Happy Monday,

This week we discuss lowering your score without changing your golf swing.

We also have the usual tip of the week and a quick video on Ludvig Aberg’s pre-shot routine.

Enjoy.

Lowering Your Scores WITHOUT Changing Your Golf Swing

Golf is a technical game, and working on your mechanics with a coach is important if you want to improve. But there are so many other aspects that can help you shoot lower scores.

Here is a quick checklist:

Understand your scoring (playing stats)

Keeping playing stats takes 5 minutes a week, but is the highest Return On Investment (ROI) activity for golfers once they practice more than 1 hour a week (I’m working on a free stats solution for you all as we speak).

Focused Practice

If you practice, but you don’t lower your scores then there are likely one of two reasons for your lack of progress:

1. You are working on an area of your game that isn’t truly limiting your scoring (this is why I built Break X Golf).

2. You're working on something technically that isn’t making the difference you need at impact. (I still believe working with a great local coach, and launch monitor when needed, is the best option here).

Accelerating your learning with practice

Getting good at practice is a skill in itself. Once you are working on the right areas there is an additional layer of how quickly you are learning.

How much information do you gain from every golf shot and how much better can you make your next attempt in practice?

This is a big topic to cover, but here are some resources to get you started:

• 5 Hidden Skills Of Great Practice

• The Real Reason Golfers Don’t Get Better

• What Does Great Practice Feel Like?

Understanding Impact Mechanics & Ball Flight

Golfers often get worse when they try to pick apart their swing mechanics. Often, because the swing change they focus on doesn’t relate to what is causing their errant ball flight.

Most golfers would improve their scoring if they understood what impact factors cause their good and bad ball flights – this is essentially how golf pros coach – Ball flight > Impact > Swing Changes.

How To Perform – Scoring

There are many tactical aspects to becoming great at scoring. Having a clear plan, breaking down golf holes, peering behind how the architect designed the hole.

However, these all start with understanding your dispersion pattern. Do you miss left/right, short/long. How does this change with different clubs?

In practice, you should work to improve your dispersion pattern. However, on the golf course, you need to play with what you have on the day and manage your golf ball around the golf course.

I hope this has given you food for thought.

🤫 Top Secret

We’re working on a fun new project around coaching these concepts above. If you want to be the first to know and have the chance to access it before anyone else, fill in the poll below with your top pick.

Break X Golf Skills Game

Break X Golf is a sister project to Golf Insider and was co-founded by Will Shaw. After entering your stats you’ll get a personalized plan in seconds – it even takes into account where you miss fairways and greens!

You can check it out here.

Ludvig Aberg’s Secret

Happy golfing – The Golf Insider Team

P.S. If you’ve enjoyed this week, please share this with a friend using the link below.