Tips to improve your Golf Handicap: Practicing with Purpose

Here at TheGrint we are all about the Golf Handicap. Most golfers dream about improving their handicap (like we do) but most of us simply fail to address that challenge with structure. That’s what we will talk about Today, specifically about how to practice with intention which is critical to be able to improve.

But first you need to understand what to practice. To do so you need to track your stats and identify your weaknesses.

How to track my golf handicap and golf stats?

The first step to improving is understanding your weaknesses. And the easiest way to find your weaknesses is to track your stats and compare the results with where you should be.

So my first advice is that you begin to track your stats. It is very simple, just track your putts, hazards and tee accuracy. With that, TheGrint can give you enough stats to analyze your whole game pretty accurately.

What golf stats should I look at to identify weaknesses?

There are four main areas of the golf game 1) Driver 2) Irons / Approach 3) Short Game 4) Putter (You could break it down a lot more but for the purposes of this exercise it is good enough). Understanding where you stand on these is critical to any golfer who is looking seriously into improving their game.

So to identify your weaknesses first track your stats and then see the stats of your friends to get an understanding of were you should be or simply take a look at some of these articles that we have published about stats by handicap ranges Driving Acc, Putting, Iron Game, Overall game.

So do I improve my golf handicap? Practice with a purpose, make it hard

Practicing of course, practicing. Sorry. The trick though, is to practice with a purpose and set goals. For example, let’s say you have issues with your Iron Game, your short irons specifically. The first thing you should do is to focus on that area, don’t only hit balls with your driver (which is what most golfers do). Instead, spend the majority of your practice session with your short irons and set goals.

A good way to set goals is to finish your practice session with the area you want to improve and establish penalties if you don’t achieve the goals. For example you could say I am going to hit 120 yard shots to a specific target (imagine a green in that landing area). I need to keep doing this until I hit 7 out of 10 shots.

I leave you with this youtube video of John Richardson that talks about a similar practicing concept, he calls it “Hard Practice”. He is the author of the book “Dream On”, where he took the challenge of breaking par in less than a year, which he did.

Hard Practice – John Richardson

Please let us know if you have any questions or thoughts.

Enjoy your Golf!