Andrews22

It's a Pete Dye course, tiny greens and few good spots to miss. Not an excuse but besides length the greens and around the greens are the defense of the course. I'm generally a good chipper and there are very few up and downs I'd expect to make. Otherwise, I'm a 5 handicap playing a very hard golf course. I'm bound to make mistakes that will be punished by the course.

Final point for right now, I'm preparing to play a bigger golf course for school. At the current golf courses I'm playing, I hit a lot of lob wedges in to par 4's with a few longer wedges, and only one hole out of the three courses where I could realistically hit an iron. The par 5's are generally just over 500 yards which usually plays as driver, long iron. The par 3's are just slightly shorter than the course I'll play for school. The course I play at school is around 7000 yards with par 5's around 540-570 and only 4 of the par 4's playing at or below 400 yards, realistically my only non-par 5 birdie opportunities. My current rate of bogeys will go up and I won't be able to avoid some doubles. The only saving grace is that the course has almost no trees in play and is very forgiving off of the tee. Based on that, I know that my lack of fairways will not be punished anywhere near as much as they are now. But if I'm not able to make birdies from 1200 yards shorter, I'm concerned I won't be able to get any of bogeys that come from the length back.

I spend about 30-45 minutes actually practicing about once a week and then I'll putt for a few minutes before each round. I hate practicing putting and I almost always just give myself various lag putts and trying to make two putts or less with two balls. Based on my current practice this seems like something I could work on.

I appreciate the responses. I thought that I had seen a stat the said scratch golfers make just under 3 birdies a round while 5 handicaps made around 1. Based on the responses that's probably not correct. However, the lower rated courses are both around 5800 yards where playing even or better is the only way to get lower differentials. On the other course which plays around 6700 I definitely have work to do making less bogeys. The majority of my bogeys come from being out of position of the tee and having to punch out of the trees, or missing the green on longer par 3's.

I played 5 rounds in the last two weeks and made 7 birdies. Three of those rounds were also at short courses with one of them from the whites. I started this summer at a 6.8 handicap and have gotten it down to 5.0. My main focus in doing so was bogey avoidance and eliminating doubles (or worse) as much as possible. I've reached the goals that I set but I've seemed to hit a wall. While there are still dumb mistakes that lead to bogeys, I'm not making birdies at the rate I was previously, despite more chances and significantly improved wedge proximity. Below are my stats from the past two weeks. While I am focusing on hitting more fairways, the numbers at course A are skewed as my target on 4 holes are done other fairways or in the rough. Otherwise I found the rating important to include as the only way I can improve my handicap is to go under par at these courses, hence the need for birdies. My putting is the glaring weakness in my game. My wedge play is by far the best part of my game while my iron play and short game are good enough. My driving, while not the straightest, is long enough to avoid most trouble and has predictable misses that allow me to avoid penalties. As long as I give myself an angle into the green my wedge play gives me plenty of looks. However, my putting consistently lets me down. When I first wanted to make this post last week after three rounds, I had counted 13 putts for birdie from inside 12 feet, only making one. In my focus to avoid bogeys, I tried really hard to eliminate three putts which meant almost lagging anything outside 8 feet. While my putting is not where it needs to be to lower my handicap, I'm also looking for advice on mindset. In my bogey avoidance quest, I focused mostly on limiting the damage of par 3's and 4's, leaving only par 5's for scoring. It's almost like a mental block in my head where making a birdie on anything but a par 5 isn't possible. I've heard plenty of people say that getting from 5 to 0 is way harder than 10 to 5 or other higher handicaps. I feel like my swing, short game, and ball striking are there for me to improve but I need advice on putting and mindset that might allow for more birdies.