Editor’s note: This tip was featured in GOLF’s Play Smart package from the September/October 2022 issue of GOLF Magazine. Look for more tips on GOLF.com, and click here to subscribe to the magazine.
The difference between the lowest handicaps and the rest of us isn’t the quantity of good shots. It’s what happens after the bad ones.
Jon Sherman, in his recently published book, The Four Foundations of Golf ($25; amazon.com), outlines one of the clearest statistical truths in golf: It’s not about making more birdies. It’s about making fewer double bogeys (or worse).
As you see in the table above, a 14-handicap cards about 1.5 fewer birdies than a 2-handicap, per round. Nice, but here’s the rub: He posts more than twice the amount of double bogeys. A 20-handicap? He’s making two times fewer birdies than a 2, and five times more double bogeys!
It’s not the sexiest headline, but if you want to lower your scores, stop trying to make more birdies. Instead, play safer and win the war against those back-breaking doubles.
