5 Reasons Your Golf Scores are Getting Worse
Golf is already a hard game. It’s tough to score below 90, 80, and par golf is almost impossible for most players. Just being able to break 80 in golf consistently will place you in a top tier of all golfers in the world.
So if you’re wondering why you can’t seem to improve at golf and see your scores lower, today’s guide may give you some answers. You’ll need to self reflect on each topic below to see if perhaps one or multiple of these is the root cause.
Here are two resources you should also check out that should help your golf score decrease with time.
Golf Course Strategies to Score Better
Why Are My Golf Scores Getting Worse?
#1: Not Enough Practice
How often do you practice golf? Once per week? Once a month? Every couple of months? This answer to this simple question will tell you if your problem lies from not practicing golf enough.
Think of it like you would fitness. Someone who consistently eats healthy and goes to the gym will likely improve their physique and lose weight.
If you stop eating healthy and don’t work out enough, how can you expect to get eye popping muscles and avoid fat from hiding them.
Same with golf. You want to see your putts per round increase, see your fairways in regulation and greens hit in regulation increase, then you have to practice more.
Every time you make some momentum forward it can be countered by taking several weeks off. The best way to see improvement in your golf scores is simply consistency.
This is why we created a 12 week golf practice plan that takes 90 days but you’ll see your scores improve at least 5 to 10 strokes lower. It has you practice 3 days a week but they are intense practices so you get a high volume of workload in.
You could do a shortened version but would recommend practicing more days (4, 5, 6 days) a week instead of 3 practice days that are longer and more reps.
#2: Improper Technique
If you find that you are practicing golf a lot but still not seeing much improvement, then it could be that you are practicing golf with improper technique.
There are many components that must work together in golf to achieve success:
- Proper grip of the club
- Proper stance over the ball
- Proper takeaway and downswing
- Clear mind / positive attitude
- Proper judgement of distance, wind affect
- Proper swing path and club face angle at impact
The first area golfers struggle is the golf swing. Your scores won’t improve obviously until you can begin to hit the ball straighter consistently.
You don’t need to hit perfectly straight. But you do need to hit well enough to keep the ball in play, and avoid hazards, wooded areas, bunkers, etc. Easier said than done.
If you have trouble with your chipping stroke and/or putting stroke this can also cause inconsistency on the golf course. A solution would be to seek out an instructor who can check your technique in person to give tips or advice on fixing it.
We’ve also written two guides on the short game technique:
#3: Too Much Thinking
Is the mental side of golf hindering your performance? Do you have a million thoughts going through your head during your round of play? Are you being negative most of the time with these thoughts?
Sometimes we get caught up thinking about our golf swing and trying to control it during the swing rather than letting it flow smoothly with no thoughts.
It’s tough to quiet the mind during the swing but could be one way to let your natural swing take its own course and not try to over control the swing.
We all do it though. During the takeaway something feels off and as we swing back down we over correct.
Other times we worry about hitting out of bounds or hitting into water and let negative thoughts creep into our head during the pre-shot set up and during the swing.
Another form of thinking involves strategy. We try to play it “too safe” or “too aggressive” thinking we are helping ourselves only to end up in a bad situation and worse off.
The best solution is to get back to the basics. Figure out a golf club you can hit with confidence off the tee that gives you a chance to be in the fairway. This may be a hybrid instead of a driver or fairway wood.
Once in the fairway, find a golf club you can hit pretty straight and attack the green. Maybe you’re 160 yards away but decide to play the 7 iron which you know you can only hit 145 yards.
But you’d rather be 15 yards short and chipping from fairway than hitting a long iron out of control. It could lead to shanking it, hitting trees, carrying way left or right of the green, or other bad outcomes. Therefore, the 7 iron straight down the fairway is the safe, smart play even though you won’t be on the green yet.
Overall, analyze yourself and how you typically think about a round of golf. Decide where you are making error in judgement and where you can play smarter or simplify the game if you’re overthinking things too much!
#4: Failure to Handle Pressure
Another fault many golfers face, especially newer golfers is letting pressure build and impact their performance. A big cause of pressure is setting high expectations.
When you take golf too seriously, this sometimes can backfire. When we play more care-free, we tend to perform better and feel less pressure.
I see often golfers who have spent hours practicing their skills and perform well in practice rounds when they are playing care free.
But once they step into a competitive round of play, they get tense and expect too much of themselves. This leads to disappointment, frustration, and bad golf scores.
#5: Just Started Golfing
If you just started playing golf, then this could be the main reason your golf scores are all over the place and you haven’t found any consistency yet.
When I first started playing I may shoot 120 one Monday and 96 on Wednesday. Then back to shooting 135 on Friday. Golf scores can have huge swings and fluctuations until you play more, practice more, and learn course strategy to navigate your way around each hole the “smart” way.
Overall, keep these 5 tips in mind for why you aren’t seeing your golf scores improve.
Thanks for checking out this article. If you’d like a practice plan to follow with proven drills and routines to improve your short game and golf swing, check out these options below: