It's time for a new episode of faith and fairways with the founder Brad Thorberg, who after more than 16,000 license taught to over 2000 golfers has discovered the most forgotten and overlooked parts of your golf game that is keeping you from playing your most consistent and confident golf ever. Now here is your host Brad Thorberg.
00:24 What is up, my birdie crew, Brad here with another episode of faith and fairways. This week we're diving into how can you win with bad shots? How can you score better with bad Shots?
00:37 That's a topic this week we're going to help you lower your scores even with bad shots and and you've guys, you've all heard me in previous episodes say this and I say it all the time over and over to all my clients, but bad shot will happen. Golf is a game of bad shots. Person with the better bad shots wins and I get into working with the client. We get into saying, Hey, it's not about hitting straight shots and perfect shots. My goal over the series of these lessons is to reduce the amount of bad shots you have and the bad shots that you do have. I want them to look a lot closer to what your good shots look like. I want to make your bad shots better because even a person with horrible mechanics, a person with a terrible golf swing will still hit some good shots and we'll hit bad shots.
01:28 It's just they're bad shots are really bad and they happen more frequently in a person with a beautiful golf swing. I, and you'll see the best players in the world who do this for a living hit some bad shots. They just don't happen as often in a lot of times they're bad shots. A lot of us would take as are good shots. If RADA, I mean who hasn't seen a tour player on a par three tee off and their initial reaction is they're dropping the club or let go of it on their shoulder and you see this just, ah, I can't believe I just hit that shot. And then they switched the camera view to look at the green. And next thing you know, the ball hits the green. It's like 25 feet away and you're like, dude, you just hit a tee shot on a par three over-water into the middle of the green.
02:15 How are you upset? Well, that was their bad shot. They knew they missed it. It's just, that's how you know, that's how good their bad shots are. So, you know, one of the big things with bad shots is understanding, you know, one, they're going to happen. So today we're going to dive into a, just understanding they're going to happen. Roughly how many bad shots you're going to have based on where you're scoring and where you want to be scoring. We're going to talk about just the hard facts that we have found with our clients. We're gonna talk about how to play with your bad shots and manage with them. We're going to talk about the number one area of your game that you need to improve that's going to help you shave those shots the fastest. Yeah. And really the quickest way to improve handicap or your scoring ability.
03:00 So that's what we're going to dive into today. First, you know, bad shots happen. We've been talking about that [inaudible] you got to let go of it. Cause if you are frustrated, you're one of two players. You're either the person who's never had a golf lesson, hits a bad shot and knows nothing about the golf swing and just doesn't care. Walks up there and just swings again, nice and relaxed and usually hits a pretty decent shot barring where their mechanics are. Or you're the person who's been working on your swing and you've hardwired your brain that when you hit a bad shot you think you've done something wrong. Cause that's what you've been teaching yourself over and over and over. Every time you've hit a ball and a driving range is that when you hit a bad shot, you did something wrong or your swing change.
03:43 And that is completely false. I've shown so many clients when they come in and hit a good shot in a bad shot, they cannot see the difference on video. There's no difference other than timing. Now there's huge mechanical things in your swing. Usually we need to work on. But that thing was there when you hit the good shot in the badge. So you gotta let go of it and realize bad shots are going to happen. Guys, here's the hard facts. Someone who averages 95 or wants to just shoot 95 maybe you're just trying to break a hundred and you'd love to be shooting 95 consistently. Here's the facts. You're going to have 20 miss it. So you're going to have 20 poor shots, bad shots, poor contact. It's going to happen 20 times. And you've heard me say this, you're going to have 40 you know, 35 45 full swings over the course of 18 holes.
04:32 So right there, half. You know, if we just, you know, divided that did simple math, 35 45 so 40 full swings. So on average you're going to make 40 full aggressive swings. 20 of those you're going to have a miss it. So 50% of the time roughly you're going to have a miss hit or a bad shot. Every other swing. Think about that. Every other swing is going to be poor contact and you can still shoot 95 with that. So if your goal is a break, a hundred realize every other swing is probably not going to be hit very well. But you should still be able to score in the mid nineties with that kind of frequency cause that's the, that's the average. Now if you're trying to break 90 you're still gonna have 16 miss hits come on guys 16 so only for less than the person shoot 95 so the person break in 90 consistently still has 16 bad shots around.
05:22 And then maybe you're [inaudible], you're a better player, you're listening. Your goal is to consistently break 80 guys. The person who shooting 79 on average, we'll still have nine to 10 bad shots, nine to 10 misses. So even the person shoot in the 70s we'll still have nine to 10 miss it. So the person from 95 to 79 the difference is really only 10 minutes. It's now that the huge differences, those 10 misses are a lot better looking than probably the 20 minutes. It's the person shoot 95 is okay. Oh that's better mechanics. That's a better mental attitude because they're more relaxed. They're not trying to force new things. So you gotta realize bad shots as part of the game. You gotta let it go. You got to find the good after your bad shot. Like, Oh it didn't go in. The water didn't go out of bounds.
06:12 Know my tempo was real good. Whatever you gotta tell yourself, you got to find the good after that bad shot, let it go. See your relax and you're calm and you're not squeezing the crap out of the golf club when you get over the next shock. Cause that's how you're going to string together. Bad shot after bad shot is when you don't let go of it and your tents and you're trying to force something and you're thinking of four different swing thoughts that you're gonna hit another bad shot and you're just going to increase the frequency of the bad shots. And next thing you know you should have been shooting, you know 89 to 95 and you blow up and shoot 104 you wonder why, cause he couldn't let go of the bad. You didn't find the good, he tried to force a swing. You were tents.
06:50 You're thinking about how to swing the club versus realizing, Hey, I'm going to hit a bad shot. Here's the attitude. This is good. This is, this is, you need to write this down. Here's the attitude you need to have. [inaudible] You hit a bad shot. I don't care what ability level you're at, you hit a bad shot. You should be telling yourself, Hey, the good about that is, that was one of my bad shots. I mean as the next one should be pretty darn good. I mean if you're shooting, yeah, mid nineties you realize, Hey my next year I should be good cause every other one is a good shot. So now you should be walking up over your next one. Oozing confidence knowing that it's probably going to be the good shot. Yeah. If you're shooting 79 80 78 that's your goal. Well that's where you're typically score and you hit a bad shot.
07:31 You should realize, Hey, I'm probably gonna, you know, just flush the next two shots cause only about a third of my full swings is a misfit. So find the good in that right there is a great way to shift your mental attitude just by knowing the hard numbers of how many miss sets you're typically going to have anyways. Now improving the quality of those mishits comes from improving your mechanics and improving your mental outlook on the course, playing with what you have. Staying relaxed and understanding. You have a game plan cause you warmed up properly and, and you know your tendencies in, you know your tendencies of miss, cause you already know that you're already kinda skewed. You know, steering away from trouble and danger where you're missing, you know, doesn't cost you two shots. It's still moved forward, it's still got up closer to your end destination and it didn't cost any appeal.
08:21 These strokes cause you plotted your way around the course because you understood how to play with what you have. You warmed up and you understood your tendencies, you know number two, you know, bullet point today is play with what you got. You know, you don't have a swing that produced has only one missed it around. You're not shooting, you know guys, one miss it around to someone who averages 72 under par. So even a person shooting par is having about three misses. So you're going to have bad shots even when you're shooting even par. So if you realize, Hey, I'm going to have bad shots, I need to understand what they're doing today and you, you will get that from warming up, which you know, go back a few episodes and listen to how to warm up. I think it's the episode on how to ooze confidence by the first tee and go through my cheat sheet warmup.
09:06 You know, Mike lays out how to warm up like a tour player does, which is figuring out what you have, what you don't have, what your tendency of misses. So you can plot your way and be better prepared for when it shows up because if you're trying to shoot low nineties it's going to show up every other swing. If you're trying to shoot, yeah, break 90 shoot in the in the 80s it's going to show up one in every three swings or one in almost every other not quite. And then if you're shooting it and trying to break 80 it's going to show up about a third to a quarter of the time.
09:39 Even though Brad has cracked the code to consistently breaking 90 there are still three major mistakes he's found from working with over 2000 clients that will sabotage your round before you get to the first tee. Head to www.mygolfcode.com now to receive your free guide where he outlines all three polls and provides you with some easy action steps to start playing more consistent golf today. So
10:02 You have to understand they're going to come too. If you're not warming up, preparing yourself and you're still warming up in a way that's telling you, Hey, I'm going to try to figure out how to every shop perfect. You are eating yourself and you are setting yourself up for terrible day. A poor around frustration, stress, and just not fun. I mean, come on, you're paying money to enjoy a recreational activity and you're setting yourself up to be stressed. That sounds terrible, but so many of us do it. So you got to learn to play with what you have. And sometimes that means just picking the right club. Yeah, I've been out there with clients and playing lessons and yeah, their swing isn't quite where they want them or they're not quite comfortable with a six iron, a five iron, a four hybrid yet. But they just, you know, can smash and flush a higher percentage of shots with the seven or eight nine.
10:54 So we'd go, Hey, let's get off the tee and let's go seven iron, you know, pitching wedge up by the green and maybe we hit it and we to pup for for a bogey or we pitch on or wanted to vote for a par or bogey. But we play to our strengths and why, why stand back there with a club that you don't hit well in, you already are anxious over with like a five hybrid just to try to get it up to the green when you can hit an eight iron and then just pitch it on from 50 yards, one or two putt, make your part or bogey and be less stress, more comfortable and start to string together more solid shots in a row. Because I guarantee you if we line up 20 golf balls and you swing an eight iron and we line up 20 golf balls and you swing a five iron, you're going to hit more solid shots unless ms says with that eight iron than a five iron.
11:46 So you kind of have to understand, Hey, where's my ability level? If this is a par five, why on am I swinging a three would that I'm lucky to hit solid one and 10 swings when I could simply go eight iron pitching wedge, maybe hit the green chip on one or two pop, make a par worst-case bogey and be on track to still breaking 90 we're playing a good round of golf and be less stressed and start stringing together more solid shots. That's going to help you lower your scores, have more fun, be less stressed, be less anxious, and just truly start enjoying this game. So sometimes just choosing a better club that you know you have a higher percentage with, that'd be so much better, especially if you're out there and your mechanics aren't there and you're topping hybrids and fairway woods and you're sculling five irons and six irons.
12:41 Why on earth do you want to keep doing that? Because on the golf course, you're taking the test. The time to improve on that is with a coach taking lessons on the driving range this off season. That's when you need to improve those clubs. Not say, well, I'm supposed to hit them the oil and get better swinging on the course. That's false because the course you're taking the test, you're enjoying your time, so choose a club that you have a better chance of hitting more solid shots with. That alone is going to help you instantly and stick to your plan that you got from warming up properly and the number one way to improve scoring with bad golf shots. The number one way other than the cheat sheet warm up and warming up properly, or if you head to my golf code.com/cheat sheet, that program is rolling out as we speak.
13:32 They help you warm up like a tour pro in less than 30 minutes, but change your mindset to learning how to manage a course with a plan instead of just going out there trying to make perfect golf swings, that is ridiculous. Guys in and that cheat, she warm up literally through the tests group. I have done in 10 rounds or less on average, lowered their scoring average by 3.7 strokes. And it's largely shifting their mindset, creating a game plan to play with what they have played in their tendencies. Choose better clubs to string together, more solid shots, less stress and anxiety over the ball. And then improving your short game is going to get you there faster than you will believe. Cause golf's a game of bad shots. First of the better bad shots wins. But the person with a better short game gets better a whole lot faster.
14:22 And that's the fastest way to improve your scoring is to improve your short game mechanics. Takes time. Mechanics takes 500 to a thousand exaggerated reps to get a tiny, tiny change. And then you got to trust it from, you know, the coaching pad to the driving range on your own to the golf course or your short game. You can improve the fastest and it's, we're over 60 to 65% of your shots come from. So you gotta be dialing in your short game. Get this guys, here's the between someone who shoots 95 and 79 first he shoots 95 should average 37 putts. We're getting into facts. If you're an analytical person and you and you like facts, here they are person who shoots 95 will have 37 pounds. That means their average in two putts per hole and only one three put the whole day and they don't even hit a single green in regulation, but they can chip in pitch and putt.
15:16 It only have one three but the person your shoots 89 on average is just barely breaking 90 we'll have 35 but it's still only a two point difference. The person who averages 79 in the 70s some of you can't even fathom shooting in the 70s right now. There's an average is so behind only averages 32 putts. It's only a 5% difference. Think about that. If you started to spin 75% of your time on your putting versus your full sway and you could start to shave three or four or five putts, all of a sudden you're putting like someone in the eighties do you not think you will start lowering your scoring average quickly by doing that and working on your chipping and pitching. Because a person who shoots 89 typically only hits one to two greens and they don't even need to get up and down. So they don't even get up and down and say par.
16:04 They don't need to. They just usually on average at one to two greens and regulation don't get up and down. So the greens going this pitch on two putt, three pot, one of the greens they hit to put another one for par and next thing you know you're shooting 90 89 first in your shoot, 79 10 shots better. We'll get up and down 30% of the time. So here's what you need to start practicing. You just start making sure you're to putting every time working on your speed, draining five foot and in back to that code to breaking 90 30 30 and five this holds true to break in 80 and now from the breaking 80 standpoint, when you're 30 yards out, you should be able to get that thing on the green in one pot, three out of 10 times. And this is a game for all of you to start doing is just take 10 balls and just randomly toss them off the green within 30 yards of the putting surface it start to get where you can get three out of 10 into the cup in two shots and the rest all within three.
17:02 And then you have the short game from 30 yards and in of that of a person who consistently breaks 80 so if you just grind it on that stop thinking so much about how to swing the golf club. So many of you will be shooting in the 80s breaking into the 70s and it'll be easy versus grinding on your full swing, not warming up correctly before your round of golf. And going and playing four and a half hours of golf swing ending up needing to Advil and just being frustrated and wondering why you just spent four and a half hours away from your friend, your other friends, your family, your kids, and you spent 150 bucks just to go get mad cause you got to change the way you think. You got to change the way you practice. You got to start focusing on things that will change your end result.
17:49 Make golf so much more fun, happy and exciting. So that is how to start scoring, how to start winning, how to start beating your friends with bad golf shots is understanding the going to happen. They're going to happen a lot. Our goal is to make our bad shots not as bad. That takes working with your PGA professional, your coach, and improving your mechanics this off season, but also by improving your short game, you've got to improve your short game, cutting, chipping. That's where it's at. And then you got to understand you've got to play with what you have. If you know what your miss tendencies are and you can steer clear of danger, you can choose better clubs that give you a higher percentage of good contact. You're going to start scoring better quickly, and that's the whole thing we want to do. We all want to get better, so that's how we're going to do it.
18:36 So hope that helps you all. If you have questions, always reach out. We're at@faithandfairways.com is my email. Reach out with any questions. The cheat sheet, warm ups should be up and running soon. Not that my Gulf code.com flash cheat sheet. That's the 30 minute warm up to warm like a tour player to where you have a plan of attack and confidence versus going out there playing golf swing and then stay in tune next week. Next week we're going to get into the best quick fix lesson I ever received. The best quick fix, less than I ever got. I'm going to give it to you to help give you a breakthrough you need. So stay tuned next week until then, remember to swing easy. Finding the good in every shot. We'll talk to y'all soon.
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