Shot Making

How to hit each club, and how to play the shots a course asks for that a range never does.

16 guides

How to Hit a Driver: Setup, Strike and Staying in Play

Almost every driver fault is a setup that still belongs to a 7 iron. Change what happens before the swing starts and the strike changes with it.

11 min read

Beginner

Average Driver Distance: What Golfers Actually Hit

Two companies have tracked more than a billion amateur shots between them and both put the average drive close to 225 yards. Almost every number you see quoted online is higher, and none of them are measured.

12 min read

Beginner

Average Golf Score: What Golfers Actually Shoot

Most published scoring averages are one number with nothing behind it. This one is assembled from tracked par 3, par 4 and par 5 averages, and it shows the arithmetic rather than asking you to trust it.

12 min read

Beginner

Golf Club Distance Chart: The Numbers That Are Real

Almost every distance chart online is invented. This one is built from tracked amateur shots, it says where each number came from, and it leaves a cell empty rather than filling it with a guess.

12 min read

Beginner

How to Hit a Hybrid: Play It Like an Iron, Not a Wood

Most golfers buy a hybrid to replace a 4 iron and then set up to it as though it were a small fairway wood. That one substitution is why the club feels no easier than the iron it replaced.

11 min read

Beginner

How to Hit Irons Pure: Ball First, Then Turf

Every clean iron shot has the same signature. The ball is struck first and the ground second, and the divot starts on the far side of where the ball was sitting.

11 min read

Beginner

How to Play Golf in the Rain and Actually Score

Most rounds are lost to rain before the first tee, in a bag with no towel and one glove. The technique adjustments are small. The preparation ones decide the day.

10 min read

Intermediate

How to Hit a Draw: Start It Right, Turn It Back

A draw is not a hook that behaved itself. It is a chosen start line and a gap small enough to be worth having, and both of those are decisions you make before the swing.

12 min read

Intermediate

How to Hit a Fade: The Controlled Left-to-Right Shot

A fade takes one side of the hole out of play and lands softly at the other end. The price is a few yards, and for most golfers that is the cheapest insurance in the bag.

12 min read

Intermediate

How to Hit a Fairway Wood Off the Deck and Off a Tee

A fairway wood asks for a different low point from every iron in the bag, and most golfers never make the change. They stand over a 3 wood using a 7 iron setup and wonder why it comes out along the ground.

11 min read

Intermediate

How to Hit a Punch Shot: Low, Under Trees and Into Wind

The punch is the only shot in golf whose whole job is to be boring. It gets you back to grass you can play from, and it is the shot that turns a wrecked hole into a bogey.

11 min read

Intermediate

How to Hit Out of the Rough: Read the Lie, Then Choose

The rough is not one shot. A ball sitting up on top of the grass and a ball buried down in it need opposite clubs and opposite expectations, and picking the wrong one is what turns a missed fairway into a double.

12 min read

Intermediate

How to Hit Your Driver Further: Strike, Launch and Spin

Speed is the lever everybody reaches for and the slowest one to move. The three that respond faster are where the ball meets the face, which way the club is travelling, and whether the club in your hands suits either.

11 min read

Intermediate

How to Play Golf in the Wind: Into, Down and Across

Wind does not simply push the ball sideways. It exaggerates every bit of spin you put on it, which is why a good player loses far less to a gale than a high handicapper does.

10 min read

Intermediate

Uneven Lies in Golf: Uphill, Downhill and Sidehill

A flat lie is a driving range invention. Almost every shot you play from a fairway sits on some sort of slope, and the slope changes the club in your hands before you have swung it.

11 min read

Advanced

How to Hit Off a Tight Lie: Hardpan and Bare Ground

There is no grass under the ball, the ground is like a pavement, and the shot you normally play has nowhere to go. A tight lie punishes exactly one thing, and it punishes it completely.

10 min read