Adam Scott: This is my best advice for golfers who want to break 80

Adam Scott is one of the few golfers to make it all the way to the mountain top. He’s hoisted a major championship and achieved a career most of his fellow pros would dream of. And he’s also got some pretty solid advice for aspiring single-digit handicaps.

The 2013 Masters champ says he’s spent a lot more time recently helping amateurs with their games as part of the content he’s producing for his new Fairgame golf app, a “passion project” which he co-founded. Along the way, he’s noticed one area that keeps holding these golfers back: their short game.

‘The easiest way to save shots’

“I tell every amateur who wants to get better quickly is to focus on their short game,” he says. “Hitting a couple of longer, straighter drives is definitely a good feeling. But if you’re purely focused on flipping five shots off your score, we can all quite easily be better putters or chippers.”

Instruction

The reason, Scott says, is because making changes to your full swing is complicated, confusing and everyday golfers often lack the time. Short game technique, by contrast, is far simpler. You can make changes faster, and they’ll be more effective once you do.

“It’s a much more repeatable movement,” he says. “Getting into the technique of the golf swing is incredibly difficult and time-consuming, and most people don’t get the time to practice at all, so thinking about opening or closing the clubface is a big process.”

As for how we should go about working on our short game? Scott says to keep it simple: Find something you can do repeatedly and commit to it. That could mean using a putting mirror for a few minutes at home each night, or sticking with a putter you were fit for. It doesn’t matter what it is, Scott says, it matters that you commit to it.

“Don’t go searching when it doesn’t work after three tries,” he says. “Look into it, believe in what you’re doing and keep doing it. Getting up and down three or four more times a round, that’s where you save your shots.”

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