Breaking 80 is the one thing nearly every golfer wants to do. It's a universal sign of respect in this game. Yet only 15 to 20 percent of golfers ever actually do it. And only about five percent of golfers can do it consistently.
But what I found after hours of crunching numbers and talking to some of the best coaches and players in the world is that most golfers are way closer than they think to breaking 80. It's just a few bad decisions per round that's costing them.
It's something I break down in our most recent episode of Game Plan, which you can watch below—or keep scrolling for a summary...
1. Budget for 7 bogeys and 11 pars
Obviously this changes with the course itself, but remind yourself of the math required. In essence what you're looking for on a standard par 72 course is seven bogeys and 11 pars.
11 pars seems like a lot, but it's more doable than you might think.
Keep the big numbers off your scorecard (we'll get to that) and give yourself 18 up-and-down par opportunities (we'll get to that, too). A 10 handicap gets up-and-down about 35 percent of the time—more from easier chips. Yes, you'll need a good day. But you'll put yourself right in the vicinity without having to light the world on fire.
2. Stop chasing birdies
You noticed I didn't mention birdies there. That's intentional: The birdie gap between handicaps just isn't that big. Chasing them isn't going to make a meaningful difference in getting you to break 80.
In fact, it might actually hurt you. So think of making birdies as a bonus in this strategy, not at all a requirement.
3. Obsess over avoiding doubles instead
A 10 handicap may only make one less birdie per round than a scratch but they make almost two and a half more double bogeys. That accounts for about half of the entire difference between those two handicaps. It's massive. DECADE Golf Founder Scott Fawcett explains:
"Our scores in golf drop more from avoiding bogey than making more birdies...the numbers: 82% of the improvement from 79 to 76 is bogey-or-worse avoidance, and it holds around 70% all the way to world number one. That's the hardest evidence in either tape for your birdies-are-a-bonus argument."
4. Play for GIR+1
GIR+1 is a stat created by Mark Broadie. It's when you either hit the Green in Regulation OR hit the Green in Regulation using one extra shot. In other words, you're either putting OR chipping for birdie.
70s shooters hit between 16 and 17 GIR+1 per round. 80s shooters hit fewer than 15. This is your key goal: Getting yourself into a good position greenside on every single hole.
5. Target par 3s and par 5s
Finally, recognize that your best par opportunities will probably come on the par 5s and par 3s. There are about four of each on most golf courses, so eight total. It's too much to assume you'll par all of them, but keep your focus sharp here—these are your opportunity holes.
6. Fear the D.I.R.Ts
Penalty drives are awful, that's the bad news. The good news is you're probably slightly better at avoiding them than you think. According to Arccos, there's only a 0.3 difference in penalty drives per round between low 70s shooters and high 80s shooters. Where there's a huge difference is in D.I.R.T drives—Drives Into Recovery Territory.
These are shots that require some kind of recovery or lay-up shot. Think fairway bunkers, trees, rough. Low 80s shooters hit about 50 percent more of these D.I.R.T drives than 70s shooters. This is the fat you need to cut.
7. Pick a safe side of the hole
So how do you do that? Erik Barzeski, co-author of Lowest Score Wins, says you need to take the same mentality towards things like fairway bunkers as you would towards water hazards:
"Bunkers may as well have red paint around them, because they may as well be treated like water. People don't properly weight the values of some things when they look at a golf course. A lot of people should be aiming...at the left edge of the fairway, or into the left rough slightly."
8. Don't fear the rough—use it
To Barzeski's point, rough isn't going to kill you. And the stats back it up: Arccos data shows a 10-handicap scores about the same from 140 yards in the rough as from 160 yards in the fairway. Basically, rough isn't great but it's not the killer. It's the recovery shot situations that are the killer of a sub-80 score.
"Amateurs don't play US Open rough; sometimes the cushion or the flyer actually helps," he says.
9. Club down when trouble's on both sides
When there's trouble on both sides, or right in your distance, it's probably time to club down, or tee the ball lower. The general checklist here is:
- Go over trouble if you can
- Go around it if there's room (fairway, rough, etc.) on one side
- Club down if you can't do either of the above
10. Beware the 150–200 zone
If you're a 10 handicap and you have an approach shot of 200 yards or more into a green, the data shows that you have a 20 percent chance of making a double bogey. And that's from the fairway. It's 14 percent at 175 yards and doesn't get under 10 percent until inside 150 yards.
It's inevitable you're going to have at least a few shots from this range, just remember: This is a danger zone, even if it doesn't feel like it.
11. Reimagine where the green is
To play defense, pick a spot around the green which represents the easiest possible chip shot. That's point A. Your bail-out spot. Point B is either the middle of the green or the pin, whichever is closer. According to Arccos data, a 10 handicap has a shot pattern that is about 50 yards wide from this range, which is roughly double the size of most greens. Using this as your conservative approach from longer range gives you the buffer room you need.
12. Inch toward the pin as you get closer
As you get closer to the green, into the 150-yards-and-in zone, you can start inching your aim more into the middle of points A and B, because an average 10 handicap's spread shrinks to 35 yards across. At that point a 10 handicap's double bogey rate is under 5 percent, so you can adapt this strategy by picking a new target, similar to how Scottie Scheffler does.
13. Kill the three-putt bleed by fixing your speed.
At some point I'll do a full putting strategy breakdown—stay tuned for that—but a key stat to keep in mind is that the three-putt percentage is up to 40 percent for 10 handicaps from longer range. And there are groups of 80s shooters where putting really hurts. Two different groups of low 80s shooters lost more than 3.5 strokes on the green per round compared to 70s shooters. This three-putt bleed was really the only thing standing in their way. When it comes to high return-on-investments for your game, practicing your speed control will go a long way.