Why our golf games are not improving.
It’s always dangerous territory, but I recently engaged in a hearty Twitter discussion about the habits of club golfers, particularly fixing faults and attempting to get better at the game.
In a conversation that began by someone asking why the average 100s-shooter can’t break 100 and why the average 90s-shooter can’t break 90 (and ditto for the 80s), one respondent opined that most recreational golfers don’t play well because: they start later in life when learning is more difficult, they have limited ability in hand/eye sports and they’ve never studied the game’s techniques. Emphasis was placed on the last point.
I chimed in by adding: “I’d also add a reluctance to change. Or the perception that too much time and effort is required to fix faults. While they may still get frustrated on the course, I think many club players have accepted their lot in golf (and their handicap range).”
Given more than 280 characters, I would also have added that with the high number of competition rounds Australian club golfers play and the prizes on offer there – along with the proliferation of side bets in your average foursome – I think plenty of golfers want their handicap to rise in order to be more effective. Meanwhile, another tweet added a different complexion: “I play with guys all the time hacking it everywhere and think, If only they got a few lessons with the pro, they could drop 10 shots and hit it much better. But they can’t be bothered [and] would rather have a beer in the bar.”
It’s a part of golf I’ve pondered for some time: are we happy with the level at which we play? We all know low handicappers who seethe for three holes about making a single bogey, but I bet we also know 25-markers who genuinely don’t care whether they shoot 90 or 120 – and who have no interest in fixing their faults or trying to improve. It is part of golf’s enduring charm that two such divergent beasts can co-exist.
I sit somewhere in the middle. I am witnessing a steady decline in my game. I don’t like it, but I also accept it won’t change unless I do something about it. I have lost distance in the past year or so – distance I couldn’t afford to lose – while my short game is a shadow of what it used to be, especially a teenage me. Occasionally I can still shoot in the high 70s on a day when my swing clicks, I keep mistakes to a minimum, recover well from the ones I do make and hole a few putts. But mostly my scores are drifting into the mid-80s and the odd one into the low 90s.
But just as I have to accept I’m getting older, I’m also getting worse.
I took a single lesson about 18 months ago but did so without realising I was about to go five weeks without touching a club, rendering it largely pointless. I’m mostly self-taught but more self-diagnosed, while I bet I am like a lot of club golfers when I say: I know I should invest in some lessons but I just don’t want to suffer any backwards steps before moving forward. It’s a crazy attitude, just like the time-honoured adage of the woodsman chopping away with a blunt axe because he feels like he doesn’t have time to stop and sharpen it.
Statistics from the USA recently came out saying that the average male handicap there had fallen to 14 in 2021, which represented a slight drop from 2020 figures, while for women the average is 27.7. Here, Golf Australia stats tell us the average handicap is 16.5 for men and 25.4 for women.
John Huggan, the longtime Golf Digest contributing writer and whose work is frequently part of these pages, likes to tell a story about his time as the instruction editor of our American sister publication in the 1980s. When he started, the average handicap there was 18 and when he finished his stint in the instruction section the average handicap remained 18. What good, he reasoned, had he done?
His question overly simplified the situation, of course, as more newcomers to the game during his tenure surely dragged the average mark upwards. Still, asking such a reflective question feels logical.
“How To Play” has long been a tenet of this magazine, and reader surveys tell us instruction remains one of the strongest motivators to read it, which makes your view on improvement intriguing to us. I doubt you’ll ever see an issue without any instruction content, but what you do with such inexpensive professional tuition appears varied.
The final word here goes to Phil Mickelson, a Golf Digest playing editor his entire professional career. In an unrelated yet highly relevant tweet, the 51-year-old reigning PGA champion offered this salient thought: “The biggest challenge to getting better at anything is learning to love the plateaus. It’s hard to be patient and deal with a decline in performance while waiting for it to click. No one else will see your progress but YOU WILL and you’ll know when you’re ready.”
Photo: getty images: CLIFF HAWKINS
