Hi Neil,

Copy and paste this to a word doc and have a good read, it should help you break par with just a little more thought.

Golf Guide: Scoring Par or Better using Golf Course Targets



What is par? Well, par is a scoring standard calculated on the number of shots a scratch player should take to the green in regulation and 2 putts per hole.
How to shoot or break par is just as easy: use a formula calculated by a simple person not so long ago.
There are 18 golf holes in a standard round. In this guide I assume the course has: 4 par 3’s, 4 par 5’s and 10 par 4’s. If your home course is different, adjust the numbers accordingly and you have the formula to score or break par.
To shoot par, you need to hit 13 greens, the number of greens is critical. You can do the formula on less (I have broken par hitting 5 greens) but then you need a great short game. It doesn’t matter on which par holes you hit the 13 greens but the ideal mix to give yourself a good chance is: 2 par 3’s, 3 par 5’s and 8 par 4’s. If you do that you would have used 27 shots.
Of those 13 greens you’ve hit in regulation if you make 3 birdies, par 9 of them and bogey 1 after a 3-putt disaster, you’ve used 24 shots.
If you hit the 13 greens, you missed 5 of them. Good scratch players should get up and down 3 times out the 5 (60%), they do no worse than chip and 2-putt the other 2 for a couple of bogeys. That’s another 21 shots.
Now add all those shots up: 72, level par and in there you’ve had a 3-putt and 2 holes you didn’t manage to get up and down.
Simple! How easy is that?
You may need to develop your own formula, maybe you can hit all 4 par 3’s … in which case you can afford a few extra putts or you can still score par if you hit 6 instead of 8 par 4’s. Now I’m sure you seeing how it works.
Now you have your own formula, now it is time to show you how to execute it.
Key to successful scoring lies not in the 18 numbers you write on your scorecard but how the numbers are created. You have to play golf by using golf course targets. Play golf by focussing on the job at hand – hitting the fairway, hitting the green and “getting out of trouble” by putting reasonably well (31 putts will do it, which is average for scratch golfers). If you’re a good putter or have a good short game or if you can hit par 5’s in 2, well then par should be a piece of cake.

Hope this helps

Ian.

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Once you learn the swing, your next step is mastering golf psychology................