How To Break 100 - Guaranteed!

Soccer stars dance jigs in goal celebrations or pull their jerseys over their head and run with arms open as though they are flying. In golf, all you usually get is that punch in the air and a "Yes!" with clenched fists. Once, I did exactly that when I got a winning birdie putt flinging my T-shirt over the face and fly. I was trying to get a reaction from the rest. 


They thought I was mad. All the world's like a fruit cake, it wouldn't be complete without some nuts in it. I shall now be attempting to cure your frustration, depression and prepare you for such a goal celebration when you hit your first birdie or better still your first score below a 100. When you don't know what you are doing, at least do it neatly. It was commonly said that 80% of the world's golfers never scored below 100. This is a myth. Perhaps it should be para-phrased as 80% of golfers do not consistently play below a handicap of below 100 (handicap 28) yet.

Socrates defined insanity as repeating the same things over and over and then expecting different results. He was a clever man. Of course in any sports, you require certain sets of skills to perform. Golf is great because you have a handicap system. Try playing tennis with Roger Federer or race with Usain Bolt on an equal platform. It's heads I win tails you lose situation. All of us without exception at whatever your level of play will feel a great sense of elation to be doing things at a new level playing a round and carding a score that is your career best. 

The amazing thing is that just when you thought that you have finally arrived only to find out soon that you'll find yourself down in the pits again, thrills turned to frustration like food turning stale overnight. Some folks tell me that they are already doing their best but they just can't get better but you will not get a different result if you keep doing the same things. You need to change the way you think and play. 90% of us won't get a coach to give lessons because the coach is going to insist on taking away that very single action that compensated for all your sins and swing faults. 

Whatever skills level you are at, you will need a game plan and a strategy. If you are not at that level to play offensively do so defensively. The game is as much about scoring as well as eliminating errors. If you are not scoring (which is quite expected) given the topic we are discussing is How To Break 100, then the next best thing is to eliminate errors since doing so immediately reduces your score. I want to help you to think "how" even before you play then go on to make some simple observations, decisions and changes with a simple plan and strategy. Plainly refusing to drink 100 Plus will not help, trust me! Play your best golf - here's how.

Pre-Game Routine

Be early. Do not rush to the club, rush to change, rush your breakfast or lunch and rush your whole day and game away. You can play a quick game by avoiding slow play but you can't rush your game. Golf needs rhythm, tempo, timing and when you rush you lose it. Good golfers play the game twice a week or more and in between they go to the practice range. Many other "good golfers" like us may clock in a game once or twice per month and had nothing in between as we hated going to the range. As much as golf is a game played between the ears, it is also very much a game of muscle memory. We have the talent but no time.

The Range

Most of us may go for a practice round at the range only when we are trying out a new club or when we grew so desperate after losing your swing completely. Even for those who are conscientious, 90% are doing it the wrong way. If you can't find time to get to the range, you may want to try going a bit earlier before the game to have a warm up - not to try hitting monstrous drives but simply to practise regulating an easy swing, a feel for swing speed. Just hit some balls with a PW or SW on half swing or full swing at 50-80% of your usual power. This is to get your feel so that you know if you are gripping too tight. A little thing like the grip strength can have a profound effect on your shots. You will feel light when you are choking it to death thus building up tensions in the muscles. The correct feel is a little heavy feel from the clubhead. If you still can't do this, then at least use a SW or 2 short irons held together for practice swing just before tee off. I shall devote a topic on "The Range" at a the next opportunity to expand on the subject.

Warm Up

In whatever sports or exercise you indulged in, warm up is critical to prevent injuries. In this modern age of stress, lack of time and the only exercise you do is with your middle finger on the highway, tying your shoe laces can cause back injuries what more a game where you rotate your hip and shoulder around the spine as your pivot. Doing stretching with your arms, wrists, shoulders, hips and legs help to reduce tension in the muscles and lubricates the joints. Golf uses our large muscles especially our legs which are important in the golf swing. Many injuries can happen due to lack of warm up. Most golf injuries occurred at the range when you hit the balls non-stop with wrong technique. Beware!

Practice While Waiting

Most golf courses have a chipping and putting area. While waiting your turn, why not go for a few minutes of practice since the last time you played could have been half to one month ago. Practise the long 30 ft and the short 3 ft putt. The reason to do this is to eliminate 3-putting. From satistics of pro golfers, you'll find that they only make roughly 25% of their putts from 12 ft. We will probably do less say maybe only 15%. You are likely to land your shots onto the green 20-30 ft. away rather than 3-12 ft. So the 30 ft. practice putt is to get a good feel of how to get your first putt nearer to the hole from 3 ft. and then from 3 ft. to sink it in.

Your Mind - The Greatest Weapon

Give Tiger the worst clubs and he can still ace it. He may even putt better than you with a broomstick. Just kidding but you get the point. His greatest weapon is the mind. We often hurt ourselves before we even started by thinking that despite a few weeks lay off, today we are going to have the best game of our lives. Even a fool would cringe and laugh at this expectation. Just like the English press building up England to win every World Cup since 1966 and then immediately cursing them and bringing them to the lowest ebb when the first game ends in a draw. This is what many do to themselves sub-consciously. You tell yourself you are going to get a birdie, several pars and mostly bogeys. You hit your first shot and it went askew then for the next couple of holes it went awry and not as planned. You start trying to change your swing, make correction while playing and it got worse and you analyse everything. 

Over-analysis leads to paralysis. After 5 or 6 holes, you write yourself off and start thinking when is your next game. There's a song that goes like this: "Free you mind, the rest will follow." What you ought to do is not to bring your own expectations so high up with lofty ambitions. Just go out there to have fun, exercise and enjoy the day in the good company of friends then you are more forgiving of your own mistakes. No point having highly forgiving hi-tech weapons trapped with an unforgiving user. Everybody wants to live in a landed property with no block number where even just reading out the address feels so good, zips around in a Jaguar or go for 5 holidays a year to the Caribbeans, Malibu, Caracas, Monaco and all places exotic while eating caviar and foie gras. If you start off thinking you must have all these within a day just like your best golf for the day, then you are setting yourself up for failure. Guaranteed. Start with chicken or duck livers not foie gras. Be realistic. Take baby steps. Manage that expectation!

The Tee Box

When we stand at the tee box or even the fairways, you feel that your manhood is at stake. Your glance towards the distance horizon, summon a Herculean effort for an explosive shot. The fact is the harder you hit, the tighter your grip becomes and your muscles will tense up. It will in turn disrupt your swing path reversing it from a natural inside to out swing to an outside to in which affects the direction, trajectory, distance of the shot and also cause digging in before contact with the ball. 

Whenever you swing easier, you will hit it longer and get onto more fairways as all your large muscles from shoulder, legs, hands to wrists are void of tension. Your confidence begins to soar and builds on itself.

When teeing up, look for a flat area and ensure your feet are not on some sandy patches or uneven plane. Undulating areas create an uneven path to the ball when the ball is higher or lower than your feet. Take your practice swing not to feel how far you wanted it to go but to get you eye-hand co-ordination, feel and a visualisation where to land it. It is not your dress rehearsal swing. For drivers, tee up such that the ball when teed , the equator of the ball is at the top end of the driver club head. 

The sweet spot of today's driver is just right below. Tee from the side of danger. If there is water hazard or OB on the left side, tee off from the left where the danger lies and hit your shots away to the other side. You do not have to be in line with the tee box marker so play slightly behind it if necessary but position yourself slightly angled to the right. You can even check your front foot slightly in front of your back foot to prevent turning too much back to the left. If dangers are present on both sides, you may consider using a 3-wood, hybrid or shorter iron just to secure the fairways. If you still can't do all these, hit and believe in the the power of prayers. Pray, hit, pray. You do not need to align yourself to the tee box marker which may set you up wrongly, just adjust, set up and play within the allowed perimeter.

Fairways & Approach To Green

Your next shot is inevitably linked to your previous one. You have to play as it lies or incur penalties. Playing off a fairway is so much better than from among the trees or incurring OB and water hazard penalties. When you tee off, you must allow margin for error and plan to ensure that the shot would not incur penalty strokes. It is better to be 20m shorter but on the fairways. If you haven't broke 100, do not think that your game is based on birdies and pars, it is avoiding the big numbers like double pars, triple bogeys. 

Double bogeys are still acceptable. If you double-bogey all the holes you score 108 and if you bogey all holes, you get 90. Your next shot from the fairway is crucial and again you have to think. You are not supposed to expect making GIR (Greens In Regulation) meaning one shot onto the green on par 3, two on par 4 and three on par 5. If you are 180m from the green, using a fairway wood, hybrid or long iron, what percentage of a chance for you to pull it off? Greens are usually protected by bunkers, rough or water or all these as a result of sadist designers. 

If 70% of the time you can't pull it off, change tact otherwise you are likely to get your second shot into the bunker, miscue it once (3rd shot), get it out (4th) only to hit it too hard and gets it into the water (5th-penalty), drop a ball, chips over (6th), over putts too much (7th), gets it close (8th) and happily retrieve the ball as a "gimme" glad that your ordeal is over. Don't laugh. It happens. Isn't it better to play it shorter so that it would not reach the bunker from a distance and a club that you are comfortable and confident with? Besides, you are given strokes by stronger golfers such that when you bogey, the other fellow will have to par. 

Lay up your shots for the next. If your next shot leaves you with a chip or lob which can be more difficult to judge distance then a 8 or 9 iron to lay up your next shot with your favourite club or distance would be ideal. Never attempt a par 5 in two, it is pointless, 3 or 4 is good enough. A typical par 5 can be 450m (normal) or 500m or more. Let's say your tee off distance is 200m and you are left with another 250-300m. even if you hit the driver from the fairways you are not going to get there. Many would then use a 15 degree 3-wood and get into trouble because the longer the club, the lower its loft, the harder to use. If its a 20% chance of a good shot ditch it for an iron where you can hit 2 x 125m or varied it to 150m and a 100m. This is a much surer way to paradise.

Look at what happened to greedy people. At the old Haw Par Villa, you get your guts skewered and left to rot on the green. Remember, every shot and where it lands is a plan for the next shot.

The Flag - Pin Position

Whether you are playing your next shot from the fairways or teeing off on a par 3, do not aim for the flag and attack it simply because most frequently pin positions are at the very front just before they are protected by bunkers or water or at an inauspicious corner at the back where there are rough, bunkers, jungle beckoning. Aim and play it to the middle of the green everytime regardless of pin position unless you are highly-skilled or your nickname is Braveheart. This will allow you to go for two putts. If you are close to the green and the bunker stands in your way with the pin position just after the bunker, just play it over safely even if it goes over the hole because if you try to be clever and aim to get near the hole, you will decelerate on the downswing, flop the ball up and have it buried in sand short of clearing the bunker.

Short Game

There are days when your long game deserts you. This is where it is critical to have a good short game. Acquiring the critical aspects of this part of the game can save you the day. When you short game is on cue, it will surely reliefs the pressure on your long game. Pitching, chipping and flopping your shots require confidence and practice. There are no clubs to play a with a full swing at 10, 20 or 30m and so on and it is easier to play a full than half or quarter swing. 

This requires feel and feel can only be gained through practice. It is also easier to chip and run using a putting stroke than to hit it high and drop nearer. Practise with different clubs half chip/half run, another one that flies a quarter and runs three quarters and one that goes three quarter and runs a quarter. You will soon find out which club to go to when you faced such a situation. This method is easier than to fathom shots-to-distance using a single club by swinging a quarter (knee-to-knee), half (waist-to-waist) or three-quarter (shoulder-to-shoulder). Again, just putting the ball onto the green is good enough. Do not expect to put it near the hole.

The Swing

Once set up correctly, the club in the swing is an extension of the arms, it goes back and through in a circular motion. Do not think too much as you are about to swing as mechanical thoughts lead to mechanical movements. Many golfers do not trust their clubs. They tend to have a tendency to want to help the club to lift the ball up by scooping it. In doing so, they bring in unnecessary movements during the swing especially that of wrist action and twisting that could cause poor shots. When you somehow managed to hit the ball, you will find that you are hitting every club almost the same distance. The chief reason behind this is simply because you are manipulating the swing to help the ball gets lifted. 

Every club has a built-in loft to get a certain trajectory and distance. All you have to do is to hit down at and through the ball from in-to-out like how you would use a cane to whip or with both hands carrying a pail of water to splash on your car. In other words, never think that you are going to hit the ball but instead have a slow take off to the back and top (in) then release it with a smooth regular tempo, a swish coming down and out and think that the ball happens to be in the middle of your swing path. This will give you the correct feel and swing.

Develop A Vaccine to Fight the "Super bug - Poor Shots"

Just like the H1N1, find a last ditch attempt to fight against the super bug - poor shots. It is frustrating and depressing to hit poor shots. It is not fun. That's why golf is a dangerous game. Try to fix your swing only if you know what the fault is and where the problem lies but analysing it while playing can make things worse. Be warned! Develop a swing or a type of shot or at least find a club that you can rely on at all times to hit well whenever disaster struck. Go to this swing, shot or club that never fails you. It's like your Esc button on your keyboard.

Humbled

Never think that your game has arrived. Be warned! No sooner when you think that, golf's death angels will be screwing you and you will be in despair. It's like we were born naked, wet and hungry then things got worse. Despite the advancement of equipment, the average Joe's score is still hovering at 100. But it ain't true to say 80% of golfers never broke 100 but it could be true to say that 80% never broke 90. So if you play 90 or better, you have tasted rarefied air and you are in elite company.

I leave you a word from Napolean Hill:

Anyone Can Quit When The Going Is Hard, But A Thoroughbred Never Quits until He Wins.

The going is always hard on the road to greatness. If success were easy, everyone would achieve it. If you were to fall back on your own memory you will recall that whatever you have achieved by now wasn't easy. Maybe business conditions are very tough due to the recession, your spouse is quiting his/her job to look after the children and finance will be strained (less golf clubs to buy), etc. Sometimes, in the course of our lives, there wasn't a single day we didn't feel like giving up. Stop and rest if you must but never quit. True Thoroughbreds never quit. Competition only spurs them, and obstacles merely reinforce their determination to succeed. If you have not yet achieved greatness in your life, it is because you have been willing to settle for less. You may not cross the finish line first every time you try, but if you stay in the race, you will eventually prevail.

These are just a handful of useful tips that you can immediately observe, think through, deploy, develop a habit of and a faster way to achieve the goal of playing less than 100 and yet enjoy your 100 Plus without guilt or fear. If you have benifitted from these pointers, let me know. Be at peace not piss! Harnessing and applying these principles can help you save strokes. If you can save just one stroke per hole, you save 18 in a game. Let us be realistic and say we can shave 9 strokes off your 36 handicap (108) by simply eliminating unnecessary errors, you will soon be scoring a 27 handicap (scoring 99). The journey of a thousand miles begins with that first step and the first step is to change the thinking.