Going low

[cajrgolfer]

My 16 year old has struggled to break through and shoot below 73/74 in tournaments.  He recently took a lesson from a well known "Top 20" instructor who basically said he had all the tools and should be shooting under par regularly.  He suggested my son start playing a 3 ball scramble on his own ball a few times a month that will get him more comfortable scoring lower and to understand better what it really takes.  I forgot to ask what his scoring expectations should be now as a kid who's average scoring is around 76/77 and what it would be for more elite level players (what his goal should be).  Any thoughts?  I was thinking for his level right now he should birdie all the par 5s, no bogeys and maybe birdie 40% of remaining so call it 7-9 under?

[golferdad8]

2 hours ago, cajrgolfer said:

My 16 year old has struggled to break through and shoot below 73/74 in tournaments.  He recently took a lesson from a well known "Top 20" instructor who basically said he had all the tools and should be shooting under par regularly.  He suggested my son start playing a 3 ball scramble on his own ball a few times a month that will get him more comfortable scoring lower and to understand better what it really takes.  I forgot to ask what his scoring expectations should be now as a kid who's average scoring is around 76/77 and what it would be for more elite level players (what his goal should be).  Any thoughts?  I was thinking for his level right now he should birdie all the par 5s, no bogeys and maybe birdie 40% of remaining so call it 7-9 under?

There are so many reasons why it is difficult to go low. 

Without knowing more details, it’s best to prioritize knowing where your son is gaining and losing strokes. Further, for teenagers who are still maturing, it takes a while to truly understand course management. In watching college players, it’s surprising that most of the D1 players still have poor course management. 
When your son starts to shoot in the 60s, he can then start working on the mental aspects of confidence and psychology to make that repeatable & go even lower. 
GL. 
 

[goaliedad30]

I completely agree with the above on understanding where strokes are being lost. One thing you can add is tracking after each shot that didn't work out as planned whether it was an execution error (just a bad swing) or a management error (trying for a hero shot, going after a sucker pin, etc). Execution errors happen; shots lost by the brain can be prevented.

 

Another technique is to play the forward tees a few times. Get used to writing down lots of 3's, and be totally comfortable with it. Writing down 66 a few times, even from the forward tees, gets your brain to realize that it *IS* a reasonable score.

[tatertot]

1 hour ago, goaliedad30 said:

I completely agree with the above on understanding where strokes are being lost. One thing you can add is tracking after each shot that didn't work out as planned whether it was an execution error (just a bad swing) or a management error (trying for a hero shot, going after a sucker pin, etc). Execution errors happen; shots lost by the brain can be prevented.

 

Another technique is to play the forward tees a few times. Get used to writing down lots of 3's, and be totally comfortable with it. Writing down 66 a few times, even from the forward tees, gets your brain to realize that it *IS* a reasonable score.

I would definitely have him play the forward tees a few times to get past the barrier.

[MahalNeneng]

yes for sure play up. We to this day at least monthly play from 6200 ish with the only goal of going low as possible, Damn the torpedoes!! This highlights issues with approach and play around the greens (typically the last areas of improvement (outside of strategy and mental) that a player needs to be steady scoring in tournaments.

[hangontight]

Sounds like my 13 YO son...has the tools and talent to go low, but lacks the confidence and hasnt learned how to be comfortable with being there often. 

 

Not uncommon him to get to a few below or even par during round, but typically seems to try to rush it into the house with a 4 holes or so left and gives a few strokes back .....I wouldnt even call it choking , more like he just wants to get in the house quickly and post that score and subconsciously accepts a few over par is a good score so writes his own story.   Routine & process gets short & sloppy.     Trying to change mentality from "Ok, I need to hold onto this score" to "I have 4 more birdie opportunities".   You should want MORE holes to play, not be relieved that its over like you survived. 

 

Shot a 68 in a tmnt the other day, was very solid and stuck to routine & process coming home.   Hoping its a breakthrough for his confidence - you can go low and be comfortable with it.  Your kid sounds like mine, has the tools 

 

Need to play more from shorter tees.  Someone here suggested on another thread a good rotation:     Normal tees, 1 tee back, normal tees, fwd tees, normal tees, 1 tee back, etc.  Seemed like a good idea. 

Edited May 24 by hangontight

[LawGenius305]

Going low is confidence to go low. It isn't easy.

 

Track GIR. A typical junior hits around 10 greens a round. 14 should be the goal.

 

Track Par 3's as these are the most important holes on the course. Juniors typically lose strokes here.

 

Track Par 5's. Birdying all 4 is unrealistic. They do need to be under par on them to score.

 

There are good misses and bad misses. Track them

 

Track the 1 putts. The goal needs to be 7 a round to maintain a good round.

 

If you look at juniors that can score, long irons are weapons. These kids generally take care of the par 3's and par 5's because they are dangerous with longer iron approach shots.

 

Scoring has more to do with not making bogeys and doubles than a ton of birdies. Going deep has to do with both.

 

Lastly, do they make a junior golf double here and there? Do they go in the woods, punch out, hit the green with the third and 3 putt? Do they hit in a hazard, punch out to 70 yds, miss the green, hit to 6 feet and 2 putt? These are examples of junior golf doubles. Track them.

 

 

[wegobomber31]

I actually just did a podcast episode on this, the end of Episode 18 if you want to dig around for it (or someone else can link to it).  My son's instructor is on the pod and he says a lot of it is just skill level and a little bit of a mental barrier.  From a skill perspective, does your son have the ability to hit good shots consistently over 18 holes?  That may be the thing holding him back rather than any mental block.  I shoot in that 76-78 range typically and rarely ever flirt with red numbers.  I'm just not consistent enough with my driver to avoid trouble over 18 holes or skilled enough in my short game to get those key up and downs that keep a good round going. 

 

I'm actually a big fan on 2-ball, worst ball scramble as the thing that can really expose weaknesses in your game.

Edited May 24 by wegobomber31

[Abh159]

A bit part of going low is confidence/mindset, but it's also about knowing how to limit mistakes and big numbers. You can make a ton of birdies, but if you're also making a few doubles or others due to bad decisions those birdies are meaningless.

 

First thing I would do is figure out where he is losing the most shots. Is it missing short putts or too many 3 putts? Is it a below average up and down %? Is it playing too aggressive all the time leading to short sided misses or penalty strokes? After you determine that you can work on correcting it.

 

For me when I was young... I just constantly played really aggressively. I mean it golf was more fun that way. However, once I realized I had to pick and choose my spots to be aggressive in my scores went from the occasional sub-70 round to regular sub-70 rounds.

[Jgolfer99]

As a former junior player and someone who played in HS and College I can try to offer a bit of personal perspective on this.  I myself was never someone who could shoot lights out.  I much preferred to play difficult courses where hovering around even or 1 to 2 under was a great score rather than play tournaments on courses that required a 65-68 to have a chance.  But the main key for me was mental and psychological - I needed to learn to be comfortable with going under par. 

 

There is an old anecdote from Rory McIlroy's father about teaching him how to play while growing up.  He would custom write the scorecards of the local course to reflect a 1 stroke higher par than normal for every hole (Ex. a par 5 would be a par 6 etc.) and have Rory use that card while playing and recording his scores.  The result was that mentally Rory got comfortable with and fully expected to be under par virtually every round. 

 

Rather than that being a mental block or something to anxiously anticipate (and then ruining a round), just focus on hitting the shots and getting totally comfortable with playing under par.  I used a similar approach and it is amazing once you unlock that side of your brain.  When scoring is no matter a something to be anxious of (what am I going to shoot, how can I go low, etc.) and just doing it amazing things can happen.  From that moment on I no longer focused on the score and just played.  I genuinely expected to play well and often I did.  

[jayslaysongolf]

The best players make 4 birdies on average a round.  You also need to not get more than 1-2 bogeys on average.  Thats means you birdie at lear 1/5 holes.

 

If you can do that over the course of a year you’re going to have a lot low scores.  You also Probably making a lot money. With juniors your  are looking at less birdies per round or a lot more bogeys and a little luck that day.

[wegobomber31]

On 5/23/2024 at 6:28 PM, cajrgolfer said:

My 16 year old has struggled to break through and shoot below 73/74 in tournaments.  He recently took a lesson from a well known "Top 20" instructor who basically said he had all the tools and should be shooting under par regularly.  He suggested my son start playing a 3 ball scramble on his own ball a few times a month that will get him more comfortable scoring lower and to understand better what it really takes.  I forgot to ask what his scoring expectations should be now as a kid who's average scoring is around 76/77 and what it would be for more elite level players (what his goal should be).  Any thoughts?  I was thinking for his level right now he should birdie all the par 5s, no bogeys and maybe birdie 40% of remaining so call it 7-9 under?

 

Thinking about this some more.  I think bogey/double bogey avoidance is going to lead to better scores quicker than trying to make more birdies.  I'd try to diagnose if there is a skill gap or course management gap that is leading to bogeys and doubles.

[leezer99]

14 hours ago, wegobomber31 said:

 

Thinking about this some more.  I think bogey/double bogey avoidance is going to lead to better scores quicker than trying to make more birdies.  I'd try to diagnose if there is a skill gap or course management gap that is leading to bogeys and doubles.

 

 

This!  Go look at any handful of events your kid has played in lately and tell me where the leaders ranked in bogies. I can point you out a dozen kids locally that aren't impressive or exceptional in any way other than avoiding bogies and end up winning a lot. 

 

[Golfquant]

sounds like college coaches should be focused on looking for players who have high potential to improve on (double) bogey avoidance due to course management = low hanging fruit

[jayslaysongolf]

On 5/25/2024 at 5:22 PM, wegobomber31 said:

 

Thinking about this some more.  I think bogey/double bogey avoidance is going to lead to better scores quicker than trying to make more birdies.  I'd try to diagnose if there is a skill gap or course management gap that is leading to bogeys and doubles.

For sure double bogeys are a killer.  Trying to force birdies is a sure way to blow up.

 

99% of the junior don’t understand that a avoiding a double bogey is actually one the most important skills out there.

[Bizzle80]

I am no data scientist, but I read a while back from several coaches who talked about building the confidence to go low paying short rather than pushing kids to play from longer distances. I took this to heart a little bit with my daughter who is 11yo. We kept her playing some local 'developmental' tours rather than rushing to join the 'players' tour. Developmental has her playing a bunch of par 3 muni's - which are honestly really tough to score on (tiny greens, terrible conditions) - but I figured if she could learn to shoot good numbers here, it would translate.

 

First couple rounds she would have a few birdies but have one bad hole and freak out and it would ruin a few more holes. She was clearly not mentally comfortable being under par...but after a few rounds she has gotten incredibly confident that she will a) make more birdies if she happens to make a bogey, and b) get up and down for par when she needs to. The last few of these tournaments she has been under par every round - and no stress after poor shots. She just casually gets it up and down which I think just adds to that confidence. 

 

Now we are seeing that translate as we are practicing rounds from longer distances - she's always driven it well - and is now super confident to attack and make birdies.

 

That confidence and comfort of being under par happened very quickly...so in our experience, I would highly recommend playing short and getting kids shooting low numbers.

[cajrgolfer]

Thanks all for the advice.  Sounds like playing the front tees is a good way to go...he of course is adamant on always tipping it out, I will try to push him to at least play 9 from the front a few times to see how low he can go.  Then also doing the 2 ball, worst ball scramble maybe exposes how he is usually too aggressive and making too many doubles. 

 

Any idea what a target worst ball, 2 ball scramble score should be?  My son does better when there is a specific goal/target.

[MahalNeneng]

On 5/26/2024 at 7:26 AM, Golfquant said:

sounds like college coaches should be focused on looking for players who have high potential to improve on (double) bogey avoidance due to course management = low hanging fruit

Yahtzee !!

 

That is exactly what we heard time and time again. As soon as you get to 30-40 in the class rankings that is all they are looking for is how high is the ceiling. Once your child is already making between 2-4 birdies a round thats all there is.

[Rosco1216]

As cliche as it sounds, he needs to really try to not think or keep track of his score during the round and only focus on trying to hit the middle of all the par 3/par 4 greens and on par 5’s if he gets out of position. Greenside in 2 or short par 4’s when he’s close he can go for the pin and not middle of course. 

Edited May 30 by Rosco1216

[jayslaysongolf]

On 5/30/2024 at 6:30 PM, MahalNeneng said:

Yahtzee !!

 

That is exactly what we heard time and time again. As soon as you get to 30-40 in the class rankings that is all they are looking for is how high is the ceiling. Once your child is already making between 2-4 birdies a round thats all there is.

If you hang around pro golfers they all want to avoid bogeys because that what prevents them from making cuts.

 

However talking to junior parents all they talk about is the birdies the kids get and they should be getting 7-8 birdies a round. It worse with parents of girls because everyone thinks they need score 59.

 

You may have a round that you birdie half the holes but the reality is that is the exception and makes up for the times you didn’t birdie anything.

 

 

[wegobomber31]

On 5/29/2024 at 1:09 PM, cajrgolfer said:

Thanks all for the advice.  Sounds like playing the front tees is a good way to go...he of course is adamant on always tipping it out, I will try to push him to at least play 9 from the front a few times to see how low he can go.  Then also doing the 2 ball, worst ball scramble maybe exposes how he is usually too aggressive and making too many doubles. 

 

Any idea what a target worst ball, 2 ball scramble score should be?  My son does better when there is a specific goal/target.

 

I would say breaking 90 would be a reasonable target.  It's hard!  It takes a while so it is a good option when you're a single stuck behind groups or late in the day.

 

Actually 9 holes is probably fine and 45 is a target.  Trust me, if this was how all golf was played, nobody would play golf.  I'd take it in small doses.

[Pepperturbo]

Once the game is there, going low, regardless of age, is NOT a science method, but a HEAD thing.  Many people do not like the expectations that go with low scoring...  Give him time.  He will find his way if that's what HE wants.