The 5 Shots Every Average Golfer Needs (If They Want To Shoot Lower Scores)

We all want to get better and lower our scores, and while practising any part of your game is going to help, it’s important to know how you can make the greatest improvements in the quickest time, so you can deliver your focus there and work more efficiently.

If you’ve only got a limited amount of time to work on your game, you want to spend it targeting something that’s going to have the biggest possible positive impact on your scoring.

Thanks to the data and insights provided by Shot Scope, we’ve pinpointed five types of shot where you will see the biggest rewards from your hard work and commitment to get better and knock shots off your scores.

1. Fairway-finder off the tee

It all starts with hitting the fairway off the tee. The Shot Scope stats tell us that hitting the short grass compared to a fairway bunker saves half a shot, and the gains are even bigger if you’re avoiding tee shots heading out of bounds or into penalty areas.

Having a consistent shot with the driver that you can rely on hitting accurately will set you up for the rest of the hole.

We need to make some changes from a normal driver set-up. First, tee the ball down lower. I would normally have about half the ball above the top of the clubhead, but for this shot I want the top of the ball in line with the top of the clubhead or just a fraction higher.

From there, narrow the stance a little to naturally reduce the length of the backswing and grip down a little to gain a bit more control. I want to swing at 75% because we’re going for control rather than power. The ball flight will naturally come down, which gets the ball on the ground and running a bit quicker, which is easier to control and keep in play.

2. The Long Approach Shot

It’s very obvious that if you hit more greens in regulation then your scores are going to come down, and this distance where a lot of handicap golfers will be hitting long irons and hybrids makes a big difference. A typical 15-handicapper will hit the green 15% of the time from 150-200 yards, while that doubles to 30% for a five-handicapper.

I see a lot of golfers trying to help the ball up in the air with long irons because they’re looking down at a pretty flat clubface, which means their weight stays back. You want to get your weight moving forward through the shot, so you’re hitting down and striking ball then turf.

I like to use a drill where you get a feel for shifting your weight back and through by stepping your left foot back towards your right foot as you swing back and stepping towards the target with your left and then right foot as you swing down and through (vice versa for left-handers).

This is an exaggerated version to build the right feelings. Then you can just lift your front foot as you swing back and lift your back foot as you swing through. For your actual swing while hitting shots, you want to feel the pressure transfer into your back foot as you take the club away, then once the club goes out of view you start moving your weight back to the target to really get through the ball.

There are also clubs that can help you. Hybrids and lofted fairway woods are more forgiving and produce a higher ball flight than long irons. I think most golfers would benefit from using these clubs for this type of shot, but you still need to get your weight forward. Anything that makes the game easier is a good thing.

3. Pitch shots inside 75 yards

These are the types of shots you’ll face a lot – whether it’s attacking for birdie on par 5s and shorter par 4s, or scrambling for par on long par 4s or if you’ve been out of position – and the difference to your score between a good or bad pitch can often be two strokes or more.

The Shot Scope data reveals that the average 20-handicapper only hits the green 49% of the time from 50-75 yards. You’re usually missing greens from this kind of range because of a poor strike.

I have a system to help with distance control and strike. For a standard pitch, I want the ball to be relatively central in my stance, and my feet relatively narrow, with the hands slightly forwards.

If I want to change the length and trajectory of the shot, I put the ball a bit further forward for a higher shot and a bit further back for a lower shot. As I want to hit the ball a bit further for each ball position, I would increase the width of my stance to allow me to make a slightly bigger swing.

You can build your feel and calibrate your distances to each of these different set-ups by doing a ladder drill where you use one swing length and gradually increase the width of your stance to hit the ball slightly further each time. Do this with the three different ball positions and you’ll have a wide range of different pitch shots that you can hit simply and consistently.

4. Long approach putts

Reducing three-putts is vital for saving shots. The average 25-handicapper has 5.8 three-putts in a round, while that’s 3.5 for 15-handicappers and just 1.5 for five-handicappers. A big part of avoiding three-putts is lagging long-range putts to easy tap-in range, and distance control is key to that.

Speed is so crucial when putting. We want a constant and consistent swinging clubhead to control speed. The last thing we want is a swing that’s too short and accelerating through the ball, or too long and decelerating. I like to use the leapfrog drill.

Give yourself a long putt and try to hit one ball a third of the way, the second ball two thirds and the final ball all the way to the hole. You do that by keeping the same tempo but changing the length of the stroke. Consistency and control also come from striking the putt out the center of the face – and that gets harder as the putt and the stroke gets longer.

A good drill for this is to use a tee gate just slightly wider that your putter head. Hit puts with the ball in the middle of the gate and if your clubhead passes through then you’ll strike the ball out the middle.

5. Holing-out inside six feet

The shots saved and lost here are more obvious than anywhere else, because we’re all expecting to hole them and one shot has definitely slipped away if you don’t. Shot Scope data shows that from 3-6 feet a 20-handicapper is only holing 55% of their putts, a 10-handicapper is 65%, and it’s still what most people would consider a surprisingly low 76% for scratch players. You’re not going to hole them all, but you want drain more than your fair share.

It’s all about alignment. As we get closer to the hole, alignment becomes more important. I took my son to the BMW PGA Championship. He got some balls from the players and every single one of them had a line on it. The idea of the line is to aim it where you want your ball to start, and then you align the putter head to the line on the ball.

If you hit the ball squarely then that ball will start on-line, roll end over end and go in the hole if you’ve aimed it in the right place. This also gives you great feedback because a wobbly line shows you haven’t struck it squarely and a miss with your intended start line and good speed indicates a misread, which you can learn from.