Or worse - maybe you've taken a Monkey attitude by saying - "Well Marc, I really need to practice my Driver before I work on my putting." And I agree, if you're always in the trees - then you need to straighten out your Driver. Though how many times in the last 2 months have you made bogey, double bogey or worse from the fairway?

Your answer is obviously more than once. I mean even the guys on the PGA Tour and Gals on the LPGA Tour make bogeys from the fairway! So yes, you need to keep your golf ball in play - but keeping it in play doesn't guarantee Par!

Stats don't lie!

Stats - using stats is one of the best ways for you to see exactly where you need to improve and how. Think about it - every successful company uses stats or results or quarterly earnings to see if they're making money or losing money. They then use these stats to fix the losses and to improve their profits.

So to use Jim Furyk, who just won the PGA Tournament this past weekend as an example - lets see where and how you can improve:

Furyk scored 4 under Par in the 1st round, 3 under Par in the 2nd round, 4 under Par in the 3rd round and 1 under Par in the 4th round. He's a Professional - he's supposed to do that - though let's look at some interesting stuff that contributed to these scores.

In his 1st round he shot 4 under Par and landed on only half of his fairways and just over half of his Greens - 10 Greens in Regulation. Why is this important for you? Well he only hit his Dirver in the fairway 7 times during his round and he still shot 4 under Par for a 68. And you? Well, the Monkey might hit their first 3 fairways, miss their 4th and 5th and start saying out loud - "What am I doing wrong? Why can't I hit the ball correctly."

And the funny thing is that you were actually hitting your Driver more accuarately than the guy who just won 1,134,000 U.S. Dollars and shot 4 under Par. Maybe your Driving isn't as bad as you're make it out to be? Yes, it can get better, but maybe it's good enough for you to score better than you currently are?

And the Male Monkey of course will say - "Well Marc, but Jim Furyk was averaging 291 yards a Drive and I usually hit my golf ball around 210 yards a Drive" or the Female Monkey will say the same statement, but ammend it by changing the distance to 150 yards a Drive. Yes, that's true - though Furyk was playing a golf course that measured 7,394 yards in length and the Male Monkey is playing from 6,300 yards (basically a 1,100 yard shorter golf course)  and the Female Monkey is playing from 5,500 yards.

So in reality you're hitting the golf ball a comparable distance as Furyk

Now Furyk hit 10 Greens in Regulation, made 5 Birdies and shot 4 under Par. Ok, that's a good amount of Greens and Birdies - most likely more than most of us currently hit in a round of golf.  And let's say that Furyk Birded 5 of the 10 greens that he hit.  And during those same 10 holes you didn't hit one Green, so you hit a wedge for your next shot on the green and 2 putted each hole.

So basically Furyk's score from the Fairway on those 10 holes (where he hit the Green in Regulation) was 10 shots to the green + 5 one putts + 5 two putts equaling 25 shots.

And your score from the fairway on those 10 holes is 10 shots to the green + 10 short wedge shots onto the green + 10 two putts equaling 40 shots.

15 shots! 15 shots! That's a big difference. It is a big difference, but Furyk scored 68 and 68 + 15 shots equals 83. Why aren't you scoing 83?

Remember, he only hit 7 Fairways during his entire round (not just on those 10 holes - during his entire round!), so he wasn't that much more accurate than you. OK, so you have to take a couple penalty shots for lost balls during a round - that's cool, I'll give that to you. So let's add that up - 83 + 2 Penalty shots equals 85. But wait, your scoring 95 - where are those 10 extra shots coming from?

Stats don't lie!

Oh, did I fail to mention that Furyk had 24 putts during this round of golf and the average 95 shooter has 41 putts during a round of golf. Let's see - 95 (your score) minus 17 putts (the difference between you and Furyk) equals 78. Meaning that if you don't hit the golf ball any better than you currently are hitting it, you could score 78! And do you know that if Furyk ended up hitting every Fairway instead of hitting only 7, that he probably would've still shot the same score.

Go ahead, go back to the Driving Range and practice seeing 2 or 3 knuckles on your grip and make sure your Swing Plane is perfect - we all know how close Furyk's backswing is to the proper Swing Plane!

Monkeys dream about hitting every Fairway and Green

Players make putts

Go ahead, practice the "Tour Putting Square" and be a Player!

Regards,

Marc Solomon - Your Instructor For Life