What you need to work on to score better is the following and this list is from the highest priority to the lowest?



1. Putting

2. Chipping

3. Pitching

4. Bunker Shots

5. Driving

6. Irons

7. Fairway woods

You should work on improving your putting first because if you normally have 38 putts per round and you improve by 5 putts per round you've just knocked 5 shots off your score. This same philosophy applies to chipping and pitching. The more you can improve those two aspects of your game the better you'll score. And finally, you must get really good at bunker shots.

Now when you're practicing putting you should mainly work on distance control. So work on longer putts first and save the shorter putts till last. But don't practice your putting for too long. Just get some good feel for distance and then go and practice your chipping and pitching.

And when practicing your chipping you should concentrate on landing the ball where you want and then assessing how far it's going to roll to the hole. Then choose the club that will be the most efficient at getting the ball close. Then when you practice your pitching you should mix up the distances you practice from so that you get a good feel for distance control. But experiment. Make practice fun. Play some games. And this applies to bunker shots as well.

Play some bunker shots out of unusual lies. For example, play a shot that's plugged, play another shot where you have to stand out of the bunker but the ball is in the bunker. Just have some fun. Even try a "Seve" and get out your 3-iron and try to get the ball out of the bunker with that. Doing this forces you to use your imagination.

If you just worked on these four areas of your game consistently then your score will drop. It has to. Because it's been scientifically proven that shots inside 100 yards make up about 70% of golf. So therefore it makes sense to work on that part of the game the most.

Unfortunately most golfers work on their game the reverse of what I'm saying, and I suppose that's why there is so many "DRIVING RANGES" around! So remember this 70% practice rule when you next go out to practice and if you spend all of your practice time hitting long shots and you're not improving, then don't say I didn't warn you!