For most of us golfers, improving is the great challenge of this game we love. But understand that statistically speaking, golf at the highest level is at least twenty times more difficult than brain surgery.  How do I figure that?

Check this out.

There are over 5,000 brain surgeons in the U.S. earning an average income of $368,000. But only 190 PGA Tour professionals had winnings of that much in 2023. Add to that the 68 LPGA players and five Korn Ferry players who surpassed that figure. So, there are less than 270 professional golfers making more than the average brain surgeon. So, attaining the functioning highest level of golf skill must be almost twenty times more difficult than brain surgery…right?

With that bit of levity behind us (though these are real numbers), let’s talk about getting better at this game that has us captivated. I have never met a golfer who admitted he or she had absolutely no interest in getting better. Quite to the contrary, golfers who are even the least bit serious keep score, because they are at least somewhat interested in seeing those numbers get smaller. So, what better time of the year to make that promise to yourself than right now, as a new year begins?

The pathways to improvement can be widely different, depending on how badly you want to improve your golf game and your scoring. So, just for fun (that levity thing again), I thought I would share my observations about some of those pathways you might consider as your own for the coming year:

The “Wish” Path. This path is the easiest to execute because you don’t have to really do anything different from what you’ve always done. Just spend your time sitting around hoping your golf gets better.  I actually know a lot of golfers like that. They barely know where the practice range is, would never consider a real lesson and step up to the first tee shot with not much more than a half-hearted practice swing. And they wonder why they don’t get better.

I lost my father very early in life, but he left me with many “pearls of wisdom”, as he called them. One of my favorites of his more colorful ones was this:

“Son, just go wish in one hand and s**t in the other one and see which one fills up the fastest.”

The “Hope” Path. I’ll be the first to admit that this game is very difficult to attain any level of mastery.  The golf swing and all its many idiosyncrasies are not easy to ingrain to a level that offers any reliable measure of repeatability. And the golfer who can “self-teach” their way to even a consistent high single digit handicap is a rare bird indeed.

I can’t tell you how many golfers I frequently see on our practice range, banging away ball after ball after ball…quite apparently not working on learning a new position or movement, but just hoping that enough repetitions will allow them to create a measure of repeatability to improve their shot-to-shot consistency and therefore lower their scores.

Newsflash…the old saying that “practice makes perfect” does not apply to golf. Practice makes “permanent” and the more you practice that fundamentally unsound sequence of movements, the harder it will be to “unlearn” them and replace them with swing movements that really work.

With those two “fun” paths out of the way, let’s take a turn more serious and lay out three proven pathways to better golf.

• Improve your physical plant.  This is particularly important for those of us who are aging a bit faster than we’d like but applies to all of us who don’t routinely hit hundreds of golf balls a week.  The golf swing takes flexibility to execute and our daily routines are the enemy of flexibility.  Most of us spend too much time sitting and not enough time improving our range of motion that a good golf swing requires.  My key to having maintained my skills into my 70s is that I stretch every day . . . maybe not as much as I really should, but enough to still be able to make a full turn away from the ball and back through to a full follow-through.  Even if you do the minimum, it is remarkable what 10-12 minutes of stretching can do for your golf.  I won’t go into detail here because there are tons of good videos, programs and products out there.  Just do it!
• Learn, learn, learn.  You cannot execute a golf swing until you really understand it.  My father was a Ben Hogan disciple, so I was raised on Power Golf and Five Lessons.  And I was tutored as a youth by my father and our local golf pro.  I just wrote about Learning and Practice a few weeks ago.  Check it out and commit to learning about the golf swing in all its iterations – full swings, pitching, chipping and putting.  With understanding comes enlightenment.
• Carnegie Hall.  The old adage goes . . . “How do I get to Carnegie Hall??  The answer: “Practice. Practice. Practice.”  But practice with a definite purpose . . . ALWAYS.  As I mentioned earlier, just banging balls is fun, but it’s not practice.  And it won’t make you a better golfer.  When the PGA and LPGA tour players go to the range, they have a very specific thing they are practicing.  It might be a minute little adjustment but watch them if/when you get the chance.  They are not just banging balls one after the other.  Each swing is taken with a purpose and intent, followed by an evaluation of how they did.

So, there you have some levity and guidance to start your year.  Let me know your questions and I’ll do my best to give you sound answers you can bank on.  Always feel free to drop me a line.