Instruction
Use the power of the scorecard to your advantage
Does par on a scorecard really mean anything? Think about it. When the difference in length between a par 4 and a par 5 can be as little as a yard, is it logical to decide that you should take one less shot on the par 4?
Par on a scorecard is what the professionals compare themselves to, but the weekend golfer shouldn’t have the same benchmark. Because the aim of a competitive round of golf is to get the ball around in the course in the fewest shots over 18 holes, all that matters is your score at the end, not how you do each hole in relation to par.
Three time PGA Tour Winner Lon Hinkle puts it best:
“Golf is golf. You hit the ball, you go find it. Then you hit it again.”
Often, I see golfers making the game unnecessarily difficult, inflicting self-induced pressure and sucking the fun out of the game all because of a little piece of paper. Today, we will look at your scorecard and how a few small changes can transform your mindset and the likelihood of playing great golf.
Change the scorecard to YOUR par
Picture a long par 4 with out of bounds stakes at your driving distance. It has a tight fairway with overhanging trees, making it play even smaller. Add in multiple, treacherously deep bunkers waiting to swallow up shots attempting to roll to the green. This hole earns it stroke index of 1, because so many shots are lost here. But hold on — it says par 4 on the card, so that’s the score you must get, right? WRONG.
For 18-handicap golfers to make par on such a hole, they need to hit a faultless drive followed by a perfectly threaded approach through all of the bunkers just to give themselves a chance at two putting the sloping green for a par.
Get out your pencil and scribble out the par 4 on your card and replace it with a 5 (as your handicap allows). Instead of a devilishly tricky par 4, the hole is now a relatively short par 5. Perhaps you do not even need to risk hitting driver from the tee. Players I work with have had great success on such holes hitting an iron from the tee and from there, viewing the hole as a par 4. Many score better, as their approach shot is positioned for an easier putt. On average, from 200 yards, the BEST players on the PGA Tour in 2013 left themselves over a 30-foot putt. Even from 75-to-100 yards, the best golfers average about 12 feet from the hole.
The 3-hole challenge
How many times have you had a great front nine, only to fall apart on the back? Or a terrible front nine, but the “fresh start” on the No. 10 tee brought change and you managed to finish around your handicap? Ever caught yourself saying, “I’d be so good if I could put both nines together?”
Instead of having to wait for another round, or the new beginnings of a back nine, why not split your scorecard up differently? Physically drawing a line after holes 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 has now changed your scorecard into six rounds, each of 3 holes. Even if in your first round you are over handicap, your round is now finished and you move onto the next. If you are playing really well and are under your handicap, holes Nos. 16-18 are a new round, so the nervous thoughts you generally have in trying to “close the round out” can be left behind. This will get you much closer to playing golf how it was designed.
Remember, hit your ball, find it, hit it again and then add up your score at the end. Or even miss out that last step and play just for fun.
Just PLAY
I am sure that you’ve heard the interviews where professional golfers says that they were “lost in the moment” and didn’t know how they were doing until they added up their score in the scorer’s tent. Next time you play, try exactly that. You can get a friend to mark your card, or perhaps just add it up from memory after your round. Take the pressure of the scorecard away and just play golf. I promise it will be more enjoyable and likely better for your score, too.
How does a young child approach putting? Are they stressing over whether a putt needs to be made to avoid a 0.1-handicap increase or to keep the match alive? NO. They are just putting the golf ball to the best of their ability. Try it, and I’m looking forward to hearing how you get on.
The LPGA Tour is kicking off its 2026 season this week at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, and the pros are dealing with something most Florida golfers rarely face: freezing temperatures.
“It’s colder here than in the UK at the minute, which is a first,” said England’s Charley Hull during Wednesday’s media day at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions.
Even Lydia Ko, who lives at Lake Nona, seemed surprised by the cold snap. “We’re pretty much getting to below zero in celsius here, which maybe in other parts of the country they would be thankful, but when you’re in Florida it is a little bit of a surprise,” she said.
If the world’s best players are adjusting their games for cold weather, recreational golfers should, too. Here’s how to play smart when the mercury drops.
Understand What Cold Does to Your Game
Before you change anything, you need to know what you’re fighting against. Cold air is denser than warm air, which means your ball won’t fly as far. Period.
Hull noticed this immediately during practice rounds at Lake Nona. She mentioned hitting a gap wedge into the 18th hole during a previous win but needing a 4-iron during Tuesday’s practice round. That’s a difference of four or five clubs for the same shot.
Action item: Expect to lose 5-10 yards on every club in your bag when temperatures dip below 50 degrees. Plan accordingly and don’t be stubborn about club selection.
Layer Up Without Restricting Your Swing
Hull admitted she wore three pairs of pants during practice. While that might be extreme for most of us, staying warm is critical to playing well in cold conditions.
Your muscles need warmth to function properly. When you’re cold, your body tightens up and your swing gets shorter and faster. Neither of those things help you hit good golf shots.
Action item: Wear multiple thin layers instead of one bulky jacket. Look for golf-specific cold weather gear that stretches with your swing. Keep hand warmers in your pockets between shots. And don’t forget a good hat because you lose significant body heat through your head.
Take More Club Than You Think You Need
This is where ego gets in the way of good scores. When it’s cold, the ball doesn’t compress as well off the clubface. Combined with denser air, you’re looking at serious distance loss.
The pros at Lake Nona are dealing with a course that measures 6,642 yards but plays much longer this week. If they’re adjusting, you should too.
Action item: Take at least one extra club on every approach shot. In temperatures below 40 degrees, consider taking two extra clubs. It’s better to fly the ball to the back of the green than to come up short in a bunker.
Adjust Your Expectations on the Greens
Cold weather affects putting in ways most golfers don’t consider. The ball is harder and doesn’t roll as smoothly. Your hands are cold, making it harder to feel the putter. And if there’s any moisture on the greens, they’ll be slower than normal.
Ko mentioned that she still sometimes reads the greens wrong at Lake Nona despite being a member for years. Cold weather makes that challenge even tougher.
Action item: Hit putts more firmly than usual. The ball needs extra speed to hold its line on cold greens. Take a few extra practice strokes to get a feel for the speed before you putt.
Embrace the Mental Challenge
Hull said something interesting about cold weather golf: “I like the mental toughness of it.”
That’s the right attitude. Everyone on the course is dealing with the same conditions. The player who stays patient and doesn’t get frustrated by the extra difficulty will come out ahead.
Action item: Lower your expectations by a few strokes. If you normally shoot 85, accept that 90 might be a good score in 40-degree weather. Focus on solid contact and smart decisions rather than perfect shots.
Warm Up Longer and Smarter
This might be the most important tip of all. Cold muscles are tight muscles, and tight muscles get injured easily.
World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul revealed she’s been protecting a wrist injury that bothered her late last season. Cold weather makes those kinds of injuries more likely if you don’t prepare properly.
Action item: Spend at least 20 minutes warming up before your round. Start with stretching, then hit easy wedge shots before working up to your driver. Keep moving between shots on the course to maintain body heat and flexibility.
The pros at Lake Nona this week will adapt and compete at the highest level despite the cold. You can do the same at your local course by following these tips and keeping a positive attitude.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “Playing Through” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
Brooks Koepka is back on the PGA Tour, and whether you love him or hate him, the guy knows how to win when it matters. After his LIV Golf stint, the five-time major champion returns this week at the Farmers Insurance Open.
What makes Koepka fascinating? He doesn’t fit the mold. His swing isn’t textbook. He doesn’t obsess over mechanics. Yet he’s won three PGA Championships and two U.S. Opens, regularly making it look easier than guys with prettier swings.
So, what can average golfers learn from someone who treats the game so differently? Quite a bit.
Stop Overthinking Every Shot
Koepka describes his approach as “reactionary” rather than mechanical. While most tour pros grind over swing thoughts, Brooks sees the target and hits it. No mental checklist.
This might be the most valuable lesson for weekend golfers who’ve watched too many YouTube swing videos.
How to actually do this:
On the range, hit five balls where you stare at the target for three seconds prior to addressing the ball. Don’t think about grip or stance. Just burn that target into your brain. You’ll be shocked at how pure you hit it when your brain focuses on where the ball is going instead of how you’re swinging.
Next time you play, give yourself a rule: Once you pull the club, you’ve got 15 seconds to hit. Koepka is one of the fastest players on tour because he doesn’t give his brain time to sabotage him.
If you feel tension in your hands at address, you’re trying to control too much. Koepka’s grip pressure is famously light. Loosen up until the club almost feels like it might slip, then add just enough pressure to hold on. That’s your swing thought: soft hands, see the target.
This approach works better under pressure. When you’re standing over that shot with water left and OB right, the last thing you need is a mental checklist. See it, feel it, hit it.
Play to Your Strengths (Even If They’re Not Pretty)
Koepka uses a strong grip that wouldn’t pass muster in some teaching circles. But he’s built his game around what works for him, elite driving distance and recovery skills. He doesn’t try to be someone he’s not.
Here’s how to build your game like Brooks:
Look at your last five rounds and figure out where you’re actually gaining strokes. Bombing it off the tee, but can’t hit greens? Lean into it. Play courses where distance matters more than precision. On tight holes, grip down on your 3-wood instead of trying to thread a driver through a keyhole you’ll miss seven times out of ten.
Koepka knows he can scramble, so he’s not afraid to miss greens. If you’re deadly from 50 to 75 yards, start leaving yourself those distances on the par 5’s instead of going for them in two every time.
Know when to take your medicine. Koepka in the trees at the PGA? He’s punching out to 100 yards, not trying to bend a 6-iron around three oaks. You’re in the rough with a flyer lie and water short? Hit your 8-iron to the middle and move on. That’s not playing scared, that’s playing smart.
Save Your Best for When It Counts
Here’s a wild stat: Koepka’s putting average in majors is often more than a full stroke better per round than in regular events. He elevates when pressure is highest.
How does an amateur tap into that gear? It’s not about trying harder, it’s about caring differently.
Here’s what actually works:
Decide which rounds matter to you. Club championship? Member-guest? That annual trip with college buddies? Circle those dates and treat them differently. Koepka doesn’t care much about regular tour events, but majors? That’s when he locks in.
Two weeks before your big round, change your practice. Stop beating balls mindlessly. Play nine holes in which every shot has consequences. Miss the fairway? Hit from the rough on the next hole too. Three-putt? Twenty push-ups. Koepka’s practice intensity ramps up before majors because he’s rehearsing pressure, not just swings.
Develop a between-shot routine that resets your brain. Koepka is famous for his blank expression after bad shots. Try this: After any shot, take three deep breaths while walking, then find something specific to notice, a tree, a cloud, someone’s shirt. That’s your reset button. By the time you reach your ball, the last shot is gone.
The Bottom Line
Brooks Koepka’s return reminds us there’s no single path to success in golf. His “substance over style” approach proves that results matter more than looking good.
You don’t need a perfect swing; you need a reliable one that holds up under pressure. You don’t need to hit every shot in the book; you need the shots you can count on. And you don’t need to play great every time; you need to play great when it matters.
Welcome back, Brooks. Thanks for the reminder that golf is ultimately about getting the ball in the hole, not winning style points.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “Playing Through” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
Blades Brown made a big impression last week in the California desert, and not just because he’s only 18. He put up numbers that would catch any weekend golfer’s attention. Most of us won’t hit 317-yard drives or find 86% of our greens in regulation, but there’s a lot to learn from how Brown managed his game at The American Express.
Here are three practical lessons from his performance that you can use on your own course this weekend.
Step 1: Give Priority to Accuracy Over Distance Off The Tee
Brown’s driving stats are impressive. He averaged almost 318 yards off the tee, ranking 12th in the field. More importantly, he hit 76.79% of his fairways, tying for fourth place in the tournament.
Think about that ratio for a second. Brown could have swung harder, chased more distance and tried to overpower the course. Instead, he played smart golf and kept his ball in play.
Your Action Item: Next time you’re on the tee box, ask yourself a simple question before pulling the driver. Do you need maximum distance here, or do you need to be in the fairway? If there’s trouble lurking or the hole doesn’t demand every yard you can muster, take something off your swing. Grip down an inch. Make a three-quarter swing. Do whatever it takes to find the short grass. Brown’s approach illustrates that fairways lead to greens, and greens lead to birdies. He made 22 of them last week, along with an eagle.
The math is simple. When you’re hitting three out of every four fairways like Brown did, you’re giving yourself legitimate looks at the green with your approach shots. That’s when scoring happens.
Step 2: Commit To Hitting More Greens
This is where Brown really separated himself. He hit 62 of 72 greens in regulation, an 86.11% clip that tied for first in the entire field. Read that again. An 18-year-old kid tied for the lead in one of the most important ball-striking statistics in professional golf.
How did he do it? By keeping his ball in the fairway (see Step 1) and giving himself clean looks with mid-irons and wedges.
Your Action Item: Start tracking your greens in regulation. You don’t need a fancy app or a statistics degree. Just mark down whether you hit the green in the regulation number of strokes. Par 3s in one shot. Par 4s in two shots. Par 5s in three shots.
Once you know your baseline, set a goal to improve it by 10%. If you’re currently hitting five greens per round, aim for six. The beauty of this approach is that it forces you to think strategically about club selection and shot shape. Brown’s strokes gained approach number was positive (0.179), meaning he was better than the field average. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be on the dance floor more often.
When you hit more greens, you eliminate the need for heroic short game shots. Brown only had to scramble 10 times all week, and he got up and down 70% of the time. That’s solid, but the real story is that he rarely put himself in scrambling situations to begin with.
Step 3: Minimize Mistakes And Stay Patient
Here’s the stat that jumps off the page: Brown made only three bogeys all week. Three. In four rounds of professional golf against the best players in the world.
He also made just one double bogey. That kind of clean card doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when you play within yourself, avoid the big miss and trust that pars are never bad scores.
Your Action Item: Before your next round, decide that you’re going to play boring golf. No hero shots over water. No driver on tight holes just because you can. No aggressive pins when there’s a safe side of the green.
Brown’s performance shows us that consistency beats flash every single time. He didn’t lead the field in any single strokes gained category, but he was solid across the board. That’s how you post numbers and cash checks.
Give these three steps a try. Your scorecard will thank you.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “The Starter” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
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paul
Oct 27, 2013 at 10:17 am
I am a bogey golfer, so i don’t really like this idea. The main reason is because my final score is what makes me a bogey golfer not the individual hole. i played a course regularly last summer and made par on every hole multiple times, but couldn’t seem to get past having one disaster hole for every 9 i played. i usually make a par or two then a bogey then a par again then take a double par… then tie my record again. so frustrating. so i count 90 as par. and anything better is great for me. if i could just eliminate the one bad hooked tee shot into the woods or lake i could be a 10 handicap.
Andy Griffiths
Oct 28, 2013 at 8:31 pm
It sounds very much that you are conforming to the self-fulfilling prophecy that you are a ‘bogey golfer.’ Therefore, as a way to try to achieve balance and not get out of your comfort zone, you find a way to get back to your handicap despite a great start, or even a terrible start.
The paragraph on the ‘3-hole challenge’ I would imagine would be great for you. I hope that helps.
Jon
Oct 25, 2013 at 10:33 pm
The First Tee Program refers to personal par as the goal on every shot or hole.
Thomas Hunter
Oct 25, 2013 at 7:14 pm
I believe Tiger’s dad used to do something similar for Tiger, using the term “Tiger Par”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX5EmK3v5Fw
Willie
Oct 26, 2013 at 12:22 am
Wow, that really hit the nail on the head. Cool to hear that my though process was the same as the Woods family. And that the concept works from children up through adults.
Thomas Hunter
Oct 27, 2013 at 8:41 pm
Great minds think alike Willie!
Andy Griffiths
Oct 26, 2013 at 11:01 pm
Thomas and Willie: There’s a reason he is not bad! Thanks for the video, a lot of good stuff in that series.
I practice the idea with many of my golfers of starting from a yardage they can make ‘par’ from, and then moving back continually when get used to that length of hole. Keeps high numbers off the card and can get some instant sense of achievement!
Thomas Hunter
Oct 27, 2013 at 8:41 pm
I really like that idea Andy, working from where they can make par from. Just developing on that idea, what would your thoughts be on sequentially helping a beginner learn and understand the skills involved with each area of the game? For instance begin with putting from inside 6 foot, giving a putt inside 6 foot a par 1 (2 if they are really struggling), once they consistently make par’s from inside 6 foot move on to putts from 6-15 feet, making 2 the par (3 if they struggle to begin with), again once they start to make par’s consistently move to the next area further from the hole, i.e. long putts then chipping, pitching, approach wedge, short iron approach etc etc.
Andy Griffiths
Oct 28, 2013 at 8:35 pm
Thomas: As is seen with squash (I believe one of the best learnt sports) I love the golfer to see the ‘full picture’ early on instead of just working up in shot length.
I would try to create process related games as much as possible, to show a golfer success without it being judged on whether a ball drops into the hole etc. This I have found to be a good way for preserving confidence, enabling skill progression without a fear of failure, and having fun!
Willie
Oct 25, 2013 at 6:25 pm
I have been doing this on a similar system for awhile, and I always tell my friends just starting to do the same. I shoot in the 90’s. It is what it is. So I set my par at 90 – 5 strokes per hole. Simple as that. When friends are just learning, I just tell them “Don’t look at the card. It’s a par 6. Everything is a par 6” Then par 3’s become par 5’s. Etc. Takes a ton of stress of new players or casual weekenders.
Dave
Oct 25, 2013 at 4:40 pm
Andy,
Great article! I’ve been doing this for a couple of years and can definitely say that it has worked for me. It makes the game much more fun since I’m beating myself up less. Some of the new mobile apps annotate the scorecard automatically based on my handicap so I don’t have to scribble on the scorecards.
Andy Griffiths
Oct 26, 2013 at 11:03 pm
Dave and Philip: Thanks for the comments and really good to hear your positive findings from similar ideas. I have found it is crazy how a ‘difficult hole’ suddenly changes to ‘pretty easy’ when the mindset isn’t believing that perfection is required to play it well!
Philip
Oct 25, 2013 at 4:37 pm
I stopped counting a long time ago. I also decide on my target for the round and allocate the extra shots to the holes I struggle with, reducing the stress and opening my mind to play the holes differently as I have new options to lay up to get my expected score.