside for this- I would imagine, if you're a, certainly a golfer in their 20s handicap.
The other good thing about this, because we're all the way around the hole, almost without even knowing it, you're picking up a little bit on green reading and how much putts are breaking with certain slope and at certain pace from certain lengths as well, aren't you?
So there's more to this than just the simply holing out.
Absolutely.
And I would advise anyone that does this game, go through your normal routine.
Yeah.
So don't just stand there and hit the putt.
If you use a line on your ball, line it up, make your practice stroke, and go through your whole routine to make it as real as possible, as if you were on the golf course.
Okay.
Let's see you hit a few, at least those four just from this first part of the compass.
Beautiful.
This is actually something I really like to do just as a warmup before I play as well, just to build the confidence of- Absolutely holing putts.
If you start really close, almost at one that you can't physically miss, and then work a bit further away, as you get further from the hole, the putts don't feel like they're getting massively more difficult at these kind of increments.
But you'll be amazed how quickly you get to five, six, seven feet, and you're knocking them in just like that.
Well, yeah, there we go.
First time.
So there you go.
Set up this brilliant drill all around the hole at the compass faces, three, four, five, and six feet.
Remember, count it up so there's consequence, and you will be holing out way more in no time.
So there you have it.
Get rid of the coin flip.
Stack the odds in your favor.
Now, if you follow these wonderful tips, you'll have more chance of finding success on the golf course.
Our thanks to Adam for his incredible insights, tips, and drills, to Shot Scope for the data, and for Blackmore Golf Club for hosting us.
I hope you enjoyed this video, and it shaves shots off your scores.
