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Today I am going to share with you some tips that can improve your golf game that don’t involve swing a golf club.  How can you improve your golf game without swinging a golf club?

Great question.  The answer is course management.  Course management is the art of limiting the damage of your golf shots.

One of the greatest models of course management was Jack Nicklaus.  Jack would rarely hit a wrong shot at the wrong time.  Nor did he gamble and hit low percentage shots.  You might can tell, by being one of the greatest golfers to date, that his apporach worked.  So lets do what successful golfers do.

Jacks philosophy can be summed up this way: 1) find the easiset way and 2) avoid danger.  Yes, that’s it.  It sound so simple doesn’t it?

Lets look at each of these two ideas and build a foundation for you to follow to help lower your scores.

Finding the Way

A golf course can sometime look like an obstacle course in which there are easier ways to get to the greean and there are more difficult ways to get to the green.  One key point of scoring well , even on days when you are not playing your best, is finding the easiest way around the course.  By determining the easiest way around the course you will generally take fewer shots.   This method will not help you shoot in the 80’s if you are playing bad but it will limit those higher scores that can raise your handicap and shatter your confidence.

Avoiding Danger

Learn to avoid potential disasters and your can lower your scores.  Every round you play has critical shots ans those critical shots, if hit poorly can radically affect your scores.  Critical shots can include your drives, approach shots, chip shots and putts.   Whichever they are, you can be assured that they will cost you strokes when misplayed.

How you assess these shots and deal with them makes the difference between good scores and bad scores.

Basic Course Management Strategies

Let’s now look at four basic management strategies that can help guide you around the course to achieve better scores.

1. Carrying Over Water
If you’re not certain you can carry over water with anything but your career best shot, don’t try it. It’s not worth the risk. Play it safe and lay up instead. Then try for a pitch and putt. You have a chance at pulling it off, and even if you don’t, the worst that could happen is dropping a stroke. Failure to carry the water is doubly damaging. It can affect both your score and your confidence.

2. Playing Long Holes
When playing long par 4s where you know you can’t hit the green in two, decide from where ideally you’d like to play your third shot to give you the best chance of making par. Don’t force your drive and don’t force your second shot. Keep the ball in play. Remember while a par is better than a bogie, a bogie is better than a seven. Every shot counts.

3. Approaching the Green
You don’t always have to attack the hole with your approach shot. It’s sometimes much easier to hole out with two putts from the center of the green, no matter where the hole is, rather than have to get up and down from a green side bunker because your approach shot was just a fraction or so off line or a foot or so short.

4. Safety First
Sooner or later we’re all going to get into trouble. You may find yourself in deep rough or up against an obstacle. Whatever the problem, the golden rule is safety first. Concentrate solely on getting back into the fairway in a good position to hit the next shot, and you will minimize the damage down by your original miscue.

Base your course management strategy on these two key principals,  find the easiest way around the course and avoid danger, and you’ll see your scores and golf handicap quickly improve.

If you would like an excellent resource for handling any trouble you might meet on a round of golf and hit solid shots from even the most Godawful situations, you should check out the Trouble Shots DVD. 

Good luck and have fun.

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