You have too many swing thoughts
By all means, head to GOLF.com and steal a swing thought or work on that tip your local pro has helped you with, but don’t overthink it. Too many thoughts are not good for the average golfer. Keep it simple, focus on one key element and go from there.
You hit only drivers on the range
Wow, that’s awesome watching you scare the range netting with your 14th straight blast with the Big Dog, but you’re still only hitting that club maybe 15 times, max, when you get to the course. Mix in a couple of wedges, will ya? You might need them.
You don’t practice lag putts
You never want to three-putt, and one of the best ways to avoid this is improve your lag putting. This doesn’t mean launching a dozen 90-footers aimlessly across the putting green, but you could benefit from rolling two or three 30-footers, just to get a nice feel for the speed of the greens. More often than not they’ll roll at a similar speed once you get on the course.
You don’t practice the important putts
Lag putting is key, but so is canning the putts that will make or break your round. Those putts are the ones right outside gimme range but inside about 8 feet. It’s the distance where you stand over a putt and aren’t intimidated by the look, and it’s close enough where if you miss you’d be annoyed. Putts from 4-8 feet are crucial, but not that easy to make. Ian Poulter leads the PGA Tour in conversation rate from 4-8 feet at 86 percent, but only 14 players on Tour make 3/4s of those putts. The worst player in that category, Paul Casey, makes 1/2 from the range. So focus on that tricky distance. Once you see one drop the hole will start to look bigger, and a strong putting day from that range — like making 7 of 12 instead of 2 of 12 — can shave five strokes in a heartbeat.
You didn’t eat or hydrate
Plan ahead! Grab a bottle of water. Eat at home, on the go or make sure you have enough time when you get to the course. But don’t jeopardize a promising round due to a lack of food fuel. (Here are some ideas for what to pack in your bag.)
You don’t know anything about the course
You may think you did everything right to get ready for a course you’ve never seen — hit balls, roll putts, etc. — but did you know the first four holes have tight fairways and doglegs and your best bet might be hitting a hybrid? Now you probably wish you would have striped that 17-degree more than twice on the range, huh?
You are too focused on other things
Stop worrying so much about your foursome’s betting game, what tees you are playing or that epic playlist you’ve been cooking up since the car ride over. Put the phone away and check out Twitter later or respond to that work email when you get home. None of it’s going anywhere. And plus, making sure your game is ready for a par-birdie-par start is way more important.
