Darrell Klassen Inner Circle --- SCORING REPORT PART #2 --- BREAKING 80 Just for your information, if you have reached the place in your game where you are shooting consistently in the 80 s, you are probably in the top 4-5% of all of the golfers in the world. I talk with 80 s shooters all of the time who feel as though they just aren t very good golfers. That is not true at all. Only 10% of all of the golfers in the world are breaking 100 on a consistent basis. That statistic is quite enlightening, yet most golfers shooting in the 90 s feel as though they are really hackers. Lighten up on yourself a bit and relax. You aren t as bad as you think you are. We all have the tendency to measure ourselves with the players out on the tour which we see on the television, and you are correct, compared to them you have not arrived. However, it you will look the other direction, at all of the golfers who cannot break 100 at all, you will soon find that you are in a fairly elite field of players when you are shooting in the 90 s and in the 80 s. Darrell Klassen Inner Circle pg 1
Let s talk about breaking 80 and getting down into the 70 s. it really isn t all that tough, but it will cost you more of your time than you have been spending on the practice field to stay in the 80 s. Time and information are all you need to make it to the next level. While that sounds quite simple, it is going to now require a bit of focus and you will need to begin to pay attention to your weak spots. You will have to begin to analyze your own game to some extent. I will be here to help you, also, so let s get started. Normally, if you are shooting in the 80 s you are doing a lot of things pretty well. However, the average 80 s shooter will have two main areas on which to do most of their work. Let me know if this sounds any different than the things I have said in the past. You will have to become a much better short game player. I know, there are some of you out there who are in your 60 s and 70 s (talking of age and not your golf scores) who do not hit the golf ball as far as you did in your youth, and your short game is the thing which is now allowing you to still shoot in the 80 s. You are not the ones I am addressing at this point. I hate to tell you, but if you are shooting that well at that age, you are doing GREAT!! Just keep it up!! The ones who are still below 60 years of age and want to break into the 70 s are going to have to really sharpen up on their short game. This is where the whole game is played from here on in. If you were to analyze the difference between the various professional tours, you would readily see that the big difference between the PGA Tour and the Nationwide Tour is all in the short game. The players on both of those tours all hit the golf ball the same from tee to green. It is the short game which makes all the difference in the two tours and their quality. I have a hard enough time watching the PGA Tour on the television, but I am not interested in watching the Nationwide Tour in the least. The short game those players demonstrate is nowhere near the quality of that on the big tour. Darrell Klassen Inner Circle pg 2
I just read a report recently where one of the top players in the PGA Tour came in dead last in an event. Now listen up because this will get you to start thinking differently and considerably better. The statistics for the week showed this particular play had hit more fairways and greens than all but one or two other players. However, for the week he had averaged 31.5 putts per round, and the entire average for the whole field was 29 putts per round. If this player had averaged 29 putts per round he would have moved all the way from 75 th place to the number eight position. When you are playing golf for a living, that is a huge cut in pay for not putting worth beans. I used to average 27.4 putts per round, and I putted that way for nearly 25 years. I haven t practiced putting for years, and I still went out for nine holes recently (remember I just had both knees and both hips replaced in the last ten months) and shot one under par. I am not up to full strength yet, so I do not hit the golf ball anywhere near as far as I used to hit it. I am also now 65 years old. Nonetheless, I only took twelve putts for the nine holes. Two things made this possible: first, I can still putt quite well; but secondly, I can chip and pitch the golf ball almost as well as the tour players and I have not practiced that in a lot of years, either. If you are going to break into the 70 s you will have to spend a lot more time than you are not spending around the chipping the putting greens. You need to get started on the line drill and take it very seriously. Then you need to do the chipping and putting for score drill I like to do. In this drill you will take five or six golf balls, and your par for those balls is two times the number of balls. For example, if you have five golf balls your par for the drill is ten. You have ten shots to get all five of those balls into the cup. You start by chipping them from just off the edge of the green, and you eventually work your way back as far as you can go and still make it in ten strokes or less. That s correct. I said, OR LESS. I used to do this drill, and I could regularly get a score of eight or nine from as far out as fifty yards from the green. That did not fall on me like ripe apples out of a tree. I Darrell Klassen Inner Circle pg 3
REALLY had to work to achieve that sharp of a short game. However, it not only paid off in my playing, but it has really paid off in my teaching, also. It amazes me how I continue to say the same things over and over, and yet the average player who wants to break into a new level of play will continue working on his long game. He goes to the practice field and hits basket after basket of balls with his 5-iron through his driver. He hits a few wedges and a few seven and eight-irons, but most of the practice is concentrated on hitting the driver longer and straighter. At the most on the golf course you will hit the driver fourteen times. In the same round of golf you will use the putter MORE THAN TWO TIME THAT AMOUNT. Yet you will not practice your putter twice as much as you practice your tee shots. THAT IS PURE AND SIMPLE CRAZY. It just does not make sense to me how golfers who really want to make some serious improvement will not spend the time necessary ON THEIR SHORT GAME. My dad played to a 5 handicap well into his 70 s, and he couldn t hit the golf ball out of his shadow with his drive. He had to hit a 5-wood from 150 yards. He spent all I did say ALL of his practice time chipping and putting. He was a wizard around the greens, and he would take your money faster than you could print it. There is not a one of you out there who could not do the exact same thing, IF YOU SET YOUR MIND TO IT. You simply have to do what is necessary to get a good picture in your mind of where your weakness really lies, and it is in your short game. One more story and I will let you go to work on it. I have a player who shoots in the high 60 s to the low 70 very consistently. He is a scratch player. I finally persuaded him to REALLY GET SERIOUS ABOUT HIS SHORT GAME. I showed him several shots around the green. I wanted him to learn more than just the two shots he had always relied upon. I got hitting shots at all sorts of variations of heights. It didn t matter whether he was using a sand wedge or an eight-iron, he could hit the golf Darrell Klassen Inner Circle pg 4
ball high or low with either of them. When he first started doing this he was shocked by the difference in the way a golf ball would roll or not roll on the green. I am talking here about seeing just one or two feet of roll, or lack thereof. All of a sudden he began to play a whole new game of golf. He started shooting consistently in the mid and lower 60 s. He is now playing off of a +5 handicap. I asked him what made the difference and he told me, The short game made all the difference in the world. I thought I was already pretty good with the short game, but now I am so good at it that I don t care if I EVER HIT A GREEN IN REGULATION AGAIN in my whole life. I can get the ball into the hole so much quicker that I ever thought possible. Now that is how you can quickly break into the 70 s, so let s go to work on it. Darrell. P.S. I would like to hear from each and every one of you as you break through into your new level, whether it be breaking 100, or 90, or 80. Drop me an email and let me know how you are doing. I want you playing better golf, and I do not want you to struggle doing so. Darrell Klassen Inner Circle pg 5