If you’re regularly breaking 100, but have not yet broke 90. Then this article is for you. Here are the HowIsMyGolf.com top 5 strategies for breaking 90. Plus a scoring strategy to help you along the way with a real world example to illustrate how breaking 90 is possible.
Know Your Golf Club Distances
If you’re breaking 100 often, it suggests you have some consistency with club distance. But do you know your average carry distance for each club? If you don’t, we recommend you find out. The best options include:
- If you have access to a driving range that has technology such as Trackman, they should have a “Find my club distance” option you can use.
- Book a lesson with a pro that has access to the technologies above. You should specifically ask for session to find out your club carry distances. Note them down before you finish.
- Get a GPS golf watch. There are plenty of options to buy. I personally like Garmin watches.
Notice we specifically mention carry distance as opposed to total distance. Carry distance is the distance between where you hit the ball and where it first lands. It is a more consistent and arguably more useful measure than total distance. For example, here in West Yorkshire, UK, the conditions vary a lot from summer to winter. In winter the ball doesn’t have much roll out, sometimes none, reducing total distance. But in summer roll-out can be significant. Knowing your average carry distance gives you many advantages. Most significantly, you can plan your way around the golf course in advance. This is essential for improving scores and is discussed next.
Plan how you’re going play before you go to the Golf course
Firstly, know the course. Assuming it’s your home course, you should already know it well. One small suggestion would be to walk the course backwards at some point. It gives you a whole different perspective of your home course. You’ll find places where there is more or less room, places to avoid and bail-out areas.
Secondly. Now you know your average carry distance for each club, plan how to tackle the golf course before you get there. Breaking 90 means you have, generally speaking, 17-19 spare shots (par 72-70 courses). Use these in your planning. Expect to drop shots on the hardest holes. Don’t over exert yourself on par 5’s. Getting on to the green in three shots on par 5’s is excellent. This gives you a great opportunity for par, but bogeys are fine to. Tips:
- Write down each club and its carry distance, also noting your preferred clubs. Note, this isn’t necessarily the club you hit longest, but the club you hit most consistent. Lets say PW, 8i, 6i and 3H are your favourite clubs, with carry distances of 120 yards, 140 yards, 160 yards and 180 yards respectively.
- Using a scorecard and your average carry distance, plan each hole. Work back from the green noting down your favourite club to approach each hole. Here’s an example:
| Par | Par 4 | Par 5 |
|---|---|---|
| SI | 1 | 8 |
| Yards | 420 | 480 |
| Stroke 3 | PW 120 yards | 8i 140 yards |
| Stroke 2 | PW 120 yards | 6i 160 yards |
| Stroke 1 | 3H 180 yards | 3H 180 yards |
| Result | Bogey/Double | Bogey/Double |
The example above shows a few important things:
- You don’t need to hit over 200 yards off the tee to break 90.
- You can plan to use your favourite clubs.
- It’s okay to hit three shots into a long par 4. You’re playing bogey golf after all. Pretend it’s a par 5 – this will reduce anxiety.
- The odd double bogey is okay, because you’re good enough to pick up some pars. If you know this, it will take some pressure off. Especially if you have a poor start to a round. Forget and keep going. You can mistakes and break 90.
Further down this page is a full example plan to help you understand how to break 90.
Driving Range Practice Drills
To break 90 you need to focus your practice and be strategic with your time. Take advantage of your strengths, know and understand your weaknesses. This comes from time at the range, practicing. We’re going focus on one thing first. Pitching. Have you ever worked on your pitching for 50% of your range time/balls? If not, then now is the time to try. Longer yardages and clubs are harder to improve and master. Sharpening your pitching should take less time and effort, and could be the magic ingredient you need to break 90. Focus on 100 yards and below. Practice various lengths with different clubs: 30, 25 and 75 yards, using a variety of wedges for each distance. For more range drill tips, we highly recommend taking a look at the article Driving Range Practice Drills. The drills mentioned in this article will make you a more complete Golfer.
Chipping and Putting
If you’re looking to break 90, you’re going to need to fine tune your chipping and putting. We’ve already suggested spending 50% of your time on pitching, now spend the equivalent time around the green. This means you’ll spend 30% of your time on irons/woods/hybrids, 30% on pitching, and another 30% on and around the green (including bunkers if possible). You have 10% to focus on something else specific, such as bunker play.
- Experiment by chipping with different clubs and lies around the green. Understand how far the ball travels and rolls in each case with different irons from the same spot. Try chipping to various distances with different clubs and use tees to mark where the ball bounces. Find what works for you. Personally, I use a 9i more often then anything else, but do use anything up to a 7i. Through this exercise I found that using anything above a 7i didn’t improve my chipping accuracy, so I don’t.
- Create some putting drills. Specifically from various distances. We suggest hitting at least 10 balls from 3ft, 6ft, 9ft, 12ft (40 balls total). Then putt at varied distances to improve distance control.
Keeping disasters off your Golf Scorecard
This is more about mind-set than anything else. The aim is simple. Never give up on any hole. We’re taking about avoiding unnecessary lost shots. Okay you’ve just hit it in the water off the first tee. It’s okay. Challenge yourself to make the best double, triple or even quadruple bogey you’ve ever made. It feels easy to give up. Especially around the green chipping or putting for what you think is a lost cause. But this is the exact time when shots are easily dropped. Make every shot your new challenge and enjoy the challenge of hitting your best ever triple bogey! The indirect effect of having this mentality, is practice. Not just the shots, but the mentality to make every shot important. These habits will make you a better player.
Plan to Break 90
Your target score is 89 or better. Assuming a par 70 to 72 course, gives a buffer of +17 to +19 shots over par, across 18 holes. Below is an example of what to aim for in the scenario of a par 72. In this scenario we have given some leniency with 1 x triple bogey. This is to take off any stress should you have a bad hole early in the round. It happens. Also note the lack of birdies. Birdies are a bonus in breaking 90. Using the plan here you can divide your round into two 9 hole rounds. On the harder 9 you can have a triple and it won’t affect your ability to break 90. You can also have 3 x pars and 4 x bogeys on each 9. Note, this is a plan for illustrative purposes only. Adapt it as you see fit for your course and ability. But remember, bogey golf is good here. 17 x bogeys and 1 x par is great 😁.
Below is a real world example from a playing partner of mine. Although they have broke 90 many times in the past, they had not done so for some time. Least to say, they were very happy breaking 90 again. You’ll notice they almost replicated the plan above. In this case, they had one extra double bogey instead of a par, achieving 89 on this par 70 course. It’s also worth noting that we started on the more difficult 9 holes, teeing off hole 10 first. They started the first three holes +7 over par (10-12), but only dropped +12 over the remaining 15 holes! This emphasises the point of never giving up.
Bonus
We don’t have a bonus section here yet. If you have a suggested tip, motivational phrase, or something else helpful to other golfers, then we’d love to hear from you. Simply tell us using the comments section below. We’ll review suggestions and make sure you’re mentioned in the article.
Summary
If you have your own experience of breaking 80, 90 or 100, we’d love to hear your experience, advice or any tips you would offer someone else. Simply share your thoughts in the comments section below.
You can keep up-to-date with new articles by subscribing to the blog. Simply enter your email below. For more great articles, visit the Blog Library.
Leave a Reply