Are you as good as you are going to get?

[ZacR88]

This thought is something that has come across my mind recently. Have I reached my realistic golfing potential? 

 

Turning 35 this year, I still play a lot of golf and have maintained a scratch/ plus handicap for many years now. Every year I get better, but the margins for improvement become smaller and smaller. Basically to the point that regardless of how much I play or practice, without a structured routine and coaching. This is it...

 

The time I do get to play. Which is about 4 days a week now. I mostly spend my time just playing golf, practice has become very limited and I am ok with that. In the last 40 rounds I played, the closest I have come to shooting above 80 is a 79. Which thinking about it now is some really solid golf. 

 

I am not going to spend hours at the range dialing in yardages, I am not going to putt for hours on end. I feel content at this point, I don't have the time to grind out golf to chase perfection. The years that I did do that I started to burn out and resent it. Its just not fun for me to grind after working my day job. I want to play loose, not care about scores or a bad putt, not care about a double bogey. Just enjoy the day with some friends, try and hit some silly shots and make some birds for those skins. 

 

The realization came after I started playing with pro golfers on the regular. These guys are all in the +5 territory , struggling to get through Q school or Monday qualifiers, etc. Its not like I hit the ball any different. I keep up everywhere but 100 yards in. They get up and down from everywhere, turn bad tee shots into birdies and a bad day for them is a 72. How? They play and practice 7 days a week, then go to Florida over the winter to continue the grind while I hang the clubs up over the winter and at the most go to the sim once a week. 

 

I am not giving up but I am no longer caring about it. Unless something changes in my life to allow me the mental capacity and financial capacity to grind out golf like I do my day job. This is as good as I am going to get. 

 

 

[Is Golf Fun or Work]

For some the question could be, Are you as could as you care or are willing to put in the work to get?

[MelloYello]

Totally feel ya. 

 

The catch-22 with golf always seems to be that to get better you have to do it to the extent that it's stupid. At some point you just run out of motivation and inevitably golf becomes something we start judging as opposed to just a thing we blindly chase.

 

I started playing guitar when I was 13 and worshipped everything about it for a decade. I took some music classes once I got to college. I'd obsess over bands. I'd make friends with people who were into music and played. We'd jam. I made myself a "scratch" player essentially. But then it tailed off and throughout my 20s, I'd come back to it in spurts. I'd go really hard but maybe only for a month. Other stuff took it's place--golf being one of those things. 

 

These days, I've got a wall of guitars but I don't feel compelled to learn music the way I used to. I'll pick up a guitar to kill time or mess around and while I can pretty much play anything I ever could before it's definitely true that whatever was driving me to worship it blindly at 18yo just isn't there now.

 

I think that's just growing up. Nothing wrong about that. Stuff just gets kind of boring. The cool thing is that other stuff can still inspire us. The mistake is thinking that the same stuff is always going to be what makes us blindly passionate. That's not the case. Losing yourself in something is actually fun, but you gotta roll with what those things are. 

 

Nice thing about you is you seem to have a game you can lean on without grinding too much. That's a nice thing. 

 

 

 

.

Edited June 12, 2023 by MelloYello

[Pepperturbo]

Maybe.

 

I was down to 2 index, went up to 5.9, back down to 4 now.  Not sure if I'll ever get back to 2, but hoping.  Thankfully, I can still post a good score, but knowing what is needed, practice wise, to get to 2 or better, it's not likely.

[jvincent]

31 minutes ago, ZacR88 said:

I am not giving up but I am no longer caring about it. Unless something changes in my life to allow me the mental capacity and financial capacity to grind out golf like I do my day job. This is as good as I am going to get. 

 

 

 

Not caring about your score is liberating.

 

At my age (57) I'm definitely not willing to put in the amount of work to get significantly better than  the 5-ish index I am now, and have been for the last 10 years or so. I golf for fun and hitting the occasional spectacular shot, which is sometimes a recovery shot, because, well, 5 index.

 

[ZacR88]

14 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

Totally feel ya. 

 

The catch-22 with golf always seems to be that to get better you have to do it to the extent that it's stupid. At some point you just run out of motivation and inevitably golf becomes something we start judging as opposed to just a thing we blindly chase.

 

I started playing guitar when I was 13 and worshipped everything about it for a decade. I took some music classes once I got to college. I'd obsess over bands. I'd make friends with people who were into music and played. We'd jam. I made myself a "scratch" player essentially. But then it tailed off and throughout my 20s, I'd come back to it in spurts. I'd go really hard but maybe only for a month. Other stuff took it's place--golf being one of those things. 

 

These days, I've got a wall of guitars but I don't feel compelled to learn music the way I used to. I'll pick up a guitar to kill time or mess around and while I can pretty much play anything I ever could before it's definitely true that whatever was driving me to worship it blindly at 18yo just isn't there now.

 

I think that's just growing up. Nothing wrong about that. Stuff just gets kind of boring. The cool thing is that other stuff can still inspire us. The mistake is thinking that the same stuff is always going to be what makes us blindly passionate. That's not the case. Losing yourself in something is actually fun, but you gotta roll with what those things are. 

 

Nice thing about you is you seem to have a game you can lean on without grinding too much. That's a nice thing. 

 

 

 

.

Don't even get me started on the amount of guitars I have hanging on my walls or in cases collecting dust at the moment. haha

 

I pick up my acoustic, play the same 5 songs I have played for the last few years than it sits there again for months.

 

Also yeah, its nice to be able to play good golf without too much work. If I don't play for a while it does fade a bit though. Always seems to show up again after a long winter though. 

[kamaaina1]

I feel as I'm improving.  At 62, I thought I hit the wall, but a recent swing change has made a huge improvement in my game and attitude toward the game.  

[Roody]

I got as low as a 4.9 in 2020. Had a hernia repair last year, and then more back problems. Up to a 9.2 at the moment. Probably the worst I've played in the last 5-6 years. I can easily drop 7-11 pars a round, the problem is I also drop 3-5 doubles or worse too. I know those are either because of mental lapses or the back tightening up. 

 

But to answer the original question, I dunno. I might have reached the point in my life where I probably won't get much better. If I can get through some of these nagging pains, I can probably get back down to a 6. But I don't think I want to put in the work that would be needed to go lower. That starts to make golf feel like a job. I'm pretty happy if I shoot high 70's/low 80's. 

Golf is more about the camaraderie and enjoying the outdoors these days, at least for me. 

Edited June 12, 2023 by Roody

[kwcsports]

Yup, it's all down hill from here I'm afraid haha

[tgoodspe1991]

Yep, most likely, but there's always the Champions Tour!

 

At my best, I was a +5 handicap, lowest round a 64. Over the last decade I have had less and less time to play and my game has steadily declined. I had a similar internal struggle to you and ended up walking away from the game for a while, and am still tentative about returning. It's difficult to get steadily worse as time goes on and have to accept letting a dream die, but I also know that golf is a game I want to play for life, I just need to find a new purpose and direction. 

 

I often wonder how good I could have been should I have been fortunate enough to play and practice full time. Unfortunately, it was never in the cards. 

 

 

[Roejye]

1 hour ago, Is Golf Fun or Work said:

For some the question could be, Are you as could as you care or are willing to put in the work to get?

 

That's definitely me, I could probably get better if I had a structured coaching and practice routine, but finances and time are big constraints. I'd like to think once some things calm down I could take a couple days a week after work to practice a little during the off season, but I don't know how much that limited time could help.

[AdamMH]

I set a PB two days ago. It's only up/down from here. Please don't ask which, I won't know until next weekend anyways!

[Avidswampthing66]

Good question and one thats important for golfers to think about.  

 

Each year I've gotten better.  But, the last few years 2021, 22 I reached a plateau.  Constantly shooting around 72.   But, I kept grinding and saw that the game was excellent tee to green.  I just could not make the flipping putts!  So, I went and got a 2 hour putting lesson with T. Yelverton, out of Old Waverley in MS, and after implementing what I learned and practiced it, I dropped strokes.  For me, working hard on putting has taken my game to another level.  A level I just couldnt reach on my own.  So, to answer your question, NO.  There is always room for improvement, if you have the time and ability to work at it.  My PB 66 came two months after my lesson.  Thats 4 strokes better than my prior best.  

[aenemated]

Probably. But I refuse to believe it. 

[SouthBayGolfer]

Hopefully not, I am an 11 right now and I don't get out more than once a week usually. Once my kids get a bit bigger and I can do two or three times a week I hope I can get down to mid single digits. 

[dfeldss]

I sure hope not! I'm in my 20s so plenty of time for me, but I've been going backwards for about a year now

[Chunkitgood]

Does the fact that your score might stagnate and even decline mean you will never be a better golfer?  
 

Does golf not provide an arena for self-exploration and understanding?  For becoming a better playing partner and club member?  A better and more creative person?  In short for self-improvement in the way the martial arts are thought to do as one transcends jutsu/technique to follow a do/path?

 

Well, what did you expect from an activity that relies on the dopamine reward system to provide intermittent reinforcement?

[LUMA]

You aren't done until you decide you're done.

Edited June 12, 2023 by LUMA

[PhilsFanDrew]

For now yes.  When I was in my late 20's and single I had a lot more time to golf.  The biggest gap for me now compared to when I had more time to play/practice is mostly that I hit more GIR because my iron game was more dialed in and my scrambling was slightly better.  Off the tee my length is pretty much the same as is my accuracy.   Hitting certain iron shots given certain lies requires much more finesse and short game requires that touch and feel that becomes more unconscious when you are playing a lot.  In short when I was playing well my game was more tidy.  I still have flashes every now and then on a given day where I play closer to the younger me but it's fewer and far between. 

[JetSpeed79]

Asking myself this same question lately. Been playing off and on for 20 years. Some years I played once a week. Some years I played 2 or 3 times all year (career building, young family, etc.). The past two years I’ve gotten back into it and have been playing 3 or 4 times a week. I’ve seen lots of improvement just from the frequency of play, but I feel like I’m plateauing. So I’ve decided to take my first ever lesson and really give my game a run while I’m still young enough to do so (43). I’m nervous about the regression working with an instructor may cause (lots of really ingrained bad habits I’m sure), but excited at the same time. We’ll see how it goes. I don’t think I can improve much more without some help, so I’m giving it a run. 

[dugue4]

I hope not.  I’m at an 18, but I’d love to cut that in half. 

[MtlJeff]

I am similar to you OP. I am a 0.2 right now and was a +1 a couple of weeks ago. I am 41 years old....i still hit it plenty far enough and get to the range 2-3 times a week plus 2-3 rounds

 

But my range time is like 60 minutes on my lunch break ( i work from home and live 5 mins from my course)

 

I have not known anyone better than a +1 in all my years playing golf who wasn't a pro, a college kid, or a teacher who had summers off. It's not impossible i guess but it's very very hard.

[Cliffy2020]

NOPE!  I’m retired now and my youngest son actually wants to learn how to play.  He has me taking him to the course twice a day since school got out.  I grind on my putting in between giving him bits of instruction.  My last couple of rounds I got to -4 through 14 and lastly -5 through 11  

 

I got so nervous being that low and absolutely sh¡t the bed coming in both rounds 🤣 so my next hurdle is getting over that mental hump.  It made me feel just like I did in high school trying to break 80 regularly. 
 

Those two recent things really relit the candle for me! 
 

 

[DaveGoodrich]

I started playing golf seriously at 45.  I'm 62 now, and my handicap is at the lowest its ever been (4.7).  I'd like to believe my current low is a sign of real improvement, but from a pure handicap perspective, I was at a similar low about 2 years ago, and I have been between 5 and 7 since.  So I may just be on a hot streak because I'm currently playing a lot.  

 

Once you have a decent short game, and can get off the tee pretty consistently, finding "strokes to gain" elsewhere is tough.   Physically, its going to have to involve actually improving my golf swing to improve impact conditions and outcome consistency.  I'm sadly coming to the realization that that is not likely to happen by "just playing golf," which has always been my M.O., and will probably stay that way.  When I have time for golf, I want to play golf, not practice.  However, I know there are some strokes to be gained by improving my mental game, so that is going to be something I'll be working on.  Still too many blow up holes from bad decision making, loss of focus, etc.  I've had too many "78 with a triple on 8" rounds lately...

 

[otto6457]

Definitely past my prime.  I'll never get that 25-35 year old body back.  My 30 year old me would beat the current version of me eight out of ten times.  I'm smarter now but that's not enough to take the younger me to the woodshed.  Statistically, I'm as good a putter as I was in my prime.  But it doesn't feel as good. (if that makes sense)The difference tee to green isn't huge, but it's there, and it isn't coming back.

 

All I'm trying to do is to keep the current version of me as competitive as possible.  Not going to lie, it has been more difficult than I imagined.  Practice isn't as sharp as it used to be.  I hit a lot of balls still, but the swing isn't as sharp.  The minor injuries I pick up take longer to heal unless I take some time completely off, and that has been frustrating.  I'm currently fighting a painful left shoulder impingement with physical therapy, and my U.S.Senior Am qualifier might be in jeopardy if it doesn't start showing considerable improvement pretty quickly.

 

This growing older is not for sissies.  I recommend it over the alternative, but it's not kind to the golf game.

[getitdaily]

Nope. Bought a launch monitor in November. Setup a net and mat in my backyard. In the time it used to take to just drive to and from the range, I can now be done with a practice session. 

 

The ability to just head into my backyard has given me the opportunity to make changes to my swing. A lot of effort is starting to show. Scratch right now but + is coming back. Ended season a +1.2 18 months ago and scores have just slightly crept up. A lot of it was putting. But my proximity is now getting better. Being able to see numbers improve through changes keeps the excitement, for now I guess.

[ChipNRun]

A sideways option...

 

I got to be good friends with the head pro at my home course. In his early 30s, he got married, left golfdom and became a financial broker. He now handles accounts for my wife and me. (College = finance)

 

Last year at the amateur circuit Christmas party, I met a 50-something banking loan officer who had taken early retirement, and become head pro at a small area country club. He had a single-digit HDCP, and was working on his PAT so he could get his PGA certification.

 

He went the other way.

 

Any chance you could eventually shift into the golf industry? Caution: If you do, many such jobs leave you with less time to play golf than you have right now.

[bobfoster]

Longer view? I've had a decades long relationship with golf. It waxes and wanes. 20s and 30s I was quite competitive, close to scratch on good years, certainly low single digit even on off years. 

 

Some years I played a lot, other years not so much. Sometimes life gets in the way of golf. On the whole, IMO you nailed the most fundamental variable: Hours on the range and course. It is possible to hit, maintain, and even improve on a high level of golf if you play three or four rounds a week, hit the range at least one or two. 

 

Right now, I'm 65. Play a couple times a week, hit the range (not just pre-round but for an actual practice session) maybe once or twice a month. Not nearly at the level of a lot of the folks posting here. I'll still comfortably shoot in the 80s, now and then 70s, once every year or two or so on a good day can still shoot par (if nothing else, 50+ years of muscle memory has left me with a decent game even if I just don't put the hours in any longer). But I must say, I'm totally fine with that.

 

But another thought? My scores have plateaued. Well, possibly not, could probably get back to hitting 70s consistently (don't bother to keep a formal cap any more) if I put the hours in, but that matters not so much right now. Happy and content to play within my current game with no achievement pressure on myself.

 

What hasn't plateaued is my enjoyment of the game. That seems to be getting wider and deeper by the year. Back in the years when I fixated on scores, I derived enormous pleasure from shooting 68 instead of 70. The final number was everything. Also meant that a bogey on 18 that made me miss par by one had me going home really bummed at myself. Not so anymore.

 

Do I like the feeling of (for instance) getting a birdie on the last hole and shooting 79 instead of 80? Totally. But right now what I remember most from rounds right now is the exquisite pleasure of individual shots. The longer sandy from a deep bunker. Sinking a 20' double breaker on a fast green. Absolutely flushing a 3W to hit a Par 5 in two that is ordinarily a bit beyond my reach (I'm not that long anymore, so that is a great feeling). Point is, my average round is maybe 80+ or so strokes. Most will be "mostly good". A few will be ugly mishits (even the pros have them - they just usually recover better than amateurs). But there are also those few perfect shots. They matter a lot more to my enjoyment of the game than my score does.

 

Even further, when I was really into "getting as good as I could get", the people I played with were not only relatively minor in relevance, I often considered them a distraction. In retrospect, while I was never impolite, I probably was a bit short, and quietly dismissive. Never said it in words, but probably not uncommonly conveyed an attitude of "I'm working on my 3/4 gap swing, I don't care about your damn kid's soccer game - let me focus". These days the social aspects of the game deliver as much fulfillment as the sport itself does. 

 

And extending that - off and on over the years I've served on the boards of local First Tees (I'm a good fundraiser.) For a couple years before Covid, however, I spent some time with the kids. Not just coaching golf, but talking about the traditional values of the sport - "the only sport where you call a penalty on yourself". While the pandemic temporarily put a bit of a halt to activities, I'm thinking about getting back into it. Was amazing to see these kids, some of them from some, um, pretty freaking questionable living situations, positively flourishing over time. All we did was talk about how to swing a club, and basic values, but I witnessed some of them start to think very differently about themselves, about their possibilities in life. 

 

So, another Bob Foster TL:DR. But - to answer the OP: I'm now on the downside of the hill in terms of my scorecard. Have a decent game, but am past the point where "I'm as good as I'm going to get" in the narrow sense of shaving the next digit off my index. But from a larger perspective, all sorts of other aspects of the game - avenues of fulfillment in it - are opening up that I was blind to when I was (as an Air Force buddy says) "target fixated" on scores. 

 

Just sayin' ...

 

[GoTime]

I'm mid 30s with kids, playing for about 7 years now, am around a 0 handicap.

 

i don't practice at all, average playing about 1-2 times per week.

 

Have made peace with the fact that my playing time will continue to shrink for the next 18+ years. Practice time is already zero.

 

But..I know I can get better with growth in the mental game, mind-body connection, and greater understanding of the and my own swing.  I don't need to beat balls to be more thoughtful about my pattern and making on course decisions. 

 

I think  + to +1.5ish is reasonable for me. Difficult to sustain given my time investment but should be hitting that level once or twice a year.

 

Aside from that, I'm taking more stock in just enjoying well executed golf shots and putts. Seems to scratch the itch the same way shooting in the 60s did during my single years.

[SupSup99]

I don’t think so. I’m 24 and started playing seriously at 21. Even then I haven’t played without a large break until the last 6 months.( I’d play for 2 months and quit for 6 at first ) I’ve shot in the 60s a few times and consistently shoot around par at my local course. My dad coaches me and he played professionally for 12 years on the Koran Ferry and Canadian tour. So I’m hoping I stick with it and can continue improving.