Are you ready to make some serious progress in your golf game and finally start seeing the hard work pay off with lower golf scores as the reward? Today I’m excited to share a golf practice plan to break 90 that you can follow.
This is a sample practice routine you can customize to fit your schedule and your needs but if you want a more structured golf practice plan that is 12 weeks long with daily practices you follow step by step, then check out our How to Break 90 Practice Plan here.
Golf Practice Tips to Break 90
Before we jump into the golf practice routine that will help you break 90, let’s first review some general practice tips that golfers can benefit from, especially beginners and high handicappers.
#1: Golf Takes Lots of Time & Effort
This first tip is obvious. If you want to improve at golf you must invest both time and money into the sport.
Expect several weeks of consistent practice at a minimum to start seeing your scores lower. If you only make it to the course a few times each month you can’t expect to get better and drop lots of strokes off your scores.
#2: The Newest Golf Clubs Won’t Help You
I want to caution beginners and high handicappers from going out and buying the newest, best golf clubs on the market with expensive price tags.
Save yourself the money and invest that money in a range pass, swing lessons with a pro instructor, and training aids you can use at home or on the practice green to build your short game.
Example: I still shoot low 70’s scores playing with golf clubs from 2009 and here we are 11 years later, I can’t justify spending $500 on a new driver or $1,500 on a new set of irons when I bought my iron set for $300 and my driver for $200.
#3: 1 Putts Matter More than 3 Putts
We preach a lot about working hard to improve your putting skills and reducing your total number of putts on the greens.
This is a necessity to breaking 90 in golf.
The average high handicap golfer putts 36-45 putts per 18 holes. That averages out to more than 2 putts per hole.
This means you can quickly reduce several strokes off your score and get closer to breaking 90 by simply cutting down on 3-putts and 4-putts.
But your main focus should be trying to 1-putt! All the times you chip onto the green, follow it up with taking only 1 putt to get the ball in the hole. This leads to our next tip.
#4: Spend 80% of Practice Time on Short Game (Chipping & Putting)
Beginners and high handicappers trying to break 90 will have a high percentage of their score resulting from a poor short game.
Speed up your improvement by spending 80% of your practice time on short game. Do a combination of volume practice and focused, pressure practice.
Volume practice would include chipping 100 times to one hole to learn distance control for that hole. Pressure practice would be alternating holes and pressuring yourself to get all the chips within 3 feet to pass the drill.
Here is the best golf short game practice plan to follow
#5: Practice at Home 15-30 Minutes Per Day
Instead of making excuses about how you can’t get to the golf course more than once per week, use your time and productivity at home to improve your golf skills.
Grab a couple water bottles or books and create a path between them to work on the putting stroke and chipping stroke trying to hit the ball with good contact.
You’ll know your stroke is off if you make contact with the books or water bottles.
Golf Practice Routine to Break 90
Now that you’ve seen the basic 5 tips to get you started improving at golf, let’s jump into an easy practice routine you can repeat time and time again to get closer to scoring in the 80’s consistently.
This is an example practice plan below and we’ve created many more practice routines that differentiate each week so you’re not doing the same practice plan every day.
We only want serious golfers to join our Foy Golf Academy Practice Program who are going to see it through to the finish and not quit early.
Golf Swing Practice Plan:
Your golf swing needs straightened out from a swing professional who can diagnose your tendencies and swing faults.
Outside of working with an instructor to improve your swing path and club face at impact, you can focus practice time on distance control and alignment drills to master the set up.
Driving Range Drill #1: Alternate Distance Practice
- Hit 1 ball at the shortest target and work your way on to the next furthest target until you’ve hit to all targets on the driving range
- Each target is a different distance so it requires switching clubs each shot, never hitting the same club two times in a row
Driving Range Drill #2: Volume Practice
- Hit 10 balls with your 7 iron to a target that fits your 7 iron distance (130-160 yards)
- Make easier swings with 80% power, working on control and squaring the face at impact to hit straighter
- Track how many out of 10 would have hit a green, visualize a green before swinging as if you’re on the golf course
- Repeat with 10 more balls with a new club (8 iron, 9 iron, Pitching Wedge, 6 Iron) to complete a 50 bucket of balls
Read: Best Golf Driving Range Drills for Beginners
Wedge Improvement Plan
A high percentage of your golf shots are going to come from inside 100 yards on the golf course. Become great with your wedge for pitch shots as well as chipping is crucial to breaking 90 in golf.
Let’s start with pitching practice from 20 yards to 100 yards away from the green so you can hone in your full wedge shot, three-quarter wedge shot, and half swing wedge shots.
Driving Range Drill #1 – Wedge Attack (Volume)
- Start with a wedge you would use to hit a 90-100 yard shot on the golf course
- Find the 90-100 yard target on the driving range
- Hit 10 balls to this target with your wedge, making full swings or 90% swings for control
- Track how many greens you think you would have hit on a golf course out of 10
- Repeat 10 balls with the same wedge but a new target 60-80 yards away, making three quarter swings to fit the reduced distance
- Repeat again for 10 more balls to a 35-45 yard target making half swings
- Repeat this drill if you still have range balls to use up or hit alternating shots to different distances with your wedge to work on adjusting your power and backswing length.
On Course Practice – Wedge Improvement
- As you’re playing a practice round, drop extra balls from different yardages 20-100 yards from the green and try to hit them onto the green first and foremost.
- Drop a ball at 100, 80, 60, 40, and 20 yards away. Use a rangefinder if needed or guess roughly using the 100 yard marker and counting off strides (1 yard per stride)
- Score how many balls out of 5 chances you hit onto the green each hole. This adds up to 90 extra wedge practice reps for the 18 holes you play (5 shots x 18 holes) which is how you get real life practice on the course while doing a normal practice round.
Chipping Practice Plan
After putting in work on the range for an hour, move over to the practice green to work on chipping for the next 60-90 minutes.
Chipping Drill #1: Short, Medium, Long Alternate Shot
- Pick one hole close to you, one near the middle of green, and one on the far side of green
- Hit one chip shot to the short hole, then one to the medium (center) hole, and one to the long (far) hole
- Try to get all 3 within 3 feet of their respective holes to pass the drill
- Repeat by picking 3 new holes or changing your location on the practice green to chip from a new angle
- Do this drill for 30-45 minutes before moving to the next drill for 30-45 minutes
Chipping Drill #2: Towel Landing Practice
- Drop 10 balls about 2 yards away from the green so you’re chipping from the rough, not the fringe
- Place a small towel on the green about 10 feet (3-4 strides) away from you
- Hit chip shots trying to land the ball on the towel
- This works on your distance control to train you to land the ball just a few feet onto the green when the pin is tight (short hole)
- After 10 shots, record how many hit the towel and move the towel to 20 feet away. Repeat.
- Move the towel again for shots 21-30 to the towel that is now 30 feet away.
- Repeat again to a towel 40 feet away and a 5th time to a towel 50 feet away
- This concludes 5 sets of chipping 10 balls, 50 reps in total. Track how many you got to land on the towel at each distance as well as total and beat your score tomorrow!
Putting Practice Plan
Lastly and most importantly we are going to spend time on putting! As a beginner/high handicapper trying to break 90, your putting stroke needs to get straightened out fast.
Once you can hit putts on line where you’re aimed and reduce pushed/pulled putts that start off line, you see more consistency on the greens.
Additionally, you’ll work on putting distance control so you stop leaving long putts short and stop hitting close putts too far past the hole on misses, resulting in tough follow up putts and high chances of 3 putting.
Putting Drill #1: Stroke Improvement
- Pick a hole on the practice green and find where the flattest putt is by hitting putts around the hole until you know where it’s flat
- Mark out a 5 foot putt by using your putter (3 feet) as a measuring device laying it down
- Grab two irons or alignment sticks and place them about a putter width apart at the 5 foot spot you marked
- Focus first with no ball for 5-10 minutes just making putting strokes where you only care about the stroke path staying straight and not hitting the alignment aids.
- Set a golf ball in the middle of these alignment sticks and work on hitting 5 foot putts with a straight putting stroke
- Do this for 15 minutes
- Focus first on the putting stroke keeping it straight. After making contact with the ball, watch the ball to ensure it starts straight and runs down the center of the alignment aids you set down on it’s way to the hole.
- The ball will bump into the “bumper guards” if the putt isn’t hit straight since it’s a flat putt
Putting Drill #2: Distance Control Improvement
- Pick a hole on the green to hit to
- Lay down a golf club 24 inches behind the hole vertically so it acts as a backstop for balls running past the hole
- Measure out the following distances; 10 feet, 15 feet, 20 feet, 25 feet, 30 feet, 35 feet, 40 feet, 45 feet, 50 feet, 55 feet
- Place one golf ball at each distance that you marked with a tee or ball marker to hold the spot
- Start at the 10 foot putt and try to make it, then move back to 15 feet and so on
- Try to get all 10 putts within 18 inches or less of the hole
- If you hit the ball too hard, it will run into the backstop club you set down. We don’t want this to happen.
- If you hit the ball too short, it will be in the way of future putts. We don’t want this to happen either. Give putts a chance to be made by not leaving them short.
- Try to give enough power to get it to the hole but the ball should stop rolling within 12-18 inches past the hole, not 24 inches hitting the club we set down
- Repeat this drill for 45-60 minutes
- Keep track of how many sets you successfully get all 10 putts within 18 inches or less of the hole, improving your distance control
Why Does this Practice Plan Help You Break 90?
The reason this breaking 90 practice plan is successful is that it focuses on the common weaknesses beginners and high handicap golfers face on the golf course. Improving these basic weaknesses can elevate your golf game to that next level and you can begin working on the next set of problems that hold golfers back from being able to break 80.
We mix in both volume practice and alternate/random practice drills to keep you mind from getting comfortable. Both types of practice are needed to improve since on a golf course you never hit the same shot twice.
But you need the volume practice to build the muscle memory and consistency so you can pull off a golf shot the one time you need it.
How Many Days Per Week Should You Do This Practice Routine?
To make this practice plan effective and help you break 90, you should aim to do it 3 times per week at a minimum. This is also the structure we use in our 12 week practice plan to breaking 90 program.
In total, this practice plan will take you 3-5 hours to complete, excluding the wedge practice out on the course since that is separate for focusing on only when you get out and play.
We broke today’s breaking 90 practice routine up into 4 sections (Driving Range, Wedge Practice, Chipping, Putting) and each should get 1 hour of focus at minimum.
When you add it up, you’re spending 25% on golf swing and 75% on short game practice which is ideal for a beginner to improve their scores quickly.
When Does Buying Better Golf Clubs Help Your Golf Score?
There are so many different golf clubs on the market and every set of clubs, driver, putter, wedge is designed for a different type of golfer. As a beginner with a high handicap, you can find golf clubs geared towards you that can help your play.
Drivers, for example, are built with higher loft to help beginners launch the golf ball higher and maximize their distances. They also are designed to be more forgiving to since beginners tend to struggle with hitting the center of the club face.
“Cavity Backed” iron sets are usually the best choice for beginners due to the added forgiveness and larger club face as compared to blades which the pro’s use.
Wedges and Putters are free reign if you’d like to spend more and buy a more advanced golf club. These are going to be used frequently since short game is a huge portion of your golf score.
Here are some of the top club’s we recommend in each category..
Best Putters for High Handicap Golfer:
- TaylorMade Spider Putter
- Odyssey Stroke Lab (2019) Putter
- Odyssey O Works Putter #7
- Pinemeadow PGX SL Putter
Best Wedges for High Handicap Golfer:
Why Join Our How to Break 90 Practice Plan?
As mentioned, today’s golf practice routine to break 90 is a good starting step giving you a basic practice schedule and drills to help you improve your golf game.
But we find that most golfers lack self-discipline and consistency to improve their game. They’ll try a new practice routine once or twice and then forget about it.
When you join our Breaking 90 Golf Practice Plan, you get access to a full program of PDF’s and worksheets you can download to track your journey to scoring in the 80’s.
You’ll get access to:
- Skills Analysis Test
- Worksheets to Track Key Statistics
- Worksheets to Track Each Practice
- Step by Step Workbook with Daily Practice Routines
- Education eBooks and PDF’s to Learn More About Golf
- A Statistical Approach that Shows You Progress
- And more
We find that spending money tends to help motivate people more to get serious and follow through with what they started.
You’re more likely to use your golf clubs if you shell out $1,000 for them. And you’re likely to follow through and break 90 if you spend money on a structured program designed specifically for those trying to break 90 in golf.
We offer a 30 day refund policy as well so if you try the program and don’t think it’s for you then you can submit a request to process a refund. But we rarely get refund requests because of the value packed inside the Breaking 90 Golf Program.