Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you become a smarter, better golfer.
Rory McIlroy won his first event of 2025 earlier this month at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, besting the likes of Shane Lowry, Lucas Glover and Justin Rose for his first victory at the historic links.
McIlroy has long been one of the top dogs in the sport, with a resume that includes four major titles and 27 PGA Tour titles, but over the last several years he has lagged behind the undisputed best player in the sport, Scottie Scheffler. In that time, Scheffler has won twice at Augusta National, a course that has famously flummoxed McIlroy.
“Scottie is and has been the best player in our game for the last couple years,” McIlroy said. “I feel like I’ve been close but just not quite there. But that’s motivating, that’s motivating to try to get the best out of myself and yeah, try to become the best player in the world again.”
One of the strategies McIlroy has been employing? Taking a page out of Scheffler’s book in terms of course management.
“I’m a big admirer of Scottie’s for a lot of different reasons, but every time I play with him and I watch how he plays and how disciplined he is,” McIlroy said. “And I’ve alluded to it this week, but honestly, just trying to take a little bit of a leaf out of his book.”
That strategy worked wonders for McIlroy at Pebble Beach — and it can help you shoot lower scores, too. Here’s how.
Use McIlroy’s new mindset for lower scores
When McIlroy alluded to taking a page out of Scheffler’s book, he had one thing in mind: course management.
“There’s impulses that I have on the golf course that it looks like Scottie doesn’t have,” McIlroy said. “I have to rein those in and I have to try to be a little more disciplined about it and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Scheffler rarely ever gets overly aggressive — and that (plus, of course, the ability to hit it where he wants) keeps him from finding bad spots on the course that lead to big numbers.
For example, in 2024, Scheffler ranked second on Tour in bogey avoidance at 9.85 percent. (Xander Schauffele led the Tour in this stat as he won two major championship.) This did not happen because he hit more spectacular shots than everyone else, but rather because he managed his misses and took big numbers out of the equation.
This is something that every golfer — no matter the skill level — can implement in their own game. But instead of trying to avoid bogeys, you should be trying to avoid double bogeys. When you find trouble, or see a pin tucked in a difficult spot, don’t try for the hero shot. All you need to do is play like Scheffler and take the big number out of play. Your big number just means something different than his.
Adopt that mindset and you’ll be amazed at how much your scoring improves.
