Weekenders—and especially those who struggle to reach the low 90s (that is, the vast majority of golfers)—should think about playing bogey golf. Playing each hole at one over par brings you to a 90 on a standard par 72. Get a par on just one of those and you’ll beak 90—something that only around twenty five percent of all golfers ever legitimately accomplish.

Playing for bogey takes a lot of pressure off your game.  You can play safely off the tee, instead of going for raw distance. Or you can pound the ball, knowing that you have an extra shot to chip back on to the fairway before firing at the green. Missing the green on a second shot isn’t a disaster.

This tip is an excerpt from The Five Inch Course: Thinking Your Way To Better Golf. The complete book is available in Kindle format at Amazon.com.

f you’re a regular on a particular course, keep a yardage book. Pros keep yardage books and notes on each Tour course; you should develop one for your favorites.

Store a small note book in your bag—I like the reporter’s style that’s hinged at the top—for making sketches of the holes and taking notes on what works and what doesn’t. Draw large illustrations of the greens and make notes on how each plays, with arrows indicating the fall lines. Note how the holes play under different conditions, blind spots, danger zones and safe plays. You also could note the clubs you used from particular areas.

Then, before teeing it up, consult your notebook and refresh your memory. Use the book to avoid repeating mistakes.

This tip is an excerpt from The Five Inch Course: Thinking Your Way To Better Golf. The complete book is available in Kindle format at Amazon.com.

ne of the reasons scores are so high—and rounds so long—is that too many weekenders play from the wrong tees. Playing from the back tees might be manly, but often makes little sense. If you have to consistently make heroic drives to have a decent chance at greens in regulation, or if you find yourself playing long irons and woods into every par four, chances are the course is too long from those tees.

Forcing yourself to hit those extra yards causes more missed fairways. Drives that fall too far from the green force the use of long irons and fairway woods, resulting in missed regulation, and pile up strokes with costly chips, flubbed flops and multiple shots out of greenside bunkers. Long shots into the green leave players far from the hole, requiring extra putts.

One rule of thumb is to play from the tees that give you a decent chance at using a mid or short iron on the par 4s. That requires that you have a realistic understanding of how far you hit your clubs.

If your typical driver shot is 220 yards, and your six iron goes 170, then on a par 4, you should play from the tees that are closest to 390 from the green.

Another way to assess the proper length is to use the Rule of 28, as described by Chris Mile, owner of the Miles of Golf pro shop in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Mile says that to find the proper tees, you should multiply your average driving distance by 28. That’ll give you the yardage that you should play from; choose the tees closest to that distance.

This means that a player who hits the ball 200 yards on a drive should play from the tees closest to 5,600 yards.

I use the 200 yard drive figure deliberately. Studies have consistently shown that the average golfer drives the ball 200 yards, but THINKS he hits it 30 yards further. And remember that it’s the AVERAGE that counts. Occasionally uncorking a 270 yarder is not the same as hitting for an average of 270. You also have to consider all the times you don’t hit it that far.

This tip is an excerpt from The Five Inch Course: Thinking Your Way To Better Golf. The complete book is available in Kindle and paperback format at Amazon.com.

There’s absolutely nothing like the feel of a golf ball striking the sweet spot on a forged iron. And there’s no satisfaction like being able to work the ball left and right into a green at will.

That said, what most of us need is to just consistently hit the ball in the air, straight and with decent distance. Do that every time and your scores will come down.

Game Improvement and Super Game Improvement Irons incorporate a variety of technologies designed to do exactly what you need: get the ball in the air, straight, with decent distance. Offset helps a player close the face in time; cavity backs stabilize the clubhead (increase moment of inertia); weight redistribution helps to get the ball in the air more consistently. Lighter shafts, hollow bodies and multi-material construction all are employed in the name of consistently straight and in the air with decent distance.

Club snobs argue that game improvement clubs don’t offer enough feedback, and that your game may never improve if you stick to the “higher handicapper” lines. That may be true, but your average weekender doesn’t practice enough to be able to appreciate the difference.

Play the clubs that will make the best of the swing you have. If you don’t have a muscleback swing, don’t play them.

As of late, even Tour players are buying into the improvement club logic. Look into the bags of many current pros and you will find they’ve traded traditional long irons for cavity backs, hybrids and other game changers.

This tip is an excerpt from The Five Inch Course: Thinking Your Way To Better Golf. The complete book is available in Kindle and paperback format at Amazon.com.

or players without the mad recovery skills of a Woods or Mickelson, a big key to scoring low is keeping the ball in the fairway.  Using the three wood off the tee is a strategy more
weekenders should employ.

Over the years, studies have shown that the average golfer hits a three wood just as far—if not further—than the driver. That, combined with the greater accuracy of a club with a shorter shaft and higher loft makes the three wood a perfect club off the tee. Even if you were to give up ten yards, the greater probability of hitting the fairway still generally makes the three wood a better play.

Giving up the driver is tough, though. We’ve been conditioned by both the pros and advertising to believe that the driver is the proper tool for the teebox. The best thing to do is to go cold turkey and just leave it in your trunk.

Occasionally, as an exercise with the high school golf teams I coached, I would confiscate their drivers for a practice round. It caused a great deal of consternation at first, but it made them realize that there are many ways to play a golf hole—and some smarter than others.

This tip is an excerpt from The Five Inch Course: Thinking Your Way To Better Golf. The complete book is available in Kindle format and paperback at Amazon.com.

n the practice tee, it’s better to hit ten focused shots than a hundred unfocused ones. So if you arrive at the course early enough to hit a few before playing, stick to a small bucket. Don’t pound balls trying to fix your swing issues in the fifteen minutes before your tee time.  It’s not going to happen.

Instead, imagine yourself on the first tee and go through your entire preshot routine:  pick a target, visualize the shot, set an aiming point, check your alignment, take a practice swing—everything you normally do before every shot. Then hit the range ball. For your second ball, imagine yourself in the fairway, ready for your second shot. Go through your entire preshot routine again. Mentally tick off two putts. Then imagine the second tee. Repeat as time allows.

Get yourself into the groove of playing golf, not golf swing.

This tip is an excerpt from The Five Inch Course: Thinking Your Way To Better Golf. The complete book is available in Kindle and paperback format at Amazon.com.

If you need a mid-round check on your swing, inspect your divots. The direction of the divots will tell you where your clubface is going. The depth will tell you a lot about how steep or shallow you’re coming into the ball.

If you can remember where the ball was located, the divot also can tell you how far behind the ball you’re striking. Another tip—although surely not legal under the rules of golf: stick a tee in the ground opposite the ball’s location. That’ll make it easier to know about the divot relative to the ball’s position.

Make adjustments accordingly.

This tip is an excerpt from The Five Inch Course: Thinking Your Way To Better Golf. The complete book is available in Kindle format at Amazon.com.