Happy Sunday, golfers.

It feels like Black Friday begins earlier and earlier each year. I guess they are calling it Black November now? Regardless, all it means is more golf deals for us—so I’m not complaining.

I plan to release an official holiday buyer’s guide in the coming weeks featuring different game-improvement/course management gear, but for now, go check out Shot Scope. Apparently they are fans of the newsletter and were generous enough to send me one of their PRO L2 rangefinder models for free! So go show them some love.

They are offering up to 50% off select gear, and you can take an additional 15% off with code TOURSWINGS (as an affiliate, I may earn a small commission on purchases made through my links, which helps support the newsletter).

Okay, let’s get into it.

Your Camera Is Lying

I’m sure most of you have recorded your golf swing at some point. And if you haven’t, you absolutely should—video is the only way to make real progress in my opinion. Without seeing your mechanics on camera, it's nearly impossible to accurately verify your positions. And as we all know, feel and real are rarely the same thing. So start recording your swing!

But there’s a catch…

Camera angles can lie.

The danger is that you end up trying to fix a flaw that doesn't actually exist.

Have a look at the post below from @adamyounggolf.

The left golfer appears to have an “on-plane” takeaway, while the right looks to take the club away slightly inside.

But does the golfer on the right truly have an inside takeaway?

If you set up your tripod (this is the one I use)—chances are your camera isn’t perfectly aligned down the target line. This subtle misalignment can distort your positions on film, and turn your own video against you.

Here are the two key takeaways:

• Be careful diagnosing swing flaws using footage that isn't truly square to your line (or however you intend them to be).

• When you record your swing from down-the-line, please make sure you’re actually aiming the camera down-the-line.

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Scratch Vs. Pro

If you are a longtime reader of the newsletter, you’ve likely seen me mention the name Mark Broadie. For those unfamiliar with his work, Broadie is the Columbia Business School professor who invented the Strokes-Gained metric.

He recently sat down with Golf Digest to answer a few questions, including a question I’ve covered here numerous times:

What’s the biggest statistical difference between a scratch golfer and a PGA Tour player?

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Golf is a funny game.

You spend your entire golf life learning and perfecting the art of delivering the club face into the back of the ball, no matter the lie or situation. The ball could be on a tee, thick grass, or the putting surface. The objective remains the same: prioritize ball-first contact.

And then you land in a greenside bunker and ball-first contact becomes your mortal enemy…

Don’t you just love this game?

We’ve all done it. The ball is sitting cleanly in a greenside bunker, level lie, nothing too difficult. You go to strike the sand first and... oh sh$t. You catch ball first, and now you’re 50 yards off the back of the green, and your simple up-and-down has become a struggle just to salvage a double.

Your otherwise well-played hole just turned real ugly, real fast.

Experiences like this might soon have you believing that bunker play is vital to scoring. Without it, after all, one simple mistake can blow up a scorecard.

It’s true that being able to escape the sand consistently is a great skill to have. But it’s worth asking how many strokes good bunker play actually saves the average amateur.

As I wrote in The Highest ROI for Your Practice Time, “practice time is finite. The list of things to work on in golf is not.”

So in this week’s Scoring Letter, I’d like to dig through some numbers and see if we can quantify how much bunker play really matters.

By the end, you should have a good sense of how many strokes good bunker play can save you, how much practice time it deserves, and how good you need to get at it to maximize your returns.

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Happy Sunday, golfers.

I hope you enjoyed your Halloween. This year I dressed up as someone who doesn’t miss four-footers. They say dress for the job you want, and not the job you have, right?

Anyway, let’s get into it.

Today’s quote:

"Be decisive. A wrong decision is generally less disastrous than indecision."

—Bernhard Langer

“Scratch” Golfers

For many amateur golfers, seeing a 0.0 next to their name is the ultimate goal—the official mark of a true scratch golfer. It’s the culmination of hard work and dedication, and with fewer than 2% of golfers ever reaching scratch status, it’s a badge to wear proudly.

But what does a 0.0 index really mean?

I recently posted on X about how a golfer allegedly “gamed” the handicap system:

Many were quick to point out that if you're going to hold a vanity handicap, you might as well just input fake scores or skip the bad ones. But I think it raises a deeper question about the system: What does a low handicap actually mean?

Does it mean you’re consistent? Does it mean your game is adaptable to different style courses? Does it mean you play well under pressure?

None of that can be ascertained from the number next to your name—especially if you only play your home track and avoid challenging conditions.

So whatever your index is, I’d say do whatever it takes to make yourself the most unshakable [insert index] that you can be. That’s the true mark of a solid amateur golfer.

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Pros vs. Joes

What separates PGA Tour pros from the thousands of other elite golfers out there?

It’s a common question, usually met with the standard cliché: “It’s all mental.” And while there’s truth to that, it doesn’t give us amateurs anything actionable to build on. But don’t worry gents, I’ve got you covered.

I recently stumbled across a clip of Max Homa playing a round with a few YouTube golfers, and in the clip, Homa gives some very good insight into the mind of a successful pro golfer. You can watch the video below:

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Happy Sunday, golfers.

Let’s get into it.

Today’s quote:

“A routine is not a routine if you have to think about it.”

—Davis Love Jr.

Get “in it”

I’ve written a lot about swing thoughts in this newsletter. So by now you probably know how I feel about them. If not, you can read this post below.

Nick Biondi wrote a good piece this week for GOLF.com on how “Too many swing thoughts can kill your golf game."

He argues that modern golfers have more information than ever, and this excess information often just gets in the way, causing them to interfere with their own swing.

Biondi writes:

As a PGA Professional, I’ve dedicated much of my career to understanding the biomechanics of the golf swing. I utilize 3D motion analysis, force and pressure measurement systems, high-speed video, and launch monitor technology to help golfers improve. In that time, I’ve also learned something that may surprise you. The more a golfer understands about their swing, the more opportunities they have to interfere with it. And that’s where the trouble begins.

He later goes on to discuss a concept from GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jamie Mulligan. The concept is what Mulligan refers to as getting “in it”.

The core idea is simple: when the time comes to hit the shot, your only job is to hit the shot. This is not the time to overanalyze swing mechanics. You’ve had plenty of time for that on the range. This is the time to hit a golf shot.

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Golf Ball Saboteurs

This is less of a golf tip and more of a public service announcement/warning for the golfers who read this newsletter:

If you’re going to buy golf balls at a physical store location, make sure you pull the cover off and check the sleeves…

A recent X post went viral showing boxes of golf balls where the ProV1 sleeves were apparently swapped with TaylorMade sleeves and Chaos sleeves (I have never heard of Chaos golf balls either).

Dozens of other users replied with similar experiences.

As much as I love the tradition of walking into a physical store location and shopping the old-fashioned way, maybe we’d all be smarter to just order online…

Anyway, be careful out there gentlemen.

Side note: if you want an online golf ball retailer that offers some better pricing than the big-name guys, check out golfballs.com

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8 Best Rounds

So you’re a 5-handicap, but you aren’t breaking 80 consistently. Why is that? What are you doing wrong!?

Well, you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re actually playing exactly how a 5-handicap is supposed to play. Let me explain.

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Welcome, golfers.

I want to start you off with a quote for today’s post:

“For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.”

— Job 3:25 (KJV)

We don’t know who wrote this, and scholars generally date it back to somewhere between the late 7th and 4th centuries BCE. But I can assure you that whoever wrote it was undoubtedly referencing the experience of standing on a tee box with water left and somehow still finding the water, even though every ounce of his being was telling him not to go left. You don’t need to be a fancy scholar to know that.

In modern psychology and performance studies, there’s a well-known phenomenon: when you spend excessive energy trying to avoid a specific mistake or negative outcome, your brain fixates on the image of that error, making it far more likely to happen in practice.

Sound familiar?

Hazards in golf present two distinct problems — one psychological, and one strategic:

1. The Psychological Problem: what happens to your mind and your body because of the risk sitting in front of you.

2. The Strategic Problem: what to choose before you swing given the risk sitting in front of you.

Today I want to unpack both of them. We’ll cover how hazards affect you psychologically and strategically, how to keep them from influencing you negatively, and finally, how to properly manage their risk without sacrificing scoring.

Let’s get into it.

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Happy Sunday, golfers.

Let’s get into it.

Today’s quote:

“If profanity had an influence on the flight of the ball, the game of golf would be played far better than it is.”

—Horace G. Hutchinson

Understand Your Shot Dispersion

Let’s play a fun little course-management game:

What shot shape would you hit into this green?

Conventional golf wisdom would tell you this hole location calls for a draw and nothing else, but according to Adam Young, it’s not that straightforward.

If you’re on X, do yourself a favor and go follow Adam Young, or check out his website here. He produces these amazing visuals with expected scores based on amateur shot dispersions.

In a recent simulation, he overlaid a draw dispersion and a fade dispersion onto a hole featuring a tucked left pin with water down the left side.

Here is the draw dispersion:

As you can see, even if you can hit a shot shape that seemingly "fits the hole," your expected score will tank if your dispersion pattern includes wide misses to the target side.

(FYI the dotted line is the start line if this wasn’t obvious)

Now let’s look at someone who plays a natural fade:

Even though a few shots might occasionally pull left, the average expected score is still lower because the dispersion pattern with a fade is typically much tighter.

He argues that “in almost every scenario, the TIGHTEST dispersion pattern, aimed correctly, will score the lowest.”

That doesn't mean hitting a fade is always the superior choice. It just means that tightening your overall dispersion will serve you better than trying to shape shots into greens.

It is also an important reminder that if you’re targeting an area near trouble, you must account for the absolute outer limits of your dispersion pattern.

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Practice Swings

Do practice swings help? Do they hurt? Do they do anything at all? It’s a question I’ve seen online for a while now, and I triggered a friendly debate online with a post I put out last week.

I created this chart (mostly out of satire) that shows the better you are, the less practice swings you take.

Also, side note: I caught some flak for my chart-making abilities. The chart would have made more sense visually if I had the direction of the correlation going down instead of up. But I never claimed to have a degree in chart-making. So there.

Anyway, it sparked an interesting conversation as prominent online golf coach Ryan Mouque stepped in to explain why he believes taking one to two practice swings is beneficial.

He explains that the importance of the practice swing is for feels, and that if you skip them, you’re doing your golf swing a disservice. You can watch his full video below:

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Happy Sunday, golfers.

In last week’s premium post, I wrote about the 5 statistics that I believe will change the way you play golf. To my surprise, it ended up being my most successful post. So if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, go check it out! I made it free for everyone.

Let’s get into it.

Today’s quote:

“Golf… is the infallible test. The man who can go into a patch of rough alone, with the knowledge that only God is watching him, and play his ball where it lies, is the man who will serve you faithfully and well.”

— P.G. Wodehouse

Ditch the Three-Foot Circle

I subscribe to the Golf Digest newsletter, and in it, they sometimes have a segment called the "2-Minute Clinic". In their latest edition, PGA Tour pro Ben Griffin shared a putting tip that really resonated with me, and I think you’ll find it just as valuable.

I’m sure at some point you’ve been told to try to finish your lag putts inside of a three-foot circle. Griffin challenges that advice. He says:

If you're thinking about getting the ball into a three-foot circle but then miss by two feet, now you've got to contend with a testy five-footer. But when you try to make it, you sharpen your focus, and the miss usually ends up in that three-foot circle for an easier second putt.

You’ve all heard the classic adage "aim small, miss small," and lag putting is no exception. A three-foot circle is a great zone to finish in, but it shouldn't be your target. Aiming at a precise point narrows your margin for error.

Brad Faxon preaches a similar mindset, emphasizing that he approaches every putt with the intention to make it:

Every putt, if you can match the speed and the line, has a chance to go in. The more you can downplay the importance of the putt, the better chance you'll have to make it.

But remember: trying to make long putts isn't a license to ram the ball five feet past the hole. You still need proper speed control and lag fundamentals. So stop with the vague three-foot circle target, and treat your lag putts with the same precise, deliberate aim that you treat your shorter putts with.

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First Hole Struggles

Nothing beats the anticipation of a round of golf. If you’re a psychopath like me, you might even find yourself visualizing the first tee as you’re lying in bed the night before. It’s a clean slate, a fresh start, and a chance to finally play the kind of golf you know you're capable of.

And then you get to the course and double the first hole…

Do you feel like this happens to you often? Well it probably does, but go easy on yourself. It happens to good players too. According to data from Lou Stagner at Arccos Golf, even college golfers consistently score worse on their opening hole. In fact, it typically takes them a few holes just to settle in and catch up to the field average.

There could be a number of different explanations — first-tee jitters, shotgun starts, cold morning air, just to name a few. But the fact remains: even D1 college golfers struggle right out of the gate. So if you’re a 15-handicap rolling up to the course five minutes before your tee time with zero warmup, cut yourself some slack and don’t panic when the first hole doesn’t go well.

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Waste Area or Bunker?

Have you ever found your ball 200 yards from the green sitting in sand, only to be told you can’t ground your club because it’s still a "bunker"?

Well, hold on a second. Depending on the course you’re playing, you might be hitting from a waste area, which means the standard bunker rules don’t apply!

The USGA recently released a video on waste areas and why you’re allowed to play them just like regular fairway shots. Check it out below:

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Welcome, golfers.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of The Scoring Letter, I’ve been reflecting on all the content I’ve put out and all the lessons I’ve learned along the way. I started this newsletter with a simple goal: to help amateur golfers shoot lower scores through smarter play.

Each week, I dive into topics that spark my curiosity and share those findings with you. Unsurprisingly, researching golf every week has provided me with a steady stream of insights — some of which have proven far more impactful than others.

So, for this week’s post, I wanted to share the 5 statistics that I believe are most impactful to your game.

I’ve decided to make this post free for everyone as a thank you for all of the support and positive feedback I’ve received since starting this little project.

If you’d like to support my work — and unlock the 40+ premium strategy breakdowns in the archive — you can upgrade your subscription HERE. You’ll also get a free digital copy of my book The Game Within the Game.

Okay, let's get into it.

#1: You Don’t Need to Hit Fairways

There are a few key statistics that signal you’re scoring well. Hitting fairways is not one of them. Let me explain.

Generally speaking, if you’re hitting a ton of fairways, that means you’re prioritizing accuracy off the tee, which means you’re not prioritizing distance off the tee — and that’s a huge mistake.

Distance off the tee is one of the most important skills in golf for a pretty simple reason: it makes your next shot a whole lot shorter.

Now obviously a 280-yard drive in the fairway beats a 280-yard drive in the rough. But that’s rarely the trade-off we're making on the course when we talk about trying to hit fairways.

Strokes Gained data has revealed that proximity to the hole is the single most important factor in approach performance. A 130-yard shot from the rough yields a better scoring average than a 160-yard shot from the center of the fairway. Why? Because as you move farther back, your dispersion pattern expands exponentially.

As long as you stay in play and leave yourself a clear line to the green, distance consistently trumps accuracy off the tee. When it comes to statistics that actually predict low scores, Greens in Regulation carries far more weight than fairways hit.

Take a look at this chart below:

A PGA Tour pro hits around 59% of fairways. A 20 handicap hits around 43%. Yes you read that correctly.

Now take a look at their respective greens in regulation. 66% to 21%.

There are a number of different reasons for this, but the point remains: hitting fairways is not strongly linked to scoring well or playing high-level golf.

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#2: Approach Play is the Most Important Part of the Game

If you ask most amateur golfers where they are losing strokes, most of them will tell you it’s the short game. “I just can’t get up and down,” they say.

But have they stopped to wonder why they are always needing to get up and down in the first place?

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Happy Sunday, everyone. Hope all of you living in cold-weather states are getting your last licks in. I’m fortunate to live in a year-round golf climate (Southern California), but I’ve been hearing rumblings of golfers prepping for the off-season now that we’ve entered October.

Anyway, let’s get into it.

Today’s quote:

“Golf is a game that is played on a five-inch course—the distance between your ears.”

— Bobby Jones

Strategies For Breaking 80

Golf Digest put out an article last week on 13 data-backed strategies to break 80 (you can check it out here). A lot of them are pretty obvious — like “don’t chase birdies” or “try to avoid three-putts.” But two of their points I thought were genuinely helpful and went beyond the surface-level break 80 advice you normally hear.

The two strategies are listed separately in their article, but I think they actually go hand in hand. Let’s break them down first, and then I’ll explain why I think they’re related.

1. Beware the 150–200 zone

According to their data, a 10-handicap playing an approach shot from 200-plus yards out has a 20 percent chance of making double bogey. Remember: double bogeys are our mortal enemies! Now look at their next tip.

2. Play for GIR+1

GIR+1 is a stat created by Mark Broadie. It’s when you either hit the Green in Regulation OR hit the Green in Regulation using one extra shot. It’s basically if you’re greenside and have a chip for birdie. They basically make the case that for a lot of golfers trying to break 80, you should sometimes treat this GIR+1 as a win.

How I Think They’re Related

So let’s say you’re faced with the nightmare long approach shot from close to 200 yards. I think it’s important for you to remember that double is now creeping into play — but only if you try to play outside of yourself. My recommendation is to play for a GIR+1.

Select a club you trust to get you near the green. Reaching the putting surface isn’t required. You just need a decent chance to scramble for par. Even if you miss the par save, a bogey doesn’t ruin your card. But making a double because you went OB trying to hammer a club from a distance you have no control over, just to try to reach in regulation — that’s what we’re trying to avoid.

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I recently released my first book, The Game Within the Game.

You can get it on Amazon HERE.

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Limit Your Time Over The Ball

I recently posted this clip to my X account of Phil Mickelson’s famous shot on the 13th at Augusta. What I’d never noticed before was how quickly he hit the shot after addressing the ball.

It took him just 5 seconds from the time he addressed the ball to make contact with it. Check it out:

It’s a good reminder for all of us that once you’ve committed to a shot, standing over the ball and letting your mind wander does you no good.

I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes:

Putting on Aerated Greens

I recently played a round at my local club two days after they aerated the greens. I was pretty disappointed, as many of you can understand, and the frustration from putting bled into other parts of my game. As you all know, golf completely changes on punched greens. The chips you hit, the putts you roll, the clubs you choose — it can be infuriating…

I recently saw a post from golf instructor @drakesmith_ on how he manages aerated greens, so figured I’d share them with you (partly to help me cope with my own round).

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Oh, swing thoughts. They’re an amazing thing. A quiet little voice in your head that somehow holds the power to influence your entire game. They’re personal in a way almost nothing else in golf is. I’ve carried some of the same ones for years. How would I operate without them? They’re my friends (Yes, I hear voices).

But how many swing thoughts is too many? Keep the left arm straight. Clear the lead hip. Maintain the triangle. Hold the lag. Release the lag. Hinge the wrists. Don’t hinge the wrists.

Golf’s not hard right?

In this week’s Scoring Letter, I wanted to see whether top players and coaches agree on how many swing thoughts you should allow in your head at one time.

We’ll also look at a couple of related studies to help us better understand the mind as it pertains to the golf swing.

Let’s get into it.

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Are Swing Thoughts a Good Thing?

Let’s start here: generally speaking, swing thoughts are a good thing — provided they actually help you play better. Most coaches and players support using them, not necessarily because they’re inherently “good”, but because they know they’re largely unavoidable. Since you can't escape them, you might as well make them count. As legendary golf coach Butch Harmon notes, the goal is to find the one thought that organizes everything.

In a 2007 study, Simon Jenkins looked at 113 players who played on the European Tour and found that each one of them reported having a swing thought for their full swing. In the study they refer to them at swing keys.

They also found that when a golfer is playing well, he reports having fewer swing thoughts. That sounds obvious at first, but it raises a chicken-and-egg question: Does playing well reduce the need to overthink, or does clearing your head lead to playing well?

Either way, coaches agree that there is a limit to how many swing thoughts a player can successfully hold. The question is how many?

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Happy Sunday everyone. Hope you’ve been enjoying some President’s Cup action this weekend. If you haven’t, the above photo should get you in the spirit.

Let’s get into it.

Today’s quote:

“The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can’t see him laughing.”

— Bill Murray

Always Practice Off of Grass

How many of you have ever had an amazing range session where you’re flushing one iron after another, only to find yourself chunking your irons the very next day on the course.

What happened?

Well, it could be any number of things, but maybe part of the reason is that you’ve become accustomed to hitting golf balls off of a mat.

A golf mat and the grass are not the same.

A mat allows the clubhead to slide or bounce off the firm surface. If you hit the ball "fat", the club still glides forward to launch the ball reasonably well.

Real turf allows the club to dig into the dirt (hence the divot). Hitting even slightly behind the ball on grass slows the club down significantly, resulting in everyone’s favorite shot — the chunk.

Obviously hitting off of a mat is better than not hitting balls at all. But if your local driving range offers grass and mats, please do yourself a favor and always choose the grass.

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Lining Up on the Tee Box

Most golfers I play with treat tee placement as an afterthought. "As long as it’s between the markers, it’s all pretty much the same shot, right?"

Wrong.

Where you choose to tee the ball up can have a significant impact on how well you hit the shot, and consequently how well you play the hole.

Below is a post from @drakesmith sharing some of his takeaways from his time caddying at Q school.

The scenario he uses is one where the players mistakenly set up on the side of the tee box that brings trouble into their vision.

I’ve written a lot about the power of vision in the golf swing. Where you look and what you see has a real impact on your golf swing.

So, the next time you walk up to the tee, step back for a few seconds and choose the angle that makes you feel the most confident. Just because you see tee markers, it doesn’t mean that every spot between them offers the same shot.

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Bad Golf and Good Scores

Are good golf and good scores correlated?

Yes, but maybe not to the degree you think they are.

Generally speaking, good shots translate to lower scores. But golf sometimes defies logic. I’ve had plenty of rounds where solid ball-striking yields bad luck, and vice versa — days where repeated mis-hits somehow produce a respectable score (don’t ask me how).

Ultimately, cut yourself some slack if you’re striking it well and the scorecard doesn’t reflect it. And vice versa: if your swing feels off, don’t panic or overthink. Push through, make smart decisions, and you might still walk away with a personal best lol.

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That’s it for today. Hope you all have a great week and get out and play!

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please don’t hesitate to email me at tourswingstommy@gmail.com. I read everything.

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If you haven’t read them yet, check out some of the most popular Scoring Letter posts below:

Golf is a game of trade-offs. For any given shot, there are countless combinations of clubs to use and ways to use them. All with the same end-goal of getting the little white ball closer to the hole.

Every club/shot combination requires weighing its distinct pros and cons vs all of the other club/shot combination you could use for the same scenario.

As you improve, you unlock the ability to hit different shots and get more creative with each of the 14 clubs in your bag. Over time, you learn to use your clubs for more than just their “standard” intended use.

In this week’s post, I want to discuss perhaps the easiest of the non-standard club uses: putting with a hybrid.

I’m going to break down why I think you should learn the hybrid putt, the physics behind why it works, the data we currently have surrounding it, and most importantly, when to use it.

Let’s get into it.

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Click HERE to claim your 20% discount.

The Physics of the Hybrid Putt

Let’s start with this: a putter generally carries about three or four degrees of loft. A hybrid carries somewhere around seventeen to twenty-seven. Understanding this gap is really the key to understanding the hybrid’s effectiveness from just off the green.

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Happy Sunday, everyone.

I have some big news! My first book The Game Within The Game is out and now available in eBook format.

You can get it on Amazon HERE.

The book brings my top Substack posts together into one neatly formatted, highly organized volume of 169 pages. My goal is for this to serve as your ultimate strategy/course-management resource that you can refer back to at any stage of your never-ending golf journey.

If you’re a premium subscriber, you can get it for free HERE.

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Okay that’s enough about me. Let’s get into today’s bag.

Today’s quote:

“Golf is a non-violent game played violently from within.”

— Bob Toski

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Key Positions

There are dozens of positions in the golf swing, and golfers spend a lifetime chasing each of them to perfection. But what if focusing on just a few key checkpoints is all it takes to play high-level golf?

Take a look below at Eduardo Matarazzo from the Ole Miss golf team.

The first photo is at the top of his backswing. Looks pretty textbook.

Now take a look at the second photo as he is coming into impact. Textbook.

Now watch his full swing:

I share this to remind you not to obsess over every single position in your swing.

The golf swing is one motion. Not dozens of separate mini ones. There can be wild variation in that motion so long as you return to a semi-consistent impact position.

So don’t obsess over the technical imperfections of your swing. You only need to hit a few key positions consistently in order to play good golf.

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Bob Toski Tips

Legendary golf coach Bob Toski turned 100 years old last Friday. Golf.com re-released a piece from their 2013 issue where Alan Bastable sat down with Toski to pick his brain about the modern game.

During their interview, Tosksi was asked a number of different questions, which you can read here.

Two of the questions/answers stood out to me as particularly insightful, so figured I’d share them with you here.

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You stand over your ball on the tee box, staring down the ever-elusive fairway.

“Just hit the fairway,” you say to yourself. “Find the short grass, and the rest will take care of itself.”

It’s a natural instinct. After all, you can’t post a good score without hitting fairways... right? Well, what if I told you that simply hitting the fairway isn’t actually all that valuable?

I mean sure, all else being equal, a 300-yard drive down the middle beats one buried behind a tree. But that’s not the question. The question is whether you should prioritize fairways or prioritize distance.

It’s a question that’s been circling the golf analytics world for a while now. But today I’d like to take it one step further.

Strokes-gained data clearly shows that driving distance outweighs driving accuracy. But by how much? Does that advantage hold true for every skill level, or do other variables shift the balance?

In this week’s post, I want to dig a little deeper to see if the math is really as simple as "bomb it as far as you can."

Let’s get into it.

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The Data

If you’ve read my post on the highest ROI for your practice time, you’ll know that the long game (long approach shots and driving) accounts for around two-thirds of what separates good players from bad ones.

However, if you zoom in on the driving section, you’ll find that within driving, it’s distance, not accuracy, that does most of the lifting.

On the PGA Tour, Fairways in Regulation have a weak correlation with success — some seasons almost not at all. Driving distance on the other hand, correlates much stronger.

In fact, over the past 25 years, Fairways in Regulation have continued to decline.

If you take away anything from this week’s post it should be this:

The true scoring comes from greens in regulation. And hitting from the fairway is not always necessary for that to occur.

Let me explain.

Have a look at this chart below:

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Happy Sunday everyone.

Let’s get into it.

Today’s quote:

“Discipline and concentration are a matter of being interested.”

— Tom Kite

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Distance or Accuracy?

Who would you choose in a match?

• Player A: drives the ball 200 yards and dead straight.

• Player B: drives the ball 300 yards but is wild off the tee.

This question comes from @DivotDoctrine on X who posted the below argument:

Is he correct?

The answer won’t surprise you if you’re familiar with strokes-gained data. But if you’re not familiar, I will hand it over to Arccos’ lead data analyst, Lou Stagner, to reveal the truth

Stagner was quick to reply to (and correct) the original post.

Since Substack cuts off the tweet earlier, here was what Stagner replied:

Of all the male golfers that average about 200 yards off the tee, I took the most accurate 5% of players from that group. I compared those short hitters to players that hit it about 300 yards off the tee, and I used the least accurate 10% of players from that long hitting group.

It wasn't even close.

Median Handicap Index:
▶️200-yard straight players: 11.3
▶️300-yard wild players: 5.1

CONCLUSION:
▶️The 300-yard player will have the better index 81% of the time.
▶️That means the 300-yard player is the better player 8.1 out of 10 times.

Maybe not the clearest “apples to apples” comparison, but strokes-gained data is pretty clear on this:

Hitting the ball further even if it puts you in the rough is generally more beneficial.

Obviously if there are hazards or OB, that changes the equation. But if there is no penalty risk, the data says to grip it and rip it.

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Tiger’s Tactics

I don’t often share golf stories, but this one was too good not to pass along.

Subpar is a golf podcast hosted by former PGA Tour pro Colt Knost. Last week the podcast spoke with another former PGA Tour pro, Brendon De Jonge.

In the episode, De Jonge shared what it was like the first time he got to experience playing in the final Sunday threesome with Tiger.

He described a crowd unlike anything he had ever seen. But the part I thought most fascinating, and why I wanted to share this, was how Tiger allegedly used his massive galleries to his advantage.

De Jonge says:

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Welcome to the fourth installment of Lessons From a Vintage Golf Magazine.

If you’re new here, the idea behind this series is simple. We dig up golf instruction from an old magazine and hold it up against the game as we play it today. I’ve come to realize there’s more untouched wisdom sitting in past golf instruction than most of us realize.

For those who haven’t read the previous posts in this series, you can check them out here.

For today’s post, we’ll be looking at a piece called 17 Ways to Play Smarter Golf from the February 1980 issue of Golf Digest.

(If you want to read the original you can view it here)

It was introduced by longtime Golf Digest writer Dick Aultman, and it opens with a question every golfer has asked themselves at some point:

“How could I be so stupid?”

Aultman’s answer to that question was to hand it over to an entire roster of major champions and respected teachers, and let each of them take a crack at it. Collectively, the group had won 52 majors and roughly $13 million on tour at the time of writing. Each contributor was given a short, standalone lesson on managing your game, and yourself, a little better.

In total, there were seventeen lessons, but I picked out the six that I felt were most transformational for your game (and to save you a little time). I broke them into three categories:

1. Commitment

2. Diagnosis

3. Managing Yourself

Alright, let’s get into it.

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Commitment

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Happy Sunday everyone.

Let’s get into it.

Today’s quote:

“Of all the hazards, fear is the worst.”

— Sam Snead

Spend Less Time Over Putts

I’ve talked about Brad Faxon more than once in this newsletter, and for good reason. He is a big proponent of simplifying pre-putt routines, and spending as little time over the ball as possible.

Christopher Powers over at Golf Digest shared a great video featuring a Brad Faxon lesson that improved his putting.

Powers writes, “Faxon is big on letting your natural athleticism take over when you putt, and I'm at my worst when I'm standing over the ball too long, thinking too much and getting too technical. This video might help solve that same issue for you.”

Here is the video:

“Look once. Set up. Look Twice. Go.”

Remember that.

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Fix Your Alignment. Fix Your Slice

If you’ve been a longtime subscriber of The Scoring Letter, you may remember my post on the power of vision in the golf swing. If not you can read it here:

The vast majority of golfers slice the ball, and most don’t realize a huge reason for it is their alignment—and more importantly, their vision.

I recently posted this picture of Chris Gotterup’s alignment as a quick fix for slicers:

Many amateur golfers simply slice the golf ball because they stand closed to the target and then swing left across their body because that’s where their target appears when they turn their head to look at it.

They incorrectly stand on their target line instead of their toe line.

If you stand on the target line, your vision will tell you that the flag is behind you. So you will swing across your body in order to compensate — hence the slice.

If you stand correctly, your target will look like it’s off to the right (for a right-handed golfer). It will feel like your vision is playing tricks on you, but you are actually aligned correctly.

Mike Malaska has a fantastic video on this topic that I think everyone should watch.

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Learn to Love Nerves

Every golfer knows the feeling of standing over a putt nervous, cycling through the relaxation checklist: deep breathing, visualization, whatever mental trick you have to calm the nerves, etc…

But what if trying to escape the nerves is a mistake?

In a recent Golf Digest piece, sports psychologist Dr. Carly Hunt argues that golfers shouldn't avoid nervousness or force confidence. Instead, she suggests actively seeking out the nerves.

She states “The next time nerves spike, stand tall, bring a slight smile or calm expression to your face, look up and around, and tell yourself, ‘I can hit the ball near the target even when I’m nervous.”

Instead of fighting to suppress anxiety, this approach flips the standard advice on its head: invite the nerves in so they lose their power over you.

Learn to love pressure.

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That’s it for today. Hope you all have a great week and get out and play!

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please don’t hesitate to email me at tourswingstommy@gmail.com. I read everything.

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If you haven’t read them yet, check out some of the most popular Scoring Letter posts below:

Ah, backspin. Everyone’s favorite part of golf. The part of the game that always seems to get the loudest “Ooos” and “Ahhs” from the spectators.

The fans and SportsCenter love it. But the pros? They aren’t nearly as fond of excessive backspin.

Despite all of the electric highlight reels of the ball spinning back 50 feet into the hole, ask any high-level golfer what they think of excessive backspin, and they’ll tell you they do everything they can to avoid it.

If you read The Sunday Bag edition each week, you might remember me sharing this video of Jason Day discussing the concept of "flighted wedges”.

When you take a full swing with a wedge, the ball launches around 35 to 40 degrees. At that height, it becomes much more vulnerable to the wind, and at that speed, the backspin becomes much stronger — which can be unpredictable.

Tour players purposefully take less than full swings with their wedges in order to launch the ball around 25 to 30 degrees. These "flighted wedge" shots stay low, avoid the wind, and stop on a dime. By keeping the trajectory down, they’re able to eliminate these variables, maintaining control and consistency.

In today’s Scoring Letter, I’ll discuss the flighted wedge shot — why it’s so effective, how to execute it, and why I think it’s one of the most important shots to develop.

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What is a Flighted Wedge?

Let’s start with a short definition so we’re all on the same page.

A flighted wedge shot is a wedge played with a deliberately lower, more penetrating trajectory than your normal full-swing wedge. Instead of the ball climbing high and hanging (bad), it stays on a flatter, more controlled path (good), then lands and stops with a hop-and-check rather than spinning wildly backward.

Now let’s get into some of the physics to understand how the shot is hit and why it’s so effective.

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Dynamic Loft

I’m sure most of you carry an assortment of high-lofted wedges (50-60 degrees). But what if I told you that all of the loft on those wedges shouldn’t be used.

Let me explain.

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Happy Sunday everyone.

Let’s get into it.

Today’s quote:

“I don’t believe in luck. In golf, you get what you deserve.”

– Annika Sörenstam

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Slow-Motion Practice

I shared this video in last week’s premium post, but it’s such an important concept that I wanted everyone to see it here.

Practice in Slow-Motion!

Watch the video below of Tommy Fleetwood practicing:

I think it’s vital that you understand the value of slow-motion movement when trying to change your swing and learn new positions.

Motor-learning research shows that slowing a complex movement improves sensory feedback and error detection, which helps the brain encode new patterns.

I understand the urge to swing at full speed when trying to “feel” new positions. But a full swing is roughly 1.2–1.5 seconds, and at that tempo, the brain cannot consciously monitor sequencing, so your old habits dominate.

If you want to make lasting swing changes, you need to set aside 10-15 balls to dedicate methodical slow-motion movements.

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Driver’s Fade Bias

If you read my post from a couple of weeks ago on draws vs fades, you might remember me mentioning how most Tour professionals play a fade with their driver.

There were a few great threads on X last week explaining why modern equipment has a huge role to play in this. I've linked a couple of them below for those interested, but here are the main points:

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Every golfer in their journey to improvement has hit that wall: you play more, but somehow you start playing worse.

It’s a demoralizing feeling. You’re left feeling both frustrated and confused, wondering if all those hours you’ve logged were just a big waste of time.

Last week, I posted on X about why I believe two rounds per week is the sweet spot for making progress. To my surprise, a ton of golfers agreed.

A few comments argued that 3+ rounds a week is the only way to truly improve. Others swore by playing once a week alongside dedicated range time. But most agreed two rounds is the sweet spot for making progress while still keeping the “golf spark” alive.

But still, it made me wonder: is there any research/data on the ideal number of times to play/practice to maximize performance without frying your passion?

Because let’s be honest: You can play too much golf.

Luckily for us, there is some data out there on playing time versus practice time, and what the ideal amount is. In today’s Scoring Letter, we’ll review the key findings, how to interpret them, and how you can ultimately improve more efficiently.

Let’s get into it.

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The Floor

Let’s start with the minimum number of rounds. While there haven’t been studies on the “floor”, the consensus appears to be that playing at least once per week is required for improvement.

While you can improve on one round a week, the ceiling for your improvement drops, and the process gets much slower.

One round per week tends to work best as maintenance more than improvement. Feel and timing fade quicker between rounds, and the lessons you learn become more about managing and maintaining your big misses rather than learning to fix newer ones.

Longer gaps (every other week or less) make meaningful scoring gains rare for most people.

Once-a-week players can still drop strokes over a year if they:

• Play with purpose (track stats, note specific miss patterns, improve their course management).

• Are hitting the range consistently each week and working on mechanics

• Review and dissect the round afterward to learn strengths & weaknesses.

  (I’ll go more into detail on these later in the article).

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The Ceiling

Alright, now let’s look at the maximum number of rounds suggested for improvement. The answer might surprise you.

The only data I could find that addressed this specific topic of # of rounds vs improvement comes from a year-long study out of Golf Insider UK, tracking roughly 250 golfers.

The short answer is this:

Once you get beyond 2 rounds per week, you start to experience diminishing returns.

Surprisingly, the study showed that golfers who played about 1.6 rounds a week versus 2.02 improved more. However, the improvement was self-reported, and the amount they improved was statistically insignificant according to the study.

But nonetheless, the direction of the trend is worth noting: Playing three or four times a week did not outperform playing once or twice.

And then there’s the mental side of things. If you’re anything like me, playing three rounds in a week is a fast track to burnout and sometimes wanting to quit entirely lol.

So that’s another factor to consider.

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The Ideal Number of Rounds

Okay so to answer the original question posed at the start of the article:

Is there any research/data on the ideal number of times to play/practice to maximize performance?

The answer is 1.5-2 rounds per week.

Anything less than one round and improvement stalls. Anything more than two and the gains plateau.

Now, this isn’t to say more rounds can’t be better. But purely playing more rounds of golf does not automatically correlate to lower scores. Which I will discuss more later.

But here’s the big takeaway from today’s post: Once you meet the minimum standard of 1.5-2 rounds per week, the biggest determining factor for how quickly you improve comes down to how you play and how you practice.

A golfer who plays just 1.5x per week with a clear plan and intentional focus on key areas will improve faster than someone who plays 3x per week with no specific strategy or goal.

For the remainder of this article, we’ll be discussing strategies for playing and practicing with purpose to accelerate your improvement.

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