The flag is behind a bunker and you’ve got a little 10 yard pitch to play. You don’t have much green to work with but you can’t help trying to throw it way up in the air and have the ball land soft near the hole. Wouldn’t that be great, you can save par and scoot on down to the next hole.

You take the club back, start your downswing, pop the ball up but don’t hit it hard enough. The ball ends up in the bunker where the sand is still wet from last night’s rain. You try to get cute in the bunker and fluff one near the hole because you still haven’t learned. All of a sudden, what should have been, at worst, a bogey becomes a triple. What a nightmare!

What should you have done?
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You can’t perform your best if your equipment is not at its best. Here’s a checklist to keep your equipment from holding you back.

1 - If your grips are worn - re-grip. Re-gripping your clubs is an easy fix that will definitely give you a big bang for your buck.

2 - If your grips are still in good shape, keep them clean with soap and water and a little elbow grease.

3 - Next, look at your glove. It is worn or does it have holes in it? Get a new glove and keep an extra in your bag just in case. Hogan called the grip the engine house of the swing. You can easily see why I’ve focused on your golf grips and golf glove first.
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Here we are slightly on the upslope just off the edge of the green. In fact, I have about 6 inches of the second cut to get through and then about three feet of fringe to plow through as well. This shot was just over 20 feet. I was hesitant to take a putter here because I knew that I had to hit it a bit harder to get it through four feet of fringe and second cut. My other concern was being on the upslope and popping the ball up into the air with the putter.
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Want to get a psychological edge on the golf course, then practice from the set of tees just behind your normal set of tees. If you normally play from the white, try the blue tees for a few rounds. When you come back to the white tees, you’ll have gained that little psychological edge over the golf course which may carry you to a 79.

Also try playing from the front tees even if it means playing from the red tees. The idea here is to get you used to going low with your score.

Looking for more tips on how to break 80 - see my publication, 79 tips to break 80 in golf.

Every golf course has them - at least one short and seemingly easy par 4. A short par 4 adds a lot of excitement to your average golf course. At my course there are two easy par 4’s. There’s always at least one trick to the easy par 4 if they are well-designed. On both the short par 4’s, the greens are lightning fast. So even if you are left with a 50 yard approach after your drive, leave it below the hole or putting could be a many-stroked nightmare.
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If you want to break 80 and can’t seem to break away from your fixation on shooting par for each hole, then create your own personal par. Let’s face it, we are all so wrapped up in the idea of par that, by default, it becomes our goal for the hole as soon as we step on the tee box. Usually, this fixation on scoring par is our downfall in breaking 80.

If you shoot around 80 or break 90 on a regular basis then you can score a par on every hole on the golf course. At one time or another, you have parred every hole on your home course if you have played it enough. I’ll even venture to say that you’ve probably birdied almost every hole on that course at one time or another. I’ve birdied every hole on my home course multiple times. Unfortunately, these experiences lead us to falsely believe that we can par all the holes in a given round. You may not start with the expectation that you will shoot 72 but as you get to each tee box your goal becomes par for that particular hole. You might as well have set out to shoot 72 from the very get-go.
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If you have ever come close to breaking 80 then you know what playing under pressure is like. Let’s say you get through fifteen holes and realize that you need to par the last three holes in order to break 80. All of a sudden the throat gets a little tight, the mouth gets a little dry and the swing gets a little loose.

For me, the most similar recent experience that comes to mind was when I was trying to par the back nine at a golf league outing. I was one under par with two holes to go. I bogeyed the 17th hole and had to par the last to shoot 35 (even par for the back). I hit my approach over the green and I had a tough downhill chip out of deep rough that I had to hit with perfect touch to get it close. I got it to about six feet from the hole. As you can see, there was no relief as the pressure built on each shot. I somehow sank the putt and shot 35. Just like when you are trying to break 80, the pressure can build on each shot.
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When I look over some of my best scoring rounds, I realize that one thing they all have in common is I rarely used the driver. In fact, sometimes I didn’t use my driver at all and still shot one of my best rounds. This is because it is more important to keep the ball in play than to hit it far.

I’ll repeat that point just in case you didn’t get it the first time: IT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO KEEP THE BALL IN PLAY THAN TO HIT IT FAR.
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