MyScorecard members have a diverse array of experiences as well as stories and lessons that we can all learn from. One of our members, Shawn Augustson, is a student at the College of Golf and writes the blog Golf with Shawn. In this post he shares some of his most recent lessons.
In order to improve your golf game and become a better player, it’s essential to have an updated strengths and weakness profile. Keyword being UPDATED… you will want to continually track your progress. If someone were to ask you how your game went and you replied with “It was alright. I hit my irons well, but the rest of my round was bad.” This would be an analog response. You want to be thinking DIGITALLY, and be more specific. This is what will help you improve.
I will give you an example, I am a student at the College of Golf in Port Saint Luce, FL. In my swing fundamentals class with Dr. TJ Tomasi (Golf Magazine Top 100 teacher) we had to track the digital information from each of our rounds and be able to compare them to a tour player. When I would look at my putts and see that I was 2 putting across the board I thought I was bad at putting.
As I began to track other statistics from each of my rounds I discovered that my putting was not the problem because my first putt was always from around 30 Feet! The problem was with my approach. I wasn’t getting to the green in regulation and when I was on the green I was barely there. According to Dave Pelz and the extensive research he has done, any putts from 15 feet and beyond your best case scenario is 1 in 10 for holing it, even for the tour player.
My putting turned out to be alright because I would lag putt and then tap in. From the distance I was coming from this was good. With this information, I was then able to start looking at my decisions from 100 yards, and make better choices in order to get on and be able to one putt.
This is where Myscorecard.com has played a key role in building my updated strengths and weakness profile. I signed up and went through several other online sites to compare services. None of them came close to what Myscorecard.com was offering. I have spent more money on Gatorade in one day golfing than what several years worth of service would be, so the subscription is worth it!
To get started with your strengths and weakness profile you will first want to rate your clubs. On a piece of paper go through each of your irons and give them a rating of 3 for weak, 2 for average, and 1 for strong. Do this for your driver and woods as well.
Now think about your game and give each area a rating. Short putting, lag putting, chipping, pitching, shots from 100 yards, uneven lies, fairway bunker shots, greenside bunker shots, fairway hits, greens in regulation are just some of the areas you could begin to track. Give each of these the same 1,2, or 3 rating and this will be your baseline. This is a condensed version of what we do at school. My actual profile is several pages long.
Set up your Myscorecard.com account to be able to track the various statistics. They have done an excellent job at explaining what each statistic is. When you start off, you will want to track just a few so that you are not on the course doing more tracking than golf!
When I get to the course, on my scorecard I write down Fairways Hit, GIR (greens in regulation), Sand Saves, and Putts. Statistics such as Up & Downs, you will be able to look at later when you are back home because if you had Par on a hole, but wasn’t on the green in regulation you will know you had the up & down. I will star that hole as a quick reminder.
I have been playing golf less than a year. As embarrassed as I am to say, my first round I shot 90 on 9 holes! Since the maximum USGA handicap for men is a 36 (mine was probably higher), I have come down a lot in the short time that I have been golfing to a 22 handicap. This will continue to come down as I track my strengths and weaknesses so that I can know what to work on. Confidence is Knowing, Not Hoping!
If you have a lesson or experience that you would like to share on our blog, please contact us at support@myscorecard.com – we’d love to hear from you.