Breaking 90 is an exciting milestone in the game of golf! One of the biggest obstacles to break 90 is mental. If you are trying to par every hole, you’ll have a much tougher time shooting a score you’re happy with. Shooting a 90 is shooting 18 strokes over par. What that means is we’re trying for bogeys, NOT pars. Got it? Ok good. Let’s move on.
Ok, Let’s Break 90!
Again, I want to emphasize that you can’t be trying to par every hole. If you do that you’re going to turn your little mistakes and misses into big mistakes and misses, which will cause a lot of penalty strokes, and you’ll never break 90. Do you want that? Neither do I. So what we need to do is change par on your scorecard. Every hole that says par 3 is now a par 4. Every par 4 is now a par 5, and each par 5 is now a par 6. Does this make you uncomfortable? You better get used to it because this is the way. You will break 90 if you do what I say. This first step is a big hump for a lot of golfers to get over, but trust me it works.
Get Your Putting Right
The first thing you need to do, after changing par on each hole, is know that you can 2-putt the majority of the holes. If you don’t know whether or not you can do this, go practice putting. Spend an hour a day on 5 foot putts, and an hour a day on longer lag putts. Just those two things. After a week or two you’ll be pretty confident and keeping your total putts in 18 holes under 36. It’s that easy. Just put the time in and your putts will be golden. Once you have those putts locked in, let’s look at what you need to do to shoot under 90.
If you’re 2-putting, you have 2 shots to get on the green on par 3’s, 3 shots to get on the par 4’s, and 4 shots to get on the par 5’s. Piece of cake.
One of the biggest mistakes golfers make is focusing too much on watching their putt roll into the hole. Don’t watch the putt roll. Read the green, line it up, hit the putt, and listen for the ball to roll into the hole. Focus your eyes on striking the ball correctly, not on the result.
Know Your Club Distances
We’ve given you an extra stroke to reach every green. Now how do you make sure that happens? You have to know how far you hit each club, so you can get it close. We’ve already discussed getting the putter nailed down. Next up is a wedge. Specifically for chipping and pitching. Like putting, this is simply a matter of putting in some time practicing the short game. Most people trying to break 90 don’t do this. They spend their time on the driving range trying to pound driver as hard as they can. While the range is certainly important for improving your game, it’s only a small part, and much less helpful than locking in your chipping and putting. So put in the hours on your short game first, and watch the magic happen.
Included in short game is your approach from <100 yards. You should know how to hit a ball ~100 yards. Know which club does it and how the swing feels. Do it over and over again until you are confident that when you have 100 yards to the green, you’re going to land it on the green. This will drop your score fast as well. Do the same thing for 125 and 150 yards. Just those 3 increments of 25 yards are going to help you dial in that approach game. You will see the strokes get lower on that scorecard.
Where’s the Practice that Pays Off?
Once you get beyond 150, it gets harder to keep the shot dispersion small, but working on those shorter distances, you’ll find the shot dispersion gets better at 175, 200, etc. If you can’t get consistent contact and distance on your 100, 125 and 150 yard shots, that’s the next thing to do after working on putting and chipping.
150 yards and under is the core backbone of your golf bag. That’s where you should be spending your time practicing. If you’re wasting time trying to blast shots as far as you can, you’re not breaking 90. You need to be spending time understanding your shot distance and shape. Know the swing that goes 150. Know the swing that goes 100. This is the way. Use the clubs that accomplish this.
You can break 90 without a driver and without a 60 degree wedge. You don’t need either of those clubs to play well. If you don’t hit your driver well, don’t play your driver. We can go back to the driver when we’re working on breaking 80. Right now we’re not working on breaking 80. We’re shooting for 90. Get rid of the long game clubs that are hurting you, and improve on the shorter clubs that will improve your game.
Play From the Correct Tees
Everybody wants to be a hero playing from the tips. You’re doing yourself a disfavor by trying to make the game harder for yourself. Golf is hard enough without you adding extra challenge. As soon as you break 90 from the white tees, then you can play the blue tees. Show that you deserve to be playing the blues by breaking 90 from the whites. This will give you added satisfaction when you feel like you’ve earned your way back to the blue tees. When you break 80 from the blue tees, then you can play the tips. This is a simple way to challenge yourself and work your way up to the back tees.
Recovery Shots
You’re going to have poor shots on your way to breaking 90. How will you recover from those shots? Will you try to wrap a 3-wood 250 yards around a big pine tree right in your face a-la Tiger Woods? Bad idea. Learn how to hit a good punch shot to get the ball back in play. Remember, we’ve increased par by 1 stroke for each hole, so a magic hero shot is never necessary. If your tee shot doesn’t go where you want it to, punch it back onto the fairway and put your next shot on the green. Play smart. Play smart. It’s the only way to improve your score.
Back to Chipping
Choose 1 club to chip with. Don’t complicate things for yourself. The pros will tell you that you need to have a great handle on all the wedges to chip well. No. That’s bad advice. If you’re trying to break par, you may get to that point, but right now, what are we doing? We’re breaking 90. Play accordingly. Choose your favorite chipping club and stick to it. I don’t care if it’s a 7 iron or a 56 degree sand wedge. Pick a chipping club and master it. There are 1000 ways to swing that one club and you need to have a club you’re comfortable with because you are going to be chipping a lot and it’s imperative that you’re putting those chips close to the hole if you want to break 90.
Practice shots lined up with your back foot then your front foot. Then practice breaking your wrists through the stroke or with a putting stroke. Practice all the different techniques of chipping until you’ve mastered that club.
The Mental Game for Breaking 90
Before every shot you take, I want you to take 10 seconds and think about the shot. Think about how you want to strike the ball. Think about the distance you want the ball to go. Focus on the direction you want the ball to go. Use your beautiful mind and visualize what your goal is with the shot. You should have a pre shot routine. You don’t have to be a professional golfer to have a pre shot routine. And the routine has to mean something beyond a blind following of what some other golfer does. Build a plan for your shot.
Bad Shot Vs. Stupid Shot
You need to look at the hole as a whole and evaluate where your shot needs to go. If you are on a 340 yard par 4, where are the hazards? If there’s a big fairway sand trap from 240-280 and you normally drive it 250 with a slice or fade, don’t use driver. Choose a club that will keep you short of the sand so that you have a much easier 2nd shot. If you mishit, you end up in the rough instead of in the sand. That’s a bad shot, not a stupid shot. If you took the driver and smacked into the sand, that was a stupid shot. You didn’t take the time to evaluate the hole and eliminate the hazard. If you want to break 90, you have to pay attention to these things. Avoid the danger!
Working Backwards From the Green
What club do you want to be hitting into the green? Since we’ve changed par 4 to par 5, now we have more flexibility in setting up the shot we want. If you’ve done what I told you to do and perfected your 100 yard approach shot, use that! Let’s say you’re on a 440 yard par 4. It’s now a par 5 so you have 3 shots to get on. That means, for a 100 yard approach you have 2 shots to go 340 yards. If you can drive 240, you could hit your second shot 100 and your third shot 100. Create the approach shot you want by calculating your distance for the hole, and how long you want to be approaching the green from the fairway.
Pin Hunting
Don’t do it. Trying to chase the pin leads to poor shot selection. It puts your ball in dangerous situations and adds strokes to your score. Aim for the middle of the green. If you’re trying to break 90 you’re not good enough to chase difficult pins. Just aim where you have the biggest margin of forgiveness and get the ball on the green. Get it on the green. Get the ball on the green. That’s your priority. That’s the only thing you need to worry about. Get the ball on the green. Got it?
Learn and Accept Your Shot Shape
Do you use an app to track your golf game? If not you should be. Personally, I like 18Birdies, but any app will do. The app will let you log where your misses are and you can find patterns in your misses. If you can identify the patterns you can correct them.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If you’re not learning from your mistakes your wasting time and effort. Learn where you miss and change your setup accordingly. When you’re figuring out your distances (100, 125, 150) pay attention to the ball flight. You’ll find it normally starts straight and moves right, or starts left and moves right. Pay attention to that. That will help you better line up your shots and put the ball where you want it to be. You have to get your shot shape to a point where you can trust it.
Make Changes
Identify what’s not working in your golf game. Make changes. I see guys going on the golf course trying to smack a driver 300 yards. They get mad when it goes OB. Then on the next hole they do the exact same thing. They don’t have the common sense to say, “My driver isn’t doing well today, I’m going to keep her in the bag.” That’s how you improve your golf game. Maximize the reward from the aspects of your game that are going well, and minimize the punishment from the clubs that aren’t doing what you tell them to. Punish the bad clubs. If you’re consistently slicing it one day, think about why. Your club face is open and your club path is out-to-in. Change those things and you won’t slice your next shot. If you don’t know what that means, watch this video.
If you’ve failed the same way more than a couple times, make changes. Use what you came with. If all your shots are fading, play the fade. If one of your clubs is slicing, put it away. Adapt to your game. Everybody’s game is different every day. Make the necessary adjustments based on what your game is doing.
For Breaking 90…Think, Think, Think
Your game depends on your brain. You don’t need to be striking the ball perfectly. Not all of your putts are going to fall. And you’re going to hit some poor chips. But if you’re using your brain, you can break 90. Not every shot will be the same. Your environment will affect the way your shot behaves. Slope, weather, elevation all matter in your golf round. Pay attention to all of these elements. You’ll learn to play different environments by playing different courses. Try out all the courses you can to get a feel for different setups.
Keeping score is not a part of thinking. Keeping score will add stress. Your round will be less fun and you will not break the score you’re looking to break. Once you finish a hole, write down the number for that hole and move on. Don’t plan ahead telling yourself, “If I can bogey the last two holes I’ll break 90.” That is a surefire way not to accomplish your goals and dreams. Stay away from that mindset. Play each hole and move on.
TL:DR
This is a long blog post but the bottom line is this:
- Raise par by 1 for each hole (Par 3’s are now 4, 4’s are now 5, 5’s are now 6)
- Spend twice as much time practicing putting and chipping as you do on the driving range
- Know your clubs and distances for 100, 125, and 150 yards
Do those three things and you will break 90 very soon. Then you can set your eyes on breaking 80! Please come back and tell me about it when you do!
