According to the data, there are four areas you need to improve to achieve lower scores

Golf lessons are constantly evolving, but the best advice stands the test of time. In GOLF.com’s Timeless Tips series, we highlight some of the best advice given by teachers and players in the pages of GOLF Magazine. Today we have four simple tips for lower scores from our August 2007 issue.

Golf is an impossible game to perfect. No matter how good you are, there is always room for improvement.

This axiom is what makes the game so tempting – and so frustrating. Even on days when everything is working, there are still ways you could have done better. That’s what keeps us coming back.

Because of this, golfers are obsessed with learning ways they can improve. In 2007, legendary instructor Dave Pelz took advantage of this and joined GOLF Magazine for a small research project in which he identified four areas of focus that golfers can improve to achieve lower scores.

Check it out below.

4 key areas to score lower scores

If you want to improve your playing skills, you need to know exactly what needs to be improved. It doesn’t help to empty a bucket of range balls with your driver if it’s your putting that is negatively affecting your scores.

I understood this 30 years ago, when I first started measuring the skills of the PGA Tour players they worked with. This was before laser rangefinders, so I had to run distances before tournaments and then run outside the ropes during events to map out where players were making their shots. I used the shot patterns and scores to identify weaknesses and help the players turn those weaknesses into strengths. This research-based instruction was the foundation of my teaching career and of Scoring Game Schools, and continues to be a driving force within both today.

Last summer the PGA Tour offered me ShotLink laser technology and software to study amateur games. With their help, Pelz Golf Institute staff measured every shot of more than 300 amateurs on four holes over four rounds at Arrowhead Country Club during the PGA Tour Superstore World Amateur Handicap Championship in Myrtle Beach, SC. ​​This data allowed us to assess amateur skills with an accuracy never before possible. (And I didn’t have to run!) The goal of our study was to compare amateur skills to those of PGA Tour players (which is what ShotLink measures) and use this data to help you assess where your game falls on that skill spectrum. Knowing this will help you accurately determine where your game needs the most work and how hard you need to work to become a better player.

1. Drive

Your big problem: Poor balance, direction and target selection will hurt your accuracy and distance.

3 reasons why your grades are bad

1. Poor Balance: Pros don’t lose their balance (or change their foot position) until they complete their swing and walk away. You swing your driver so hard that you lose balance.

2. Overswing: Pros rarely run their driver at 100 percent. You try to hit the ball as far as possible with your driver and try to squeeze every inch out of your swing.

3. Bad Aim: Pros aim down the right or left side of the fairway, expecting the ball to pull or fade into the middle. You have no preference for the direction of the target, nor do you prefer one side of the tee box to compensate for your tendency to hit drives to the left or right of your setup.

3 ways to improve

1. Throttle down: Aim to “swing within yourself” and end up balanced without moving your feet. This may mean using only 85 to 90 percent of your available strength (or effort), but it will improve your results. Good balance is fundamental to good golf. Without this you won’t be able to hit drivers repeatedly in the fairway.

2. Favor the Blur: Aim left when you usually cut. I know you don’t want to play for a piece and would rather take a chance on one straight (or even a draw), but this attitude is detrimental to your scores. Always play the best you can with the game you brought to the course that day. If you want to eliminate your scale, work on it while practicing at the shooting range. On the course, aim to the left and make sure your drives stop in the short grass.

3. Play for accuracy: Do whatever it takes to hit the fairway, even if that means hitting a 3-wood or a hybrid off the tee. If you give up 10 percent of the distance for 10 percent more accuracy, you will score lower.

2. Par-3 play

Your big problems: Too few bats, toed shots and poor target selection.

3 reasons why your grades are bad

1. Bad contact: Pros make more contact in the center of the clubface, making it easier to control the distance they hit. You make contact from the toe of the clubface. As a result, variable and less than maximum energy is transferred from club to ball. (More than 90 percent of amateurs failed to reach the flagpole, regardless of which club they used.)

2. Incorrect figures: Pros know how far they can hit each club in their bag, and rarely overestimate how much distance they will travel with the club they select. You select clubs based on the expectation that you will hit them almost perfectly and that the ball will be carried precisely to the hole. The problem is that most amateurs don’t make perfect shots very often. (Even the amateurs who hit a solid tee shot usually ended up just outside the hole.)

3. Poor target selection: Pros calculate pin positions and hazard locations when selecting their landing targets. You aim directly at the flagpole, regardless of how close the hazards are to the target.

3 ways to improve

1. Cut out the cut: As you swing through the hitting zone, move your club head down and toward the target. This will curb your tendency to cut over the ball and hit it on the toe. Practice this by aiming four-inch balls into a three-foot piece of wood exactly at your target.

2. Go long: Select the club that will take you to the back of the green. The ball will go past the flagstick if you catch it straight, but that doesn’t hurt, as your shots are rarely straight enough to still make the next putt. Choosing a stronger club will bring your average shots closer to the hole, allow for shorter putts, and help you stay out of harm’s way near the green.

3. Be absent-minded: Study the shot patterns on the right. Imagine hitting 100 balls on this par 3; What pattern would your shots fall in? From now on, whenever you play a par 3, you should look for the safest area on the green that your shot pattern (not your perfect shot) can fall into, regardless of where the flag is.

3. Bunker shots

Your big problem: You make ‘funky’ swings in the sand

2 reasons why your grades are bad

1. Bad technique: Pros play the ball forward in their stance and use an almost standard wedge swing. They open the clubface and hit the sand to get the ball out, but otherwise the mechanics of their swing are smooth and normal. You make unique, funky swings in the sand. (While analyzing play at Arrowhead Country Club, we saw hard swings, vertical V swings, reverse spins, players falling backwards, players stopping their swing immediately after impact, etc.)

2. Poor Bottoming Control: Pros practice making sure their club hits the sand the same distance behind the ball every time. You never hit the sand in the same place twice. Sometimes you make contact with the ball in front of the sand – or hit it very close behind it – and let it fly over the green. Other times you hit too far behind the ball and leave it in the penalty area.

2 ways to improve

1. Play it forward: Try this: hit a normal wedge shot from grass. Notice how your divot is forward (towards the target) relative to the center of your stance. The exact same swing that makes contact with the ball before it hits the ground on fairway shots can also serve as a sand swing. It will hit the sand correctly two inches behind the ball if you simply place the ball forward, from the instep of your left foot.

2. Give yourself space: Play on reasonably safe areas of the green. Based on ShotLink’s data, Tour pros should aim this flagstick as they land within about 10 feet of the hole. But if your average leave distance is longer, you might be wise to aim to the right, where there is more greenery to work with.

4. Put

Your big problem: Hitting for distance, getting line-locked and not reading enough break will hurt your putting performance.

2 reasons why your grades are bad

1. To keep it short: Pros rarely leave makeable putts (10 to 25 feet) behind the hole. You leave many makeable putts short. You would score significantly better if you didn’t leave so many feasible putts short. Look at the spread patterns of the second putts left after the first makeable putt is missed. This leaving-it-short phenomenon was surprisingly consistent across the amateur handicap range, but virtually absent among pros.

2. Play low: Pros play more breaks and miss more putts on the high side of the hole. You almost never play enough breaks and leave a high percentage of missed putts under the hole.

1 way to improve

1. Focus on speed: Too many golfers complain of pulling or pushing after missing a putt. These complaints indicate too much focus on the line, with insufficient attention paid to speed or distance. The truth is that the speed of a putt determines how much it breaks, and therefore usually controls the line (left or right) as it approaches the hole. Furthermore, most golfers don’t read the correct rule in the first place.

That said, give me – and your game – four favors this season: (1) Focus moderately on rolling putts past the hole; (2) Add a little more pause to every breaking putt you see; (3) Realize that for every putt you miss, you have lost the opportunity to hole it; and (4) Realize that until you miss as many putts above the hole as you miss below, you STILL aren’t reading enough break on average. Do these things for me and you can start putting like a pro.