What Is the Best Golf Strategy for High Handicappers?

⛳ Playing safe and aiming for the center of the green can often prevent bigger mistakes and lead to better scores.

🏌️ Avoiding the hero shot and instead choosing higher-percentage plays helps golfers minimize risk, especially near hazards.

📉 It's important to account for shot patterns and dispersion, even when using short clubs like wedges.

🌳 When blocked by trees or obstacles, aiming for open areas rather than risky routes can make the following shots much easier.

💡 Adapting your strategy to each scenario and avoiding unnecessary risks can help high handicappers lower their scores.

👏 Sometimes, avoiding trouble and setting up the next shot is a smarter move than always attacking the flag.

00:00:00 - Payton, I have a really fun challenge for you today. All right. >> Okay. I'm going to put you in some different scenarios on the golf course and I'm going to ask you sort of how you would approach it and then we're going to talk about whether that's the best strategy for you or whether that's wrong. >> All right. >> Seem okay. >> Seems okay. >> All right. Let's do it.

00:00:22 - >> First shot here. I've got you at Pebble Beach. We're going to we're going to take a tour around the country, by the way. We're going to go to all sorts of different places. So, we're on the West Coast. got you a 30 yard shot here. So you've hit your second shot to this green. You're just left of the green. You've got a bunker between you and the flag and this pin is basically tucked right on the edge of the green. So you don't have a ton of room to work with.

00:00:39 - >> Okay. So how would you approach the shot? What would you do? >> Generally I'd hit like a 56 and I can get pretty high. >> Pretty small swing, but enough to get it over. I'm more scared of the sand right now. The bunker. Okay. >> So I want to take it a little farther. >> Maybe past the pin, but not right at the pin. >> Cool. I love that. So like your target distance to hit this shot is actually you're trying to carry it probably actually 30 yards. >> Right.

00:01:02 - >> Perfect. So for a lot of people when they run into this scenario, they're trying to hit that hero shot, trying to land the ball like maybe right on the edge of the green or right between the bunker and the flag and let it roll really close to the hole. In this example, unfortunately you've hit a bad approach shot. You put yourself in a bad spot like sort of take a little bit of your medicine here. Play to the center of the green. So like for you 30 yards at a minimum, this would be a really

00:01:23 - good way to approach that. try to hit it to the flag and if it rolls a little long, totally cool. So, let's see you actually pull that off.

00:01:36 - That's the one we're trying to avoid right there. So, there's your perfect example. Okay. So, I'm going to give you a mulligan. You're going to get another shot here. All right. Let's see a little bit bigger swing. Again, you're trying to hit this at least to the flag. Even a little bit past is totally cool. >> All right.

00:02:00 - There we go. So, that one had a little more speed on it. There's your exactly 30 yards. So, that's perfect. Like, that's totally fine. In this case, you got a 30ft putt. Like, we'll deal with that. That's what we want. Okay. So, that's the first scenario. Make sure you give yourself enough room to land the ball on the green. Don't try to be a hero. There's no reason to try to do that. Okay. You ready to go for shot number two? >> Yes. Okay, we went on our imaginary jet

00:02:24 - plane. Now we're in New York. We're at Beth Page Black. Okay, so I've got you in this scenario here. We'll take a look at it behind me. You can see you're in the fairway. You've got 70 yards to the green. I'm going to go ahead and zoom this out for you so you can see see that pin's kind of tucked on the right side. So you're going to have to take it over the bunker and at that flag. So how would you approach this shot? >> I would aim it left on the flag because

00:02:44 - I would rather leave it short and just be kind of in the rough than in the bunker. >> Okay. and hit it far enough to also get it past the bunker. So maybe a little bit past the green, but mainly just left of the flag. >> Okay, so you're thinking more center of the green here. Cool. I love that. So again, this is another one that I see a lot of high handicappers struggle with. They take dead aim at the flag because you've got a short club in your hand. You've probably got what, a pitching

00:03:07 - wedge, gap wedge, something like that. Yeah. So just because you have a shorter club, still have to understand your shots are going to have some type of dispersion and pattern. So I love what you said there. Aim a little bit more towards the center of the green. So we'll shift your aim here in a second. And then I want you to hit that shot towards the middle of the green. Like you said, the main thing we're trying to avoid here that big bunker in front of the green. Okay. So, we'll shift your

00:03:26 - aim and then you're going to go ahead and hit. >> Yeah, that's fine. Right there.

00:03:35 - >> There it is. Be enough. Oh, yeah. That's perfect. So, there you go. Like, that's a great shot. So, you have a tendency to kind of curve the ball a little bit to the right. That ball ended up within 20 ft. That would be an awesome awesome shot for you in this situation. So, really like what you said there. Give yourself some room if those pins are tucked to the corner. Yeah. You ready for the last one? >> Ready >> for our last one. We've headed down south. We're in sunny sunny Florida.

00:04:00 - We're down here at Copperhead. Okay. Um and I've got you in a situation that a lot of people run into. They've hit a shot. They're behind the trees here. They've got the flag kind of tucked on the left. So, how would you handle this one? What would you do here? >> I'd try to go straight through the trees, >> but keep it low. So, kind of like a seven iron like half swing to hit 100 yards cuz I don't want to hit the top of the trees and just let it fall back down right where the bunker is.

00:04:24 - >> So, you're you're going basically right on this line. >> Right on the line. >> Running it right over this bunker and then right past the edge of that bunker right at the hole. >> Yeah, >> that's brave. I Let's Let's see what happens. Let's see what happens. I don't know if that would be the strategy that I would pick, but let's let's see you try one here.

00:04:46 - Okay, so you're out of trouble. Um, now you're behind a bunker. Now you've got a really, really tough shot to the green. So, here's another way to think about this. I'm not saying that anything you did there was necessarily wrong, but here's another way that you can look at this from a different perspective. All of this room over here on the right from the green is wide open. There is no trouble over there. You can see up here on the map, like there is nothing over

00:05:08 - here to the right of the green. So you could take these three trees completely out of play. You could hit kind of that same shot just aiming at the right edge of the green. If you hit the shot you did where it actually curves to the left, you might actually roll up onto the green which would be really cool. Or worst case scenario, you just get out of trouble and you give yourself a really easy shot for the next one. So often times I see a lot of high handicappers,

00:05:27 - especially when you get into a situation like this, you're again trying to play the hero. I love the I love the enthusiasm and the moxy there, but this probably isn't the best shot for your score. A lot of things can go wrong here. You can hit the tree. You can end up in the bunker. Just a lot of bad stuff that can happen. So, I want you to try this again. I'm going to aim you to the right side of the trees. Same type of shot. You're going to try to punch one out. Let's see where that one ends

00:05:48 - up and just compare it to where this one is. >> All right.

00:05:55 - So, you smoked that one. It actually curved a little bit to the right, which is fine. >> But look at where this ball ends up. >> Much better. >> Yeah. This is a super easy shot. So, you got a really easy approach to the green from there. uh compared to where you were before where you're over in that bunker and you're gonna have a lot harder time making a decent score. So, these are just some ways to kind of think about when you're playing golf. It's not always about aiming at the flag

00:06:16 - or going directly at the hole. Sometimes you got to pick a target that's maybe a little safer just to help you shoot some better scores. So, really good job today. Thank you. You performed well under pressure. Thanks.