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This Simple Strategy Will Lower Your Scores (I’m Serious)
All you have to do to get most golfers’ attention is say “drop your handicap by __ strokes immediately.” The golf industry has generated billions of dollars for itself by throwing these promises around. Sometimes the products and methods are genuine. Other times they are gimmicks. But I can tell you with certainty that dropping your handicap does not come without altering your habits, having a little discipline, and putting in some work.
I have plenty of ways for all of you to lower your scores; many of them are hiding in plain sight. The problem is most golfers (including myself at times) don’t have the discipline to stick with the plan.
Recently, I sent out this tweet, and it embodies a simple strategy I know can help almost every golfer out there:
If the majority of recreational golfers aimed at the center of every green and played the back yardage, I’d wager a large sum of money that handicaps would drop.
— Jon Sherman (@practicalgolf) May 11, 2019
Perception vs. Reality
In this article, I showed that we don’t have nearly as much control over the golf ball as we think we might. With our irons, in particular, two common issues occur with golfers:
- When they think they hit a particular club 150 yards on average, it’s more like 135-140 yards because of errant strikes on the clubface.
- Golfers choose targets that are far too aggressive, and it puts them in positions on the course that are hard to recover from. A lot of this has to do with a misunderstanding of their dispersion patterns.
It’s not anyone’s fault because most players are not taught how to approach the course with an optimal strategy. I’m going to propose an experiment that I believe will drop many of your handicaps. It will be incredibly simple to understand, but much harder to implement.
Back and Center
While I can’t account for every single golfer who reads this site, what I’m about to say I believe will help the vast majority of you.
I want you to aim at the center of every green, and play to the back yardage of every green.
There it is, a foolproof strategy to lowering scores. And I’m giving it away for free!!!
I’ll explain my thinking and break it down into both parts.
“The Center of the Green Never Moves”
Many great players have used some variation of that quote. It speaks to the fact that the center of any green is never a bad target. This is course management 101.
I firmly believe chasing pins will lead to more bogey and double bogeys than it will result in birdies and pars for most golfers.
I’ve used this visual before, but I’ll bring it back again to illustrate my point.
Every shot you hit will have a dispersion pattern from left to right, regardless of your shot shape. Sometimes you’ll miss your target to the left, sometimes to the right. When you only have one chance, it’s hard to predict which way you are going to miss (despite feeling confident in one direction). So when you adjust your target to one side of the green, you are now increasing your chances of missing the green on that side.
I can guarantee all of you that the path to lower scores is hitting more greens in regulation with your approach shots. Just being on the putting surface gives you a better chance at making par (and the occasional birdie) than missing it.
If you choose to aim at the center of every green, you are giving your dispersion pattern a better opportunity to keep the ball on the putting surface. In other words, you are stacking the odds in your favor over the long run.
The Back of the Green
Almost all golfers miss the majority of their greens on the front side. I’ve confirmed this with GAME GOLF
There are likely many explanations why, but I believe the main culprit is three reasons:
- Golfers don’t have accurate information on how far they hit each club in their bag on average
- Most players don’t strike it as well as they think they do. For example, if a golfer knows when they hit their 7-iron perfectly, it goes 155 yards. They’ll pick that club whenever that yardage comes up
- They do not have accurate yardage information to their targets
Whatever the case may be, let me explain why picking the back yardage can be a winning strategy for most of you.
On the whole, the majority of the shots you hit will not be flushed. Heck, even pro golfers don’t hit every shot perfectly on the sweet spot. You want to give yourself enough of a cushion so that you can still hit the green even with a less than perfect strike.
Yes, there will be some instances where you can miss the green long if you are using the back number. However, I will wager that the majority of your shots will not make it to that yardage, or beyond. Again, we are trying to play the odds rather than a 1 out of 10 scenario.
Why You Will Want To Abandon this Strategy
This all sounds easy, but it’s not. Going to the course with a strategy is one thing, sticking with it throughout your round will be another.
The hardest thing in golf is to keep executing a plan despite seeing results you aren’t happy with. If you employ this strategy, you will not hit every green. You’ll still hit plenty of errant shots that miss short, left, right, and even long. That’s just golf.
However, if you stuck with it, and let’s say it added 2 or 3 more greens in regulation per round, it could easily drop your handicap by multiple strokes.
You’ll be tempted to chase pins when things aren’t going well, but you’ll just be pouring gasoline on the fire. You can’t force birdies; they happen by giving yourself enough chances to make them through smart target selection (and of course, quality ball striking).
So if you’re on board for the center/back strategy, you have to commit to it fully.
How Will I Know the Correct Yardages?
Glad you asked!
I believe the easiest way to get your yardages on the green is with GPS technology. It’s not 100% accurate, but it’s very close. On top of that, it has become more inexpensive.
For most golfers who are on a budget, I would recommend the GolfBuddy Voice 2
If you’re looking for a GPS watch, there are plenty out there to choose from
Alternatively, there are plenty of free GPS apps you can use on your phone that can give you these yardages as well.
As Basic as it Gets
I know this isn’t exciting information for a lot of you reading this. People want to know how to smash their drives and hit the ball as close to the pin as possible. As always, I want to remind you that you can’t have it both ways in golf. If you are someone who plays to lower their handicap, I can almost guarantee you that if you did not have an optimal target strategy before, using this basic one is going to lower your scores in the long run.
If you want to play aggressively because it is more fun for you, that’s OK too. But I warned you!
I would love to hear from those who choose to try this out and share your results. Feel free to post comments or contact me directly.
Jon – great article, I read it with my 12 year old Jr Golfer and we went right to the course. First hole we played to the back with me choosing the club – par. Same hole, he chose the club, bogey. Next hole is a nemesis of his, always short. I chose the club and it rolled off the back, he chose the club and again it was short. His confidence went up simply by seeing the ball land on the green although it rolled off the back. Bogey. Final par 3 – pin was in the back, it was easy to hit the correct distance. The last 3 rounds his biggest frustration was hitting approach shots short, if I can convince an aggressive 12 year old to favor the center and club for the back it will make a big difference. Thank you!
Good luck with this one…I have been caddying for my 2 sons for about 6 years now and will again this weekend for my 14 year old. I am going to employ this strategy in the tournament and we will see where it gets us. At least that one listens to me. The 9 year old won’t ever listen. I had to buy the Garmin G8 (?) GPS with the screen so I could show him the distances because he wouldn’t believe me when I shot them with the laser.
I will report back after the weekend on this and we will see what happens. Should be a good indicator. Great article as always Jon.
thanks for reading! I am well aware of how stubborn kids can be with strategies like these. When I was a junior golfer I’m sure I would have rolled my eyes when someone first told me this.
glad you enjoyed it! Please keep me updated on his progress.
I’m going to apply this strategy for the remainder of the season. Give you an update in July.
good luck, let me know how it goes!
been doing this since reading “the practice manual” (adam young) hdcp drop by 6 over 3 seasons. golf & practice time 1X per week play around 90
a great book that I highly recommend to all golfers – this is certainly not a new strategy or a unique one, and I’m happy to hear that you have seen improvement using it!
Jon — I’ve been working hard to deploy some of your strategies and largely been aiming middle of green and middle yardage on greens. I wonder how course conditions and shot trajectory effect this strategy. While I think it’s very dangerous to play to front of the green yardages I find unless I have a 9 iron or higher on a flat, firm greens the ball just rolls out much more than I think it will. Now if you are a good lag putter and feel confident with your chipping/pitching that’s fine. But at Yale this weekend with huge green complexes I had 5 3 putt bogeys from distances outside of 60 feet. Still I made no worse than bogey and felt good about that when double could have easily been in play had I not been on these greens.
I think you may have answered your own question, you made no worse than bogey 😉
Jon
I appreciate why you recommend the GPS watches and other aids, but the game is already a bit on the spendy side. I’ve been totally happy with all of the free apps available to use on my Android smart phone. I’m sure there are similar products for iPhones, for Apple people. The point is that we all need good yardage information and the less we spend on it, the more is available to play more golf!
that’s a very good point Bill that I forgot to mention, I will edit the article to show some free apps that I recommend!
Will this strategy work if you know your yardages for each club? I use the arccos system and I have hard data on my club distances.
I believe it can. The benefit of using a system like Arccos is that you can see where the majority of your misses occur. If you can prove that most of your misses are occurring long of the green then it would make sense to adjust.
Jon, i’d like to piggyback on Brandon’s question. At roughly what handicap would this strategy offer diminishing returns? I don’t always hit my number, though as a 5-6hcp I feel I have enough control to be a bit more target specific–but I can’t confirm statistically.
It’s very difficult to say exactly. I would say the more skilled you are as a ball striker (perhaps a low single digit) it could make sense to situationally pick the center yardage. I highly doubt that a majority of golfers would lose strokes in the long run over what they are currently doing using this strategy, but of course, there are always outliers. I am a big fan of keeping track of your stats, and you can do that now with many of the shot tracking systems out there. If in fact, you were able to prove that this strategy was causing you to miss too many greens long, then yes it certainly would make sense to adjust. I’ve found that most golfers are shocked when they take a look at their shot patterns over the long run though. They almost always tend to be on the shorter side of the green.
I totally agree. Give yourself the best chance of hitting the GIR. It’s much easier to 2-putt than to get up and down from the rough. This article goes hand-in-hand with your article about birdies – i.e., don’t try to make birdies; just let them happen, but make sure you give yourself a shot at par. I’m a single-digit handicap, and as we move into summer, I’ve started hitting my ball over the green because heat makes the ball fly farther (sigh). I’ve also begun laying up to 100 yards more often because it’s hard to generate enough spin to hold the greens from 50 yards. You might want to re-publish your article about proximity to the green. I think the takeaway is that closer is almost always better. In general, I agree, unless it’s an awkward yardage where you still need to generate spin to hold the green – for me that’s anywhere from 35 – 80 yards. Below 35, and the ball is generally coming in soft enough that spin doesn’t matter; over 80, and I generate enough spin to make the ball stop. I wish I could work my wedges like Brooks. His short game is bananas. Thanks for the article.
Jon,
Great article. Would you still advise to shoot for the back of the green even with a front pin location with no danger in front of the pin (water, bunker, etc…)?
I sometimes face this situation on whether I should aim for the front pin and if I’m short I have an easy 5 yard chip to the hole, or aim for the center or back of the green and face a 30 ft plus with multiple beaks with a possibility of 3 putt.
I don’t think going for front pin yardage is a very good idea – I think you’re going to win out, in the long run, being on the putting surface rather than facing short chip shots. Thanks for reading!
Why not just adjust to center? His whole article is about back center, if nothing else on those holes maybe center/center vs center/back?
Great article again Jon.
Would you think that there is a point where a more refined target becomes the better decision in terms of distance to the pin.
For example, it makes sense, logically to me to take a back target for say a 150yd full iron shot. But what if you have a 60yd shot to play. Should it be green light to take on the pin with a wedge in your hand, back distance for anything longer?
depending on your proximity to the hole inside of 100 yards, I think you can get a little more aggressive with your targets based on your skill level. However, I’d be very careful not to go at pins that are surrounded by trouble (ie bunkers). Certainly, there are caveats to my strategy, but to make that list would be extremely long! I’m really trying to speak to the majority of golfers, who I firmly believe will lower their scores using this general guideline.
Interesting anecdotal evidence here. Im currently a 4hcp, about a year ago I was trying to figure out why my GIR were dropping. I use arccos and have for probably 18 months so I have a pretty good dataset. What I found was that my GIR% had dropped dramatically with my wedges. My home course has small greens and I realized that once I was inside 130 yds I was aiming at pins instead of the center of the green, I changed my strategy, and it raised my GIR dramatically, as well as generally hitting all of my shots closer. What I found was that in the middle of the green you still end up with a lot of makeable birdie putts.
After reading this article I’m going to start playing to back yardage from outside 130 yds. Inside 130 I miss front and back about the same amount about 9% long and about 9% short. Outside 130 i miss short 20% of the time and long about 8% of the time. I think it will also encourage me to not necessarily go at every iron shot 100% because I know I have a lot of club. Just based on math I think this could be worth another GIR / round for me. Can’t wait to try it out!
thank you for sharing, I hope people can learn from your experience! Let me know how it goes.
Sunday . Small municourse. Smashing driver on front 43. Moved to 2h off tee playing to middle of fairway. 38. More fairways more gir. Something to be had playing to the middle either fairway or greens.
Ive been working on your first article for high handicappers. Keeping the driver in the bag and using my 3 wood off the tee. Playing the 2nd shot with a club Im more comfortable with and then getting myself into position to where I can chip up on the green and 1 or 2 putt. In a short 5 rounds of using your strategy, I shot my low score of 93 and this is coming from a 36 handicapper. It takes alittle getting used to of staying disciplined and sticking to a strategy or game plan. But, the results are great and the game has become fun. So, thanks for the lesson. Keep up the good work.
happy to hear that, keep up the good work!
Yesterday I applied to principle of shooting center back of the green and the results were pretty good. Sometimes I overshot the green but recovery was within reach and most importantly I was more aggressive in my play rather than as a tent.
thanks for the update Jon, please check back in again to let me know how it’s going
A golfer knowing his iron yardages is one of the easiest things to do to improve. It is surprising more people don’t do it. It always irks me when golf club manufacturers stress how far their irons hit the ball rather than how accurate and consistent they are. The latter is WAY more important in getting the ball to a reasonable distance from the hole. If you get your yardages right the only miss is left or right, not short or long (unless you miss hit it).
I agree on aiming at the middle of the green – unless the greens are huge. In that case, using at least one club more when the pin is back and one club less when the pin is forward helps a lot in keeping putt lengths within easy 2 putt distance and possible one putt.
As a follow-up from last summer, I have dropped my handicap from a 28 to a 22 in part by using a lower lofted club in my approach to the greens. It’s applying your principal of aiming center green and using the back of green yardage. It has really helped increase the # of pars and reduced dbl bogeys. Many thanks Jon!
that’s amazing! congrats 🙂
This article speaks to me. I tend to “short change” myself on the approaches. I need to learn to play to the back of the green working off the “average” distance I hit my irons/wedges. What has helped most is my Garmin S20 Approach. It keeps a running average of what I hit each club along with the anomaly of the super flush roll a long way shot. The averages will humble you but will allow you to make better decisions. Also, I have found that I have club overlap and am seriously thinking about dropping a club or two from the bag.
My son and I recently played a course where we discussed the true distances – front-middle-back of the greens and where to best make the shot. The greens were is such a destitute place we were pin hunting, just because a putt would have been easier on the fairway rather than the green. What I found was that playing to the “average” distance I hit my irons/wedges/fairways makes life easier and GIR and nearGIR much more realistic. Also I have become realistic about the yardages – if it is where I “might” make the green with a flushed shot or I can make two shots (the first setting up a 100yd or shorter wedge shot) with a 1putt for par or 2putt for bogey, I will take the latter.
This is great, thanks for sharing!!!
excellent info, and I have tried this with success. However, I play on some steep greens, or greens with tiers. Sometimes I can’t remember which greens are very steep, which is just annoying…
And with a forward pin, for example, it would be foolhardy to simply choose a club based on the back of the green. You’d have a tough 2 putt ahead of you. And it depends on the distance from the green.
My club often has brutal traps and rough behind the green they mow less than in front. So I hate to go over.
I wonder what your thoughts are regarding distances to these types of greens.
Thanks! I think assuming that you are going to hit the back of the green just because you play that yardage is a bit of a mistake. Most of the time, you’ll likely hit the center, or front yardage if you are honest with your club selection. That being said, if there is *big* trouble behind the green, you can certainly adjust. Successful golf is about avoiding disaster as much as it is about hitting great shots. Think of this back/center strategy as a basic framework you can operate from, and adjust if necessary.
This year, I’ve been averaging 1 green per 18 holes. My short game is decent and can bail me out sometimes but it’s pretty obvious I need to increase GIR and the problem is more often the approach shot than the drive.
I read this article last night, decided to employ the back yardage/middle of the green strategy on irons and up (was a little more aggressive with wedges) and hit 6 greens! I actually had a bad day putting but still shot a 90 which is my third best score ever. It’s so much easier to be accurate when in the back of your head you don’t want to go long so you swing easy. Definitely going to keep using this strategy.