Is the road to a better handicap paved with potholes?

I invested in a monthly fee at a local course and am doing diligent work at the range, twice a week. I am also playing 36 holes a week. I am doing deliberate work and drills to target my deficiencies and am seeing major improvements during this practice time. I keep seeing the same pattern: I string together some good rounds (81, 83, 87, 83, 81), then I throw up a 92, 94 with some brain-fart ball striking. I am a 13.5 handicap, trying to get down to 10. What kind of pattern can I expect to see during my journey to a lower handicap? Am I supposed to expect blow-up rounds along the way?

It is so disheartening to work so hard and invest in getting better, but to have a bad streak happen. I keep expecting to get over the current plateau I have been at for a few years with some watershed rounds, only to be let down with a step backwards (it feels) instead. Any thoughts or shared experienced would be great reading material for me and also appreciated.

Sticking with your title theme: Along with the potholes you get totally mislabeled road signs that forget to tell you the bridge is out until after you take the fork in the road.

It happens to everyone... you get into slumps but you stick to fundamentals and work through them. The best thing to do is just take a few days off and go out with no expectations and play freely.

I have also noticed that as I am working on improving, I lose the single swing thoughts that I use when playing. I finished nine yesterday and immediately though "no wonder I drove lukewarm today... I wasn't using the single swing thought that has got me to this point." I need to jot these swing thoughts down so that I don't lose them. I am a firm believer in thinking of one, and only one, thing during a swing.

tl;dr - keep practicing and your scores will get better. Focus on the areas of your game that clearly cost you strokes. Do some post round analysis and keep stats. Go after the "low hanging fruit" that can get you a few strokes back.

I have been in the same boat OP. I know I have the ability to break through and start scoring in the 70's, but the same mistakes seem to haunt me. I am grinding away at my game, but it doesn't show up very quickly on the course. I think with golf things fall into place over time ... a long time though. Golf scores don't come down very quickly ...

Looking back over the past 4 years I've been playing, I can't really remember a "date" that I started to score certain numbers. Rather my rounds have gotten better very very gradually.

Also realize that getting better, shooting lower scores and lowering your handicap aren't quite the same thing.

Without getting any better, no extra practice, no lessons, I can easily lower my handicap. By matching courses to my strengths I can lower my cap pretty quickly. I didn't get any better though. I just played the tips on some long courses that aren't too tight.

My point is I would never use HI as a metric for improvement ever. If you are doing skill drills properly you should be able to tell if you are improving. Like when testing a skill you can hit the heel/toe/center 8/10 times. Or hit 10yd finesse shots 7/10 within 6 feet. Those are metrics for golf skills. Those improvements will result in lower scores which will eventually lower your cap. But don't despair about your cap not changing, it is literally the last thing I would worry about when trying to get better.

10 stroke difference between good and bad rounds isn't uncommon, especially for handicap in the teens. I guess if you're stringing together a bunch of higher scores it's a little more frustrating than sprinkling one in here or there. Also, attributing a difference of over 10 shots to a swing thought is probably not the whole story. In your practice I would focus on your routine and process and try to bring that to the course. Assuming you are sticking to your game plan for the course, the other part is execution which is helped immensely by implementing a consistent process and routine for all shots. Maybe a certain swing thought becomes part of that routine.

Like someone else said, theres potholes, bridges that are out and many forks in the road. Just stick to the process and believe in yourself. You will also have your ups and downs, thats just golf though and you need to stick with it.

30 down to a low recorded 7, during the 7hdpc period, wasnt married and played once a week and practice 2-3times a week,

4 years later married 2 kids. Up to a 14 playing twice a month and hardly if any practice.

Here is my pothole of Experience. I am athletic, but have a FLAWED technique from the start. YET I was able to play decent golf with the flawed technique. You can shoot low with a flawed technique. BUT you cannot be consistent. I have forever been plagued with 77,78 then 89,95 the next rounds. BIGGEST reason is with the flaw technique you crack under pressure. Due to the flaws in the swing when pressure sets in, its hard to maintain and keep consistent.

Here is my numbers take.

30+ hdcp. - Fundamental improvements

20+ hdcp - ball striking improvements

10+ hdcp - Improved Course management , From here You have 2 choice have a fundamentally good swing, OR have a flawed swing BUT you can have the other facets better (Short Game and Putting).

choice #1 (Flawed swing) - Likely the best you can reach even with a good short game and putting.... a choke will pop and double or even triple will plague the game. To get any lower you have to eliminate doubles, triples. i.e. blow up holes

Choice #2 (Have a good fundamental swing) - Then add in the short game and putting and you are on to lower averages.

I have reached a limit that I CANNOT PASS with the quality of swing that I have. I can shoot 1 good round but will forever be plagued with chokes and blow up rounds as well. IF I want to surpass this I MUST possess a fundamentally good swing.

So yes you can reach a 10hdcp.... depending on your SWING quality will dictate if your swing can handle blow up rounds or not. realistically again... 10 or better you just cant have or "afford" to have blow up holes.

I am currently in a huge hole I have decided to throw away my old swing and start all over again.... it sucks...... but its a personal choice. One that I have accepted that my swing was weak and needed to be redone if I wanted to play any better golf than I am playing now.

Players miss the cut all the time

It's part of the process. Then suddenly your scores will get tighter and your good scores will get better and the struggle will continue!

Don't let it eat you up it's, it's normal. Celebrate your victories, learn from your not so good rounds and enjoy the ride.

One more thing, if your fundamentals are good then stick to it. Don't go tinkering or the road will have sinkholes in it.

I'm not sure about potholes, but it sure is paved with cartpath.

I'm trying to get my 3.1 index below 2.4 so I can play in the US Am Qualifier next year. I had an underpar round going yesterday until I got to 18...pulled my drive, hit a cartpath and watched it bounce into the woods...

How rough your path depends on what your weaknesses are. Some weaknesses can be fixed faster or have more ROI than others

I think the road to progress in anything is a crooked one. The longer you stay on it the closer you'll be to your destination. If you jump off because you think you're lost and try to get back on later down the road you don't get any closer and you lose time. This is why motivational speakers talk about setting various levels of goals and monitoring them. Unfortunately lots of us make progress and we don't see it because it doesn't feel like we thought it would in our head when we were trying to get there. Then we go off on a side street trying to get somewhere and we're lost again.

I appreciate all the comments. It's kind of like therapy in a way! Range session this morning before work. Striping most of my shots, working on not swaying, staying on the path...

Progression in golf has often felt like 1 step back to take 2 steps forward.

It is until you focus on the right part of improvement. When numbers are your focus they become barriers. Keep track of score but give yourself a score under that score on a scale of 1-10 on how you did mentally. Did you have good course management, did you stay positive and focus only on each shot? If you focus on how you are doing or putting pressure on yourself to see lower scores and let negativity and lack of focus enter your mind you are doomed to fail. At the end of the round, put the focus on the bottom number. The guy that enlightened me on this says the word "perfect" every time he finds his ball and he believes that everything about the shot he is about to play is perfect.

For me, I have three key things that have had HUGE effects on my improvement and here they are in order:

1) spending 2 half days with Dan Carraher

2) Doing exactly what I mentioned above (mental game)

3) Getting fit for my clubs including putter

2 years ago it was my goal to shoot one round in the 70's at my home course. In the last 15 rounds, 14 of them were 70's and the other was an 80.

There's a lot of various potholes! Everyone's potholes are different.

Keep in mind, even pros have bad days. Their bad days are just much better than ours. Manage expectations, focus on executing each and every shot.

After some swing changes, I have literally been at war with all of my woods. Some days, darts out to the middle of the fairway and pushing to break par. Other days, I lose 4 balls before my idiot brain decides to stick with the long irons off the tee and am struggling to break 80. But, I know that I'll have struggles as I'm making changes, so I'll take the good rounds and learn from the bad ones. Eventually the long term swing changes will take hold and the handicap will go down.

Question is who is determining your deficiencies and how to work on them? Self diagnostic typically fails in golf. Best to have an experienced teaching pro be your guide. Online with Monte or iteach is inexpensive and can help make your improvement faster.

Bobby Jones would say it is paved with courageous temerity.

OP,you play right at my level (currently 12.9) and I've been playing, taking lessons,working hard,etc since '97'. I can tell you that getting down to a 10 will be tough! I experienced a brief stint at being a 10.6 and that was because I was playing a lot and playing the same course very often.

I don't mean to be discouraging but I think that being realistic is important.As long as you enjoy the game while you are out there that's all that matters.Dont let getting to a certain level become your source of happiness and well-being.Work on things and experiment to try and improve but mostly just enjoy the process.

Well, I have discovered after 2 rounds, that even while keeping the one new thought to work on during play, I can't do it. I am just going to to keep rehearsing slow and full speed in the backyard and on the range, then just play with whatever swing shows up on the course. My hope is that the good changes slowly creep into my game. I had the game down to one-way misses, and now while trying to play through the changes, I have introduced both sides of the course. Threw it out on the back nine of my second round and posted a 40. I think each person has to figure out if they are capable of working on their swing while playing, but I found my answer.

I’m kind of surprises your handicap is 13 with so many good scores. The handicap as you know is a reflection of potential rather than actual score average. I don’t know what the particulars of your course are however.

I do know that I would be encouraged by the low scores rather than frustrated by the high scores as I think you can knock out the high scores with practice. You keep shooting half your scores in low 80s and you will be single digit soon!

> @q-school said:

> I’m kind of surprises your handicap is 13 with so many good scores. The handicap as you know is a reflection of potential rather than actual score average. I don’t know what the particulars of your course are however.

> I do know that I would be encouraged by the low scores rather than frustrated by the high scores as I think you can knock out the high scores with practice. You keep shooting half your scores in low 80s and you will be single digit soon!

My scorecard bar graph looks like stairs; up and down, up and down... That is what I am trying to correct: my blow up holes. I had it down to 10.5 last year, but then lost it. I could work the system and play a few courses by me that are wide open, but that isn't really cool, or fun.

Lots of potholes. However a great short game is crucial once you understand the proper swing technique involved in all the shots you hit. At that point it becomes a (mental) confidence game with your ability level to execute and especially under pressure.

A solid short game, will rescue a round and keep your handicap at a more consistent level.

I heard a great comment during The Open. It was something like stop thinking technique and start think golf shot. It's a common phrase stated a few different ways.

It's all about controlling the flight of the ball and "working the ball". If you do you'll eliminate one side of the fairway for example and have more fairway available to hit thus more room for error.

If you can't work the ball, i.e. hit it both ways with relative ease, you have one or more big swing flaws.

At that point you have to be realistic about your game and how to play it most effectively for YOU!

> @Yrrdead said:

> Also realize that getting better, shooting lower scores and lowering your handicap aren't quite the same thing.

>

> Without getting any better, no extra practice, no lessons, I can easily lower my handicap. By matching courses to my strengths I can lower my cap pretty quickly. I didn't get any better though. I just played the tips on some long courses that aren't too tight.

>

> My point is I would never use HI as a metric for improvement ever. If you are doing skill drills properly you should be able to tell if you are improving. Like when testing a skill you can hit the heel/toe/center 8/10 times. Or hit 10yd finesse shots 7/10 within 6 feet. Those are metrics for golf skills. Those improvements will result in lower scores which will eventually lower your cap. But don't despair about your cap not changing, it is literally the last thing I would worry about when trying to get better.

^^^^^^^ What he said.

Index is a resultant and an accumulation of various skill sets. Focus on those individually and over time and painfully last, index will show it. Too much emphasis on index tracking is simply pushing on a string. Pull the strings that get your index lower which in all likely cases take quite a bit of time & effort, so widen the horizon of expectations and enjoy the ride a bit more.

Yeah I get it. This is the first time I have decided to identify and work on specific things to tighten stuff up. I am an engineer so it can get out of hand, although I try to just let my athleticism push that out of the way. I am still of the belief that I need to use stats and obvious observations to identify what to work on. The obstacle right now for me is having the patience to let my hard work and practice slowly bleed into my actually play out there live. This whole season has been a learning experience for me on the mental aspect of improvement.

Trust me I'm a Quality Engineer. I've done what you are trying to do. I made a complete swing change in '09. It took a few years before I figured it all out.

I started tracking stats using the Pareto principal.

GIR was the first and the root cause was a two-way miss due to the pivot stall flip I had. The reason boiled down to several key mistakes.

I played 4 sports in HS and College football. The athletic ability allowed me to time the swing good enough to get to about a 12. The swing fixes got me to a 2 and the short game is going to get me to + but I just don't have the time to spend on it to keep it sharp as once you have the technique, you have to practice to maintain feel.

Michael Jordan had to miss 100 game winning shots before making his first.

Shaq had to miss 10k free throws before making his first :D

Honestly years ago I was on a similar path as you. If the bad rounds keep coming down, you're getting more consistent.

As your handicap gets lower, smaller mistakes amplify... just keep grinding and try to pinpoint wasted strokes... I finally got my driver mostly under control and now need address my short game.

I shot 37 on nine the other day with 2 greens in regulation... I shot 39 today driving the ball better than I ever have.

Golf is weird. Make putts.

My short game has always been money. I LOVE chipping, pitching, flopping, sand game. Comes easy for me. It does help and it's given me a taste of low scores even when I'm not striking it well. Now I want more. I need to hit more greens. I'm hitting over half my fairways, sometimes way more. It's the long approach shots that magnify my faults. I get laid off and then either blocks or hook occurs. On easy courses I can throw up great scores. On more difficult ones, I pay with penalty strokes and getting short sided. Staying on plane and reducing my sway are the drills right now.