News

Is “make more birdies” really the best advice to shoot lower scores?

Published

8 years ago

Nov 19, 2018

I often hear golfers say, “I need to make more birdies to shoot lower scores.” This statement has been uttered by the team I currently coach, and through three tournaments this fall, it got me wondering how accurate that statement was for our level of play.

Our players’ scoring averages range from 74 to 87, having played in a minimum of two tournament rounds and up to seven tournament rounds. Most often, I have heard the statement above from our players who are in the middle to higher end of the scoring averages. So, I took a look into our scoring breakdown using the data we collect with GameGolf.

Here are the rankings of birdies per round for the seven players who have traveled this fall

1	2.7
2	1.42
3	1.17
4	1
5	0.5
6	0.42
7	0.33

The difference from the top to the seventh spot is 1.09 birdies per round. The player with the top spot has a scoring average of 74, and the player in seventh spot has a scoring average of 84.67.

Here are the rankings of double bogey/worse for the seven players who have traveled this fall

1	0.42
2	0.85
3	1
4	1.42
5	2
6	2.5
7	4

The difference from the top to the seventh spot is 3.58 doubles/worse per round. Again the player at the top has the 74 scoring average and the player at the bottom has the 87 scoring average.

Diving a little deeper, the players on the team with the top three scoring averages (74, 77.29 and 78) occupy the top three spots in both of these rankings. And taking a look at all the players’ differentials, their rank stays the same compared to their scoring average rank.

The fact that many golfers overlook when making the statement “I need to make more birdies to score better” is that each hole accounts for about 5.5 percent of your round. So, if we take our player who averages one birdie (minus 1) and 2.5 doubles/worse per round (plus 5, conservatively), 5.5 percent of her round is birdies and 13.75 percent of her round is doubles/worse.

If she were to simply focus on making more birdies per round to “balance out” the current 2.5 doubles/worse per round, she would need to increase to five birdies per round. That would be a jump up to 27.5 percent of her round. Compare that to shift a focus to minimizing the doubles/worse category. If this same player could even shave her doubles/worse to 1.5 per round (plus 3, conservatively), it accounts for 8.25 percent of her round.

If we take a look at the top five scoring averages from the LPGA, Women’s DI and Women’s DII we see the scoring averages range from 68 to 72. While the birdies per round range from 2.4 to 4.8. An interesting thing to note from these numbers is that both the low scoring average and best birdies per round do not come from the LPGA players. While difficulty of the course setup may play into this factor, it can highlight that those women who are playing to make a living are making sure that they are keeping their cards clean of the big numbers because they do not have enough holes to make up for those errors with birdies.

While birdies are always more fun to celebrate, in stroke play you are better off to learn how to turn doubles into bogeys and bogeys into pars for better scores.

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Erin Thorne

Erin is the Director of Student Athlete Development and Women's Golf Coach at Wingate University. Erin holds a Masters of Arts in Sports Management from Wingate University and is Class A member of the PGA of Canada, a member of the Women’s Golf Coaches Association, and two time SAC Coach of the Year. She aims to help guide student athletes through their time at Wingate, making connections of what they learn in their sport and how they can apply it their careers after graduation.

15 Comments

Jack Nash

Nov 21, 2018 at 12:48 pm

Make more birdies or make fewer mistakes. Like they say “golf is a game of how good your misses are”.

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Obee

Nov 21, 2018 at 11:52 am

Great post. Thanks. You MUST be able to make 12 – 16 pars per round on a regular basis to play below scratch golf. And the other 2 to 6 holes should be bogeys or birdies the overwhelming majority of the time.

Simple game when you think of it that way, but the devil is in the details, of course.

WHY do so many otherwise talented, athletic players make so many bogey and doubles?

The answer completely depends on each player. For some, it often starts with poor decision or a poor state of mind. For others, lots of bogeys and doubles are inevitable because they have a pronounced swing flaw(s) that will simply result in very inconsistent ball-striking.

They key is to identify each player’s weaknesses and develop a strategy for that individual player to make MORE pars and fewer doubles (which, consequently, will almost always result in more birdies as well).

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Ron

Nov 21, 2018 at 11:37 am

Good article – with numerical support to back it up (esp. since golf is about numbers!)

Speaking of numbers, I’m 78, a low single-digit, and this year have my lowest scoring average ever. How? Several ways. I practice wedges a lot. I play the appropriate tees (~6000 yd courses). But mainly, I’ve learned how to salvage bogeys on holes if I get out of position: Put the ball back in play, try to get within 100 yards of the green, accept getting down in no more than three from there and move on. Not as exciting as cutting the corner of the dogleg or going over the hazard or some other hero shot, but – on average – lowers scores. Do I make a lot of birdies? Occasionally. But I’ve also had birdie free rounds with only three or four bogeys.

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Adrian

Nov 21, 2018 at 2:58 am

I am torn by this article because I believe that every golfer as they improve will learn to keep big numbers off the scorecard but there must come a time when you are capable of making your fair share of birdies or your improvement will stall. If you can make birdies in bunches it is a matter of time before you eliminate big numbers. Birdies or better are the only eraser on the scorecard and the better you get at the game the fewer doubles or worse you make and the more birdies or better you will make…hopefully !!

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Peter McGill

Nov 21, 2018 at 1:23 am

But if I can turn those triples and doubles into birdies…?

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Stephane Barras

Nov 21, 2018 at 12:57 am

Could Erin, the author, give us an answer about Alexdub comments ?

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PSG

Nov 20, 2018 at 2:40 pm

This article is kinda nonsensical because it assumes the goal is to shoot the best score possible and not to win the tournament (which are not the same thing).

If -10 wins the tournament, who cares if the college or LPGA player keeps “bogies off the card” and shoots -2? They still lost. Better to shoot +4 at least trying to shoot -10.

The goal of competitive golf isn’t to post the best score you can every round. Its to win the tournament. For a dude who shoots 95 on a Sunday this is pretty good advice. For a dude who is trying to get through Q-School or keep his card this is awful advice, as all that matters is how he does *Relative to the other players*.

If you are trying to make your personal bests (good for you!) then this is right. If you are trying to beat a field (where someone is likely to go very low) then this is wrong.

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Taylor

Nov 20, 2018 at 9:37 am

When I tried to turn the corner, I had a guy tell me “give yourself 13-14 birdie putts a round. Pretty much guarantees and even par or better round as long as you stay away from the big numbers

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TheCityGame

Nov 20, 2018 at 8:36 am

Any advice that starts with “make more birdies” or “avoid more bogeys” is basically looking at symptoms and not cures. It’s often presented like bogeys and birdies are in opposition to each other. . .as if gunning for birdies on every hole leads a player to too many doubles.

It doesn’t work like that. Players who make more birdies are also players who make fewer bogeys. This is true of amateurs and the pro tour (go look at stats for bogey avoidance and birdie rate. . .it’s almost all the same guys at the top of the list and they’re also the best scorers. https://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.02414.2018.html and https://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.156.2018.html)

Advice should be “get better” — whatever that means for an individual player — and when a player “gets better”, she will make more birdies and avoid over-par scores a lot more.

I will agree. . as I’ve gotten better, and more regularly shoot in the low/mid 70’s, the most important thing in scoring is over-par avoidance.

But, that hasn’t come from a strategy of not trying to make birdies. I’m still trying to make birdies all the time. And I make more than I used to. I also avoid big numbers more often.

So, no, “make more birdies” is not really the best advice to shoot lower scores, but neither is “make fewer over-pars”. The best advice to shoot lower scores is be a better golfer (more accurate, longer, better short game, etc.)

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Murv

Nov 20, 2018 at 8:30 am

Pretty much stating the obvious for average players.

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Duffy McHackster

Nov 19, 2018 at 9:24 pm

Nice to see an article that makes sense to us less skilled types. I manage about a dozen birdies a season, so not at all realistic to expect much improvement there. We can learn to play smarter, manage the course better, and work on the things we can realistically improve. As we get older, we aren’t likely to gain distance, so we need to understand our limitations and and not bite off more than we can chew.

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alexdub

Nov 19, 2018 at 10:09 am

Am I missing something? Looking at the first data table concerning average birdies per round, the difference between the first spot (2.7) and the seventh spot (.33) appears to be 2.37 — not the 1.09 stated in the article.

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- Josh
  
  Nov 19, 2018 at 10:47 am
  
  Think he meant top and second.
  
  Reply Report comment
- Josh
  
  Nov 19, 2018 at 10:48 am
  
  I can’t type. He meant second and seventh.
  
  Reply Report comment
BL

Nov 19, 2018 at 9:58 am

This is by far the smartest post ever on this site! Well done Erin!

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GolfWRX’s Father’s Day Gift Guide (2026)

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GolfWRX Staff

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