Golf is a thinking man’s game. But you have to control what you think about to shoot lower scores or chop strokes from your golf handicap. Using the personal par concept can help.
Take the typical weekend golfer. She spends too much time thinking about her swing—especially when she plays. In other words, instead of thinking about where to hit her next shot when playing, she’s thinking about where her hands are or where her weight is. So while she may refine her swing, she doesn’t chop strokes offer her golf handicap.
Professional golfers do the opposite. They focus more where to hit the next shot their mechanics—especially when they’re playing. In fact, most PGA pros spend tons of time thinking about course management—especially if they’re playing a major tournament. And that’s they way it should be no matter what level you’re at.
If you spend too much time thinking about your mechanics, setting personal par for a round maybe for you. It’s a golf technique that forces you to think about course management rather than the mechanics of your swing. When used correctly it can help you cut strokes from your scores and your golf handicap.
How Personal Par Works
How does personal par work? That’s easy. Take some time beforehand to review the course you’re playing. Note the courses par. Now set your own par for the course and then focus on achieving that par when you play.
Personal par is easy to figure out, takes only minutes to do, and makes the game more fun. Best of all part, it drives improvement. Below we explain how you can calculate your personal par and how you can use it to lower your average score and golf handicap:
An average course has about four par 5s, four par 3s, and 10 par 4s for an overall par of 72. If you were to set your personal par at 68, you’d have a four-shot gap. So you’d have to develop a strategy to help you cut strokes from your score.
A PGA pro’s strategy might go something like this: Normally, two at least two par 5s are reachable in two. Any time a par 5 is reachable in two, it should be a birdie. That’s two shots.
Also, every par three starts with the ball in a perfect lie. Being a good iron player, the pro can expect to get at least one birdie anytime the ball is in on a tee. So most pros would expect to get one birdie on the three pars 3s. That’s another stroke.
On the remaining 10 par 4s and two remaining par 5s, you would expect to have approach shots of 7-iron or less on 2 to 4 of these. Given those odds, you should make at least one birdie. That’s another stroke.
There you have it four strokes for a personal par of 68. This pro achieved her goal of cutting 4 strokes from your scores. Now she has to go out and execute her strategy.
Setting Your Personal Par
Of course, you’re not a professional golfer. But personal par can still work for you. You just need to adjust your thinking. So instead of setting par at 72, set it at 100 or 90. Then set your personal par at 96 or 86. Your job now when playing is to create a strategy that helps cut strokes from par to reach your personal par.
Figuring out personal par takes only minutes. But it has its benefits. The biggest is that it forces you to shift your focus from your swing mechanics to the course your playing. That can help you play better because your not thinking about things like where are my hands or where should my weight be.
In addition, it forces you to focus on where to hit your shots. That improves your shotmaking. Remember, the three most important things when hitting a golf shot is target, target, and target. Target oriented thinking is the exact opposite of swing-oriented thinking. Thinking too much about the swing often leads to poor shots and high scores.
So next time you play 9 or 18, set a personal par for yourself. Then develop a strategy to reach that number. Make your personal par achievable and realistic, but a challenge. Keep track of how close you come each time you play. And don’t be surprised if you find yourself cutting strokes from your scores and your golf handicap