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In this video, Neil Tappin runs down the 7 biggest strategy mistakes golfers are making.
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00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappin here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the London Club where today we're
00:08looking at the seven biggest strategy mistakes that golfers make. Now the information we've got
00:13for you in this video comes courtesy of the guys at ShotScope. ShotScope have a unit called the
00:19V2 which consists of a GPS watch that I've got on my wrist here that gives you all the distances
00:23you'll need while you're out on the golf course, plus a load of tags that you can put into the
00:27butt end of your golf clubs that allows you to track all the shots you hit during a round of golf.
00:33Now ShotScope have aggregated all of their data from all of their users to provide us with some
00:39really interesting findings and in particular in this video we're going to focus on some of those
00:44really simple mistakes that you might be making that could save you shots going forward. So guys
00:49if you're new to the Golf Monthly channel please do hit the subscribe button, give us a like if you like
00:54what you're watching and do leave comments below where do you think you're throwing away shots,
00:58how do you think you can improve, we'd be really interested to hear your thoughts. But let's head
01:02out now to the golf course here at the London Club and look at the seven biggest strategy mistakes that
01:06golfers are making.
01:1880% of missed greens are missed short. So 47% are short right and 33% are short left. And if you fall
01:27into the category of missing short of pin high more than you think you should then there are a few
01:33different things to consider within your own game. The first is how consistent is your ball striking.
01:38Now it will depend on your handicap as you improve your ball striking of course gets better. But if
01:43you feel like your ball striking isn't quite at the level that your handicap is it can be a really quick
01:48and easy way to improve. There are a whole host of free online tutorials out there that will help you
01:54strike the ball better, will help you catch the ball and then turf and that sort of really powerful strike
02:00through impact that could make a big difference. The next point relates to your equipment. Is your
02:06equipment forgiving those slight heel and toe strikes that might be causing you to come up short of the
02:12green? If the answer to that is I'm not sure then perhaps a more forgiving modern set of irons might
02:18just help you out. And thirdly, how far do you hit each club in the bag? Obviously this is where
02:24performance tracking technology like the ShotScope V2 can prove really handy. Finding out how far you
02:30hit the golf ball on the course when you're faced with different lies and different weather conditions
02:35and you're under pressure is really useful and it can be very different to how far you hit the ball
02:40on the range hitting shot after shot from the perfect lie. The other thing is it's also worth finding
02:45out how far you carry each club in the bag because your total distance will largely depend on ground
02:51conditions. Whereas knowing your average carry yardages will make a big difference to knowing
02:56what club you should hit in what situation. So for instance, this is the third hole here at the
03:00London club. We have water short left. You really don't want to be coming up short. The pin is sort of
03:05just beyond halfway up the green. The front of the green is 127, middle of the green is 142. So you really
03:11need to make sure that whatever you do on this hole, you pick a club that you know carries past 127.
03:18And if all you know is that you hit your 9-iron around about 135 yards, well, you don't know
03:24whether you carry your 9-iron over 127 yards. So it's something to think about. So if you fall into
03:31that category, do some work on the range, in practice, find out how far you carry each club
03:37in the bag and use those as your go-to numbers going forward. It could make a really big difference to your game.
03:48Right, so the next one on my list relates to which club you should be using off the tee.
03:53And what you're looking at here are the average distances players are able to achieve with their
03:58driver versus their three-wood. And usually, players are giving up around about 30 yards between
04:03driver and three-wood, which is roughly what we would expect. What we didn't expect to see,
04:08however, was that players off the tee, using a three-wood, were only 1% more accurate.
04:14Now that's something that's well worth considering because, and it's something that we've said in
04:18some of our videos in the past, fairway woods are the hardest golf clubs in the bag to get right.
04:24Obviously, small head, long shaft, you're standing a long way away from it, you've got to hit the ball
04:28a long way, so you've got to make a big, full, athletic swing. Fairway woods are hard to get right,
04:32and it is difficult to find something that you can really rely on so that you end up using it well
04:37when you need to most when you're competing out on the golf course under pressure. So there are a couple of
04:41things to consider here. Firstly, is your fairway wood a golf club that you really can rely on? If it
04:47is, then fine, keep it in the bag. If it's not, then perhaps you go down a different route. Perhaps
04:51you leave the three-wood behind, carry a five-wood, use something that doesn't quite go as far, but
04:55that you do feel confident using, and confident using under pressure. And the other point about the
05:00data that we've seen here is that if you're going to not go for driver in order to use something
05:05that you know you can hit straight, then make sure that you take a club that you do know you can hit
05:10straight, so you would expect to be far more accurate with your fairway wood off the tee than
05:15just one percent over your driver. Guys, there's real food for thought there in terms of your strategy
05:21off the tee. What do you do when there are bunkers in play like there are here, when there's trouble
05:26up there that you need to avoid? Do you just stick with hitting driver and take your chances, or do you
05:32try and hit the fairway with a more of a safety option? If you go for the latter, make sure that
05:37you choose something that you are going to hit the fairway with more often. And for the majority of
05:42people out there, it might not be their fairway wood.
05:50Okay, so the next point relates to how aggressive your strategy is when playing into the greens.
05:56And what we're going to do here is we're going to take a look at the number of birdies players are
06:00making on average versus the number of double bogeys players are making on average. And we're going to
06:04split the numbers up based on different handicap categories. So what you're looking at here is the
06:10average number of birdies per round. So for category one player, two birdies per round, category two,
06:17it's roughly one birdie per round. And then once you get above a handicap of about 12, really golfers are
06:23not making very many birdies at all. But conversely, take a look at the double bogey numbers. So handicap
06:30zero to five, roughly making one double bogey per round. Category two golfers are making two double
06:36bogeys per round. And then above category two, again, the double bogey numbers really increase
06:41very quickly again. So the point here for a lot of players, the fastest way to improve is not to make
06:48more birdies, but to make fewer double bogeys. And in the situation that I'm in here, this is a real,
06:53really good highlight of exactly where players go wrong. So the flag here on the 18th green on the
06:58heritage course at the London club is perched way over on the right hand side. It's a real sucker pin
07:03and by going for it, you really are bringing bogeys and double bogeys into play no matter what your
07:08handicap. And I think for a lot of golfers out there, especially higher handicap players,
07:14it is worth thinking about playing golf to the centre of the green more often. So what I would
07:20suggest to you to do is next time you go and play golf, try and play to the centre of every single
07:25green. Whenever you're faced with an approach shot to the green, it doesn't matter if you've got 100
07:29yards or 200 yards in, aim for a point on the middle of the green. That's where the GPS watch comes in,
07:35really handy. It gives you yardages to the very centre of every green. Work to those yardages,
07:40try and hit the middle of every green and then take a look at your scoring averages. Take a look
07:45and see what's happening to your birdie percentages versus your bogey and double bogey percentages.
07:49Because I think that for a lot of players, taking the flag completely out of their mindset
07:54might improve all of those numbers. It might help them make more birdies, but it will definitely
07:59help them keep bogeys and double bogeys off the card more often. So in this situation, really, I need to
08:06be avoiding that flag on the right-hand side, aiming for the middle of the green, trying to make par,
08:11taking double bogey certainly out of play entirely. Right, let's give it a go.
08:22Well, my miss is definitely a miss to the right. I've aimed for the centre of the green,
08:26I've pushed it a fraction but I'm still left of the flag. I'm definitely not in any bother
08:31and it's that sort of thinking that can really save your shots out on the golf course.
08:4682% of putts hit from outside five feet are left short. It's an incredible stat from the ShotScope
08:54data that we've been given and it is based on what people are doing whilst they're competing for real
08:59and it's something well worth thinking about in your own game. Now, Dave Peltz did a bit of research
09:04a few years ago that said that the ideal pace at which you should be hitting your putts is to get
09:08the ball rolling about 18 inches past the hole. That's where I've got the T-peg here. That means
09:14the ball will be rolling fast enough to roll over any imperfections on the green without being bumped
09:18offline, without going too fast and putting you in danger of three putting or lipping out if you hit
09:23the putt on a good line. So pace control is a really crucial factor when it comes to your success
09:30on the greens. Now, there are a whole host of really great drills that you can do to hone your
09:36putting speed. So placing a tease around the hole in a box to make sure that you get that ball rolling
09:42just past the hole. The more work you can do on your speed control, the more likely you will be to putt
09:48the ball just past the hole and if you can do that more often chances are you might just hole a few
09:53more putts. It's often said that when it comes to pitching you're better off leaving yourself
10:03a little bit further back so that you can make a full swing. The idea being that if you make a full
10:07swing you can make a more committed swing and the results ultimately will be slightly better. But
10:12the shot scope data doesn't actually back this theory up. What you're looking at here is the average
10:19proximity to the hole data for shots hit from 50 yards versus shots hit from 80 yards and both from
10:25the fairway and the rough players are hitting the ball closer to the hole from closer to the green.
10:32It's something well worth thinking about in your own game. If you've always tended to lay up
10:37to a further yardage, well perhaps just consider it. Perhaps keep some stats of your own to find out
10:42if you are hitting it closer from further away because it might be that you aren't and if you
10:46aren't then a little bit more of an aggressive strategy off the tee or from the fairway with
10:51your layup shot might pay off, might pay dividends. So the shot that I've got here, this is just around
10:57about the 62 yard mark. This would be a fiddly shot for me but perhaps I'm better off hitting a shot
11:02from here than I am from 30 yards further back. Let's give it a go.
11:15A little bit long but I'll take it.
11:22Should you be carrying hybrids or long irons at the top end of your bag? It's a question that every
11:27golfer needs to ask themselves and as far as the shot scope data goes, it's fairly inconclusive for
11:33lower handicappers. So for category one and category two golfers, it really does depend on the individual
11:38and the individual's game. But as the handicaps increase, so hybrids tend to be far more successful.
11:45And I'd say the cutoff point seems to really around about the handicap of a 13 mark. Golfers with handicaps
11:50of 13 and over tend to be more successful with hybrids. For a 20 handicapper facing the sort of
11:57shot that I'm facing here of around about 180 to 200 yards, a 20 handicapper is almost twice as likely
12:04to hit the green with a hybrid as they are with a long iron. It really is food for thought and I'm sure
12:10it's something that a lot of you out there have considered and thought about in your game. If you
12:14are a high handicapper carrying long irons, just be wary, think about it, keep some stats of your own,
12:20find out how successful you are from further out from the green. If you find out that you're coming
12:24up short a lot a lot of the time from further out with your longer irons, perhaps it's worth swapping
12:30out your three or four irons for hybrids instead. And finally, are you more likely to miss right or left
12:42off the tee? It's really invaluable information to know. So the shot scope data reveals that for the
12:48majority of golfers out there, they are more likely to miss right. It's 58 percent right versus 42 percent
12:54left. And it's really about knowing your game and understanding your shot patterns, understanding
13:00where you are most likely to miss. Now, the best players in the world, they don't always hit great
13:05shots, but what they do understand is where not to miss and they understand what they're most likely
13:10to do. You could bring that into your game. So a hole like this, this is the 10th hole here on the heritage
13:16course at the London club. You cannot go left off the tee. And if you are a player that is more likely
13:21to miss left, you can build your strategy based on that knowledge. You can say to yourself, okay,
13:26the mistake I'm not going to make is I'm not going to snap and hook one into the water. That's where
13:30the card wrecking score comes from. For me, that water on the left here is a huge danger. Whereas if
13:36you're somebody that misses more often to the right, you'll know that that water on the left hand side
13:41is not such a big danger. And you can take a more aggressive strategy. I know that in my game, I'm
13:46much more likely to miss right than I am to miss left. So I'm confident and happy with driver. That's
13:52what I'm going to hit here. And having a simple strategy based on what you are most likely to do
13:58can really help your game. It's about managing your misses and going from there. It can make a huge
14:03difference. As predicted, I've missed it slightly to the right hand side, but I'm fine. I'm in play
14:18and I can attack the green from there. So there you have it. Those are the seven biggest strategy
14:22mistakes that golfers make based on the shot scope data. And there are some really fascinating
14:27insights in there. I don't think it matters whether you're a category one player or if you're just
14:31starting out on your golfing journey, there are some really simple findings in there that could
14:36help give you some guidance on the best and quickest way to possibly improve your game. Guys,
14:41please do leave comments below. Is there anything that you want clarification on? Is there any more
14:45information you want from the stats? We'd be more than happy to help out wherever we can.
14:50Please also hit the like button if you liked the video. But for now, from the London club, it's goodbye.
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