The 5 Smartest Golf Decisions That Lower Scores Instantly

Want to shoot lower scores without changing your swing? It’s all about the decisions you make on the course. In this video, I break down The 5 Smartest Golf Decisions that instantly save strokes — the same strategies tour caddies use to keep their players in position.

You’ll learn how to:
✔ Pick the right tees to set up success
✔ Use your natural shot shape with a smarter positioning angle
✔ Select clubs that keep you in the Wise Zone
✔ Avoid sucker pins with the Wise Point strategy
✔ Manage risk so doubles disappear from your card

These aren’t swing tips — they’re smarter golf strategies built on Golf Theory Optimal and real course data. Smarter golf = lower scores.

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Lower scores don’t come from hitting more perfect shots. They come from managing outcomes. Over 40 years of playing and coaching, I’ve learned that avoiding the wrong shot choice is worth way more strokes than chasing the hero shot. These five decisions are how good players keep rounds under control and score lower without touching their swing. Real quick, we’re giving away a $250 PJ Tour Superstore gift card this month. Just subscribe to enter. Let’s hop into it. Hey everybody. Today we’ve got two students of mine. We’re going to go out and film some encourse instruction on making better decisions out on the golf course. I’m Cruz. I’m going to play division 2 golf at UVA Wise. Leave in a couple days. Pretty excited. I’m Bo. I’m playing division 2 golf at Carson Newman up in Tennessee. I’m excited. Looking forward to a good season. All right, let’s go have some fun. Tough lies. The lie tells you what is possible. Read the lie honestly. Accept what it allows and take your medicine. The lie directly changes face angle, launch, spin, and strike quality. By adjusting more loft, shorter swing, safer target, you guarantee your next swing is from a position where you can attack. So, here’s an example of a tough lie. Hit a bad shot off the tee and I’ve got this high lip in front of me and it’s, you know, in the rough, kind of sitting okay, but not necessarily the best. I’m just going to take a seven iron and open up the face a little bit. Try and pop it down the hill close to the green and have about 50 yards. Oh Guess I should have taken more loft on that one. See how the boys do. [Music] Oh god. Where’d it go? I think it Did it pluck? I think it might have. All right, folks. This is why you don’t chance it. You probably should hit a pitching wedge or sand wedge and take your medicine and have a long iron into the green for your third. That’s right. That’s it. That’s it. God, that went like 3 in. [Music] So, we’re 0 for three. You know, where we were sitting, we were pretty far out. So, we wanted to hit six or seven irons trying to get down there close as we could to the green to get up and down. But here, I’ll show you what we probably should have done. take our medicine and hit to where my drive would have most likely been if I didn’t hit the tree and it would be on the flat part only about maybe 80 90 yards from here. So I’m just going to take a pitching wedge and pop it up and try and get it down to a good spot in the fairway. So now we’ll be sitting where we would normally be in one, but we’ll have an eight or nine iron into the green. Give ourselves a shot at par. Worst case hopefully bogey. Go. All right, we’re on the green. Think we should be in a decent enough position to get uh down in two and get a bogey and get out of this hole without causing too much damage to the scorecard. And now it’s pouring down right another par. Risky second shots on par fives. Lay up to your scoring range. Choose a landing area that leaves you your best wedge range. Something like 100 to 120 yards if that’s your green light zone. You’re hitting your scoring club with spin and control instead of bringing penalty and risk into play. All right, so this is an example of when it might be a little bit too risky to take on hitting a par five and two. As you can see up there, we have a creek that runs kind of northwesterly, so it’s at an angle. You know, the further left you go, the more you have to cover. Got the ball on the rough. Sort of decent lie, but not the best. I’ve got about 225 to the pen. So, I’m going to take my fivewood. See if I can’t get it out of there and up there on the green somewhere. Uh oh. So, I’m over the creek, but I’m over where the practice area is, and I’m not sure if I’ll find my ball. [Music] You guys are making a I know they aren’t great shots, but you’re both safe. So, I think what the real tip here is with the creek, there’s like it’s not out of bounds, but it’s really hard to find your ball over there. You’ll see when we drive up. And there’s just not a lot to gain. So, the right thing to really do would be take something like a shoot down to where the creek is. I usually do something like shoot where the bridge is. And since that’s the closest I can get to the green, that’s about 180. So, I’m just going to punch a little seven iron down the middle. So, it should stay short of all the creek and then give me a good shot for my third into the green. Yep. And I mean, I didn’t hit that great, but it’s right down the middle. We’ll probably have about I don’t know 190 yards for a third shot. This is a much better play. I most likely will get on the green and make parie to finish the hole. All right. So, when we played it the right way, we ended up 110 from the pin. The pins in the very back. I don’t want to go over. So, I’m going to hit something about 100 to 105. Try and keep it short of the flag. And also have an uphill putt. See what we do. [Music] All right. Not bad. I think about 20 ft short. We’ll have a birdie putt. Pretty much secured our par cuz I don’t think it’s far enough to really worry about three putting. So, you know, we tried to hit from a questionable area to reach in two. The ball ended up in these woods over here in that tall grass. And if we play that ball out, we’re probably going to make a double or triple. Pays to uh play the smart shot. Lay up. And now we got like a little right to left putt for birdie on the hole. [Music] Almost hit your tea. Play to the fat part of the green on tucked pins. Identify the largest section of the green that takes all of the immediate trouble out of play. And aim for it, even if it leaves you 20 to 30 ft from the hole, you’re still putting. Playing to the fat part of the green keeps your dispersion inside the safe zone, which means more two putts and fewer bogeies. All right, so for this example, we’re going to go over how to hit to the fat part of the green. If you look at this pin, it’s kind of tucked in the front, and you really don’t want to mess with the right side. There’s a bunker. You’ll be shortsided. So, what I do on this shot, even though I only have 104 yards and I’ve got a 54 degree, normally that’s kind of a green light to go right at the pin. But what I’m going to do is I’m going to aim about 10 ft left of the pin. So, just outside that ball that crews hit on the green, the yellow ball. Try and keep it between the two balls that are already on the green to the left. That way, I take out the bunker and increase my chances of hitting the green. And then, if I come up a little short, I’ll just be in the apron there and I’ll be an easy up and down from there. So, We started out right where we want it and then we cut it back. Oh, came up just a hair short, but probably got about a 20ft putt for birdie off the collar. Ah, [Music] take the smartest club off the tea, not the longest. Choose the longest club that fits your actual dispersion inside the safe landing zone. Penalty strokes and punch outs are the most expensive mistakes off the tea. Fitting the club to the hole keeps you in position to attack on your next shot instead of scrambling to recover. So, this is an example of trying to hit a smarter T-shot. This hole has a hard dog leg right basically 90°. You see there’s a fan out in the distance in between this hole and number 11. What I’m just trying to do is start something at that and if it goes straight, fine. If it cuts a little, even better. And then even if it draws a little, that’s okay, too. The main thing is to stay away from the woods on the right because you don’t usually get a favorable bounce out of there. And then also the fairway runs out at about 240. So I’ve got a fivewood which should go about 230ish. That’s part of making sure it’s a reliable shot. Make sure you’re not going to go through the fairway and then stay out of the penalty areas on the right or left of the fairway. So I lost my bounce a little. Uh pulled it, but I’m in the fairway. I’m going to have a really long shot into the green. At least I avoided getting in the woods or in a bunker or something and getting a penalty stroke. All right. Not where you want it to go, but still in position to have a second shot to get to the green. [Music] All right. So, we all hugged the left side. At least Bose’s a little bit closer than the rest of us. But I think the learning lesson here is try and stay away from the danger as much as you can. Like if I was going to try and cut it over the tree there, it’s like a two or three out of 10 shot. There’s no point in doing that when I can even miss it left and still have a a shot into the green and make a par by hitting the green in two. Oh, Jen. [Music] And that’s why you avoid hitting it in the woods, boys. You still get home with a hybrid. Ah, I got aggressive. [Music] Lay up to your perfect yardage. The layup isn’t just about getting closer. It’s about setting the table for the highest percentage next shot. You avoid awkward half swings. You hit with full commitment and you give yourself the best look at the pin while eliminating unnecessary risk. All right, so this is going to be an example of how to make sure you hit a preferred layup on a par five. So we’ve got about 250 to the flag. I like to be somewhere between 100 and 120. So, I’ve shot to the flag 250. I’m going to hit my kind of like 160ish club with a little punchy shot. So, it should go about 150, leave me right around that 100 number into the green. Let’s see how we do. Oh, and then I’m also, just so you have a reference of where I’m aiming, I’m going to aim kind of right between the flag and that tree just so I have a little bit better angle into the green. [Music] All right, hit that pretty good. We should be right in that 100 110 area. We were trying to get to 100. We got 106. So, like I said, when you’re laying up, it’s like more of a range. Trying to get to the exact number is probably unrealistic unless you’re a pro. So, I’ve got a 54° and try and go right at it. See if we can get a birdie on this hole. Oh, we tugged it down. All right, pin high. Didn’t hit the best shot, but we’re on the green. Taking bogey double out of the equation. See if we make a birdie putt, Jen. [Music] All right, to summarize what we just went over, how to play out a tough lie to make sure you don’t make double bogeies or worse. Another one we went over, sometimes even though you’re within range of hitting a par five, it’s not optimal to do so. So, pick wisely whether you go for it or lay up. We also went over how to play approach shots to the fat part of the green. Increase your chances of hitting the green or also increase your chances of getting up and down. Another one we went over is take the smartest club off the tea. It’s not always a driver and it’s okay to have to hit that fairway finder that’s a 3-wood or a hybrid. And then the last one we went over, lay up to your preferred yardage. And by preferred yardage, I don’t mean an exact number of 100 yards. It should be more of a range, 80 to 100, 100 to 120. That’s more realistic at your skill level as an amateur. Thanks for watching. Like, subscribe, comment. Give us any feedback that you willing to share. We’re down to hear it, down to do it. See you in the next one. [Music]