How Does A Scratch Golfer Play Golf?

How do scratch golfers shoot low scores? A lot of it comes down to better course management and thinking their way around the golf course better than mid- to high-handicappers.

In this video, I play a hole with you and show you all the things I think about before hitting each shot. This helps me play scratch golf even when I’m not hitting the perfect shots.

This video was filmed at Pula Golf Club in Mallorca ➡ bit.ly/49jwDiY

Hannah is wearing Duca Del Cosma Golf Shoes ➡ bit.ly/3PBTwqQ

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Hi, I’m Hannah Holden; welcome to my channel!

I am a +2 golfer from Leeds

This YouTube channel aims to help you improve your golf by offering up-to-date reviews on the latest golf equipment, stats on how scratch golfers shoot low scores, and course vlogs to help improve your course management.

I also partner with PGA Golf Professionals such as @jrbackhousegolf to bring you tips to improve your golf game.

If that wasn’t enough I’ll make sure you’re on top of the latest rules of golf!

How does a scratch golfer play golf come play a hoe with me and I’m going to take you through all the little things I think about on the golf course to improve my cost management help bring my scores down and help me play to scratch

So it’s very easy to just walk onto the tea grab your driver hit it and crack on with it without really thinking about if that’s the right strategy or not so the first thing I always going to do on the t- box is analyze the hole in front of

Me and actually see where my best misses where I really don’t want to go and then build back a of what Club I should be hitting it’s also important to consider how far you want into the green for your next shot if it’s a par four or a par

Five can you reach so here for example we’re on the 16th at Pula we’ve got a bit little bit of a dog leg my shot SC watch is telling me if I really don’t fancy going near any of those bunkers or the water down there I can just hit it

Like 150 yards in layup but it’s going to leave me a really long way into the green which is guarded by water so I think probably in this case playing Super safe is not necessarily the strategy unless maybe you’re high handicap you’ve got a few shots to work with maybe

You’re D me in a match and you’re just thinking I’m just going to take a half here because that’s all I need to keep this match going now a big thing I’m looking at here is elevation this is seriously downhill and if I use my laser

Which has got slope on it I can see how much that slope is going to affect my shot so the middle of the Fairway here is 260 yards but it’s actually only playing 232 so that means all those bunk down there are playing 30 yards closer just

On carry plus it’s playing down slope it’s downhill and it’s firm they’re going to run out a lot so actually I almost need to take like 60 yards off my shot to make sure I don’t reach those bunkers at the end so suddenly that has really changed my shot decision from

Driver so that end bunker is 285 yards away but actually it could be playing like 225 now another thing to note wind we’re playing into the wind here and that probably justes play into my favorite maybe means I can hit driver here get a little bit more aggressive

Cuz it’s probably going to hold it up and stop it short of that bunker now I know my Miss is left and there’s water left and that’s a penalty drop so it’s way worse than being in that bunker right so here I’m actually going to skew my dispersion to the right and accept

That if I hit a shot that’s actually a good shot but it’s in the right half of my shot pattern I’m going to end up in the bunker because that is a way better situation then ended up in the water and having to take a penalty drop so because

Of the wind I’m going to stick to Dr D but if this was flat Cal or downwind I would probably swap that and move into a 3w or hybrid here I’m just accepting I’m basically aiming at a bunker and if I leave the face open I’m

Going to be flying from the sand but I just really don’t want to be in that water it’s really trying to draw good middle of the Fairway it’s actually not bounced quite as much as I thought it would do which means it’s past the first

Two bunkers but short of the last one so we’re all good now when it comes to the approach shot golfers love to kind of throw the bag on the floor and grab the laser and shoot the pin it’s not always the best strategy because you’re giving yourself like an infinite number

Straight away which isn’t always the number you want to play for now tiger was the master of this people always say tiger plays aggressively and he does but he plays aggressively to his targets and that’s not always the pin because in his head he moves the PIN to a spot which is

Appropriate relative to the hazards so here we’ve got loads of water short left so tiger Strat would be to move the pin further back on the green and also to the right he would play really aggressively to that spot but he wouldn’t be playing aggressively to the

Pin and that means if he does end up not striking it perfectly and the ball comes up short it’s still on the green it also means if he pulls it a little bit it’s not in the water and actually that slight pull might end up next to the pin

By accident so here what I’d encourage you to do if you have some sort of GPS is actually start looking at the front and back distances first to see really what club can I hit that’s definitely going to get me over that water easily before you start thinking about the

Number of the pin so if I look at my shot skirt watch here I know I’ve got 153 to the front of the green I can hit a seven eyon that far but I don’t want the ball to be shorter than that so it just takes seven ey out of the equation

I’ve got to go up at least one club now something to factor in here is I’m on a down SL it’s going to deloft the club a little bit so although six I might not see that much further actually it’s going to take Loft off it’s going to

Come out a little bit lower it’s going to run more so my six9 should play a little little bit more near a fiveon so I think that’s probably the right Club here now the ball is also above my feet so that’s something to consider it’s

Going to want to turn right to left more and because we’ve changed Direction with the dog leg the wind’s now off the right so basically everything is just trying to make my ball going in the water here so actually probably I’m going to do is be really conservative here and actually

Go for the right edge of the green that’s giving me almost 45 ft to move the ball right to left and actually if I hit it straight there it’s fine I can put up the green and even if I block it and it a little bit R it’s all short

Fairway up there I can just chip straight across the length of the green I’m not having to content with the water it’s just a much safer strategy for taking out those big scores now obviously some of this comes down to shot shape I know I generally draw the

Ball or pull the ball on a bad shot hence why I’m moving it further right if you know you’re a natural feeder or a natural slicer you might be able to move that Target in a little bit and be a little bit more aggressive to the pin

Knowing that if you miss it will move further to the right so some of it is learning your shot pattern knowing which way your more to miss and then adjusting your target relative to that now it’s a good job I took enough gold there because as I said everything

Was designing to point me left and I did end up pulling it and it roded the wind a little bit and we’ve ended up long left now I’m in a situation here where I’m pretty near the paint actually but I’m in the rof and it’s really easy to

Think oh I could chip this but we you know from looking at the short scope stats that you’re so much more reliable with a putter especially when the surface isn’t very long here so if I really want to make my up and down easiest the best way to do this is by

Using a putter I don’t love using a putter try using a hybrid with a putting stroke gives you a very similar effect now I know sometimes from this type of lie when it’s a bit longer it t tends to kind of pop off the to the right a

Little bit off the club face I’m going to take that into consideration bend down look to the green and it’s going to move a little bit right to left so we need to take that into account but also don’t want to aim too far right because

It might pop a little bit off the face now really this is all about Pace I’m not thinking too much about the line because realistically I’m not trying to hold this I just want to get down into so I’m just going to a a little bit right and really think about the Pierce

Of this put had soft but it’s left me a pretty solid po what I’ve really done here is just taken out those fat thins Mist stripes with a chip and left myself an easy opportunity for PA the first thing I always like to do is take the flag out

Cuz I just personally for me I feel like it just gives me more hole to look at and like it’s more likely to go in I just don’t want to see this bounce off the pin and have any reason to not play myself now we know this moves right to

Left I’ve already seen that from back there it’s really important to watch your first put to learn about the break and see that I think a lot of people think about the ball entering in the middle of the hole but actually because it’s going to break around maybe my

Entry point might be more over here and that’s something to think about where is the slope going to let your ball go into the hole from from there I’m going to use my line on the ball match it up to the line on the Putter and then all I’m

Going to think about is Pierce and Center strike with this I really don’t want to ram it I would go for more of a soft Pierce because I still want to leave myself an easy put if this doesn’t go in that’s how you play scratch gol so

Hopefully from playing that hole with me you can see about all the little decisions I’m thinking about as I move through the round and actually in that hole I’ve probably thought about thought about maybe 30 different things that’s ended up helping me play that hole easier even when some of the shots have

It haven’t been my best technically a lot of players who are playing off maybe 5 10 15 they’re not actually technically that much different than scratch golfers but are you thinking about it as in depth there’s loads of little decisions we can make that can make us play better

Golf without actually really focusing on our technique these are really low hanging fruit and easy games so next time you go on the golf course maybe just think about it a little bit more invest in some GPS technology can give you the right information and go shoot those lower scores