9 Brutal Truths About Golf I Wish I Knew 20 Years Ago

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9 brutal truths about golf I wish I knew when I first took up the game.

0:00 Intro
0:22 NOT Birdies
1:40 Tortured Golfers
2:30 You’re Not That Good
3:12 Tournaments Are Truth
3:55 Control Freaks
4:52 Existing In the Middle
5:55 You Can’t Play Enough
7:02 The Range Is a Liar
8:00 The 2/3 Rule

Who am I?

My name is Jon Sherman 👋. I’m a best-selling author, PGA Tour coach, and a golfer just like you. I aim to help golfers of all levels lower their scores and enjoy the game more, but without talking about the golf swing. I focus on four topics – expectation management, strategy, practice, and the mental game. I’ll share some of my best advice on this channel in an easy-to-understand, actionable format.

For 20 years, I was a frustrated golfer who never reached his potential. I literally made every mistake you could ever imagine on the golf course. But over the last decade, I figured a few things out. I became a plus handicap, a better tournament player, and I even won a USGA medal. Here are nine brutal truths about golf that I wish I knew from the beginning. Brutal truth number one, every golfer who is better than you does it with more pars and bogeies, not birdies. You can’t explain the scoring difference at any level with just birdies. The math doesn’t work. Let that sink in a bit because it has many, many implications. When you look at the difference between any handicap level, the biggest explanation between scoring levels are golfers who make less double bogeies. And I’d add that they’re much more skilled at making what I would call good bogeies and boring pars. Now, a scratch golfer is going to average about two birdies per round versus a 10 handicap who’s under one birdie per round. But this scratch golfer is making only half the amount of bogeies and averages a double bogey every few rounds versus the 10 handicap who’s making three double bogeies per round. So, better golf is a lot about avoiding big errors than it is pulling off miraculous shots. It’s turning a six into a five or making that really monotonous par at times. But here’s the good news for you. All of you are capable of turning that seven into a five. It’s way, way easier than it is to ask yourself to make three, four, or five birdies per round. And I’ve dedicated the last 10 years of my life and teaching golfers how to do this. Brutal truth number two. Low to mid singledigit handicaps are often the most tortured golfers. They can taste the mountaintop sometimes and shoot in the low to mid70s, but then they’ll have rounds where they struggle to break 90. They are stuck in between two worlds. I was in this purgatory myself for a while, and there are ways to get yourself out of it through expectation management and just understanding how variable scoring is in golf. While these golfers often struggle the most with this, it’s actually a universal concept no matter what level you’re playing. One day you might shoot a 91 and then the other day it’s 111. Now there are ways to tighten your scoring patterns from your best rounds to your worst, but they’re always going to exist on some level. And the more you fight against this unavoidable truth about golf, the less you’re going to enjoy playing. And on top of that, you’re likely going to make it harder to get to that next scoring level. Brutal truth number three. If you’re constantly frustrated with how you’re playing golf, maybe it’s time to consider something you don’t want to admit. Maybe you’re just not as good as you think you are at the moment. And that’s okay. It’s very natural for our games to eb and flow over time. And to be honest, this statement is directed at me and some of my recent tournament performance. For the past few months, I’ve been a little frustrated with my results, feeling like I should have played better. I had a stretch where I finished between like 15th and 20th place in some tournaments, and all I could think about was how close I was to being in the top 10. I felt like I should have been better than that. But I also have to accept that’s where my game’s at right now and I just need to keep working on it. Which leads me to my next brutal truth. The absolute true test of any golfer’s game is a stroke play tournament. Anything less than that is not the full picture. Match play and any other format does not identify the best player. And that might be controversial to some of you, but it’s true. You simply can’t fake it when you have to count up every stroke and not take those generous gimmies from your buddies or take the X on a blowup pole or when you have to play courses that you’re not familiar with versus your home track. So, if you really want to know how good your golf game is and more importantly find out where you need to put the most work in, go play some stroke play tournaments or qualifiers. You’re going to quickly see the truth about your game and just about anyone else’s. Brutal truth number five. People who love to be in control in other parts of life typically get addicted to golf, but they are equally tortured by it. Now, I’ve played with some people who have achieved some incredible things like winning a World Series or a Super Bowl ring or running companies that are worth billions of dollars, but all of them seem to fall into the same trap on the golf course. They think that what works elsewhere in life and other sports is going to work on the golf course. And when it doesn’t, it drives them absolutely crazy. But at the same time, it gets them more addicted. Here’s a piece of advice from another control freak. When you start to draw the line between what’s within your control in this game and what’s not within your control, that’s when some of the magic can really start happening and you’ll enjoy yourself more and probably break through some really important scoring barriers. Just remember, the harder you squeeze and try and control things at golf, the harder this game is going to squeeze back at you. Brutal truth number six. Now I got to use two hands to count. The best golf is played when you can exist between the space of caring too much and then caring not at all. And this is really hard to do. So you can’t live and die at the result of every shot. But you also need to be engaged enough to control your emotions and react to each shot analytically. Everyone’s middle ground is going to look a little bit different based on your personality and what you really want out of golf. But if you can’t find that equilibrium, a lot of suffering can occur. And trust me, I know from a lot of experience in this department. So, when you’re looking back on your rounds, which I encourage every golfer to do, your engagement level is something that you need to monitor every time you play. Did you completely check out after a bad stretch of holes for the rest of the day? Or maybe you got a little too excited when you had a really good front nine and then every single shot on the back n took on way too much significance. Now, to be clear, I’m not suggesting to play without emotion, but like everything else in golf, achieving a balance is so crucial for your game. Brutal truth number seven. You want to shoot lower scores. Of course, you do. Every golfer does. But there’s one minor detail. You can’t play that much and you can’t practice that much. So, you’re stuck in misery because your expectations don’t match reality. Please don’t do this to yourself. Be realistic. One thing I’m always trying to remind myself and every other golfer is one basic truth about this game. You need to be playing enough golf to actually be comfortable on the course. I know that sounds ridiculously simple, but there are so many intangibles in this game that take years to master. How you judge the wind and elevation change or even a sidehill lie. How you’re dealing with a playing partner who’s distracting. or as I’ve been mentioning, how you’re dealing with your scoring expectations and how the round is unfolding. This is why I spend so much time teaching playing skills because it’s not just about your physical talent and how much time you spend practicing. It’s also about how you manage your decisions, your emotions, and your expectations on the course. All of these small intangibles add up to something much bigger when you consider them together. Brutal truth number eight, the range is a dirty liar. You have no bad lies, no scorecard, and no fear. So, when you’re striping your seven iron 20 times in a row, you’re not usually building confidence. You’re actually building comfort, which is worse. This is why the most common complaint I’ve received over the last decade is golfers who hit it great on the range, but then their game falls apart on the golf course. Take a number, it’s many of you. And this is because golf starts the moment where there’s something to lose. Accepting this really basic truth is how you start bridging the gap between the environments of the practice range and the golf course. In other words, you need to find ways to practice with more intent and consequence. But at the same time, don’t ever think that the golfer you are in the practice range is going to show up exactly the same way when you play. Think of the practice range as your ultimate potential. And then you just do your best on the course to access as much as possible of that skill. But it’s never going to be 100%. It simply can’t happen. Brutal truth number nine. Running out of fingers here. Most golfers believe that they need every aspect of their game firing on all cylinders to shoot their best scores. But that day never comes and then they’re stuck frustrated waiting for it. You’re usually going to have one thing that’s completely off, one thing average, and then one part of your game that’s saving you. I actually call this my 2/3 rule. It states that to play your best golf, you really only need two parts of your game performing above average, like your T- shots or your short game. Now, real progress is knowing that you can shoot great scores while embracing this discomfort of at least one part of your game. So, don’t delude yourself into thinking that everything needs to go right because it never does. If you’ve enjoyed that last point or any of the others in this video, they are all from my best-selling book, The Four Foundations of Golf. You can check it out on Amazon. It’s sold over a 100,000 copies and has over 2,000 five-star reviews because it’s giving golfers real help. For less than the cost of a dozen golf balls, I’m going to teach you everything I know about becoming a happier and more importantly a better golfer. And the YouTube algorithm thinks that this video is the best one of mine to watch