How to Break 90 in Golf
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What Actually Separates a High 90’s Golfer From a High 80’s Golfer
If your goal is to break 90, it will help you to see the patterns and understand where lost strokes typically come from. Breaking 90 isn’t about playing perfect golf and hitting amazing shots. It’s about reducing big misses, keeping the ball in play and avoiding massive blow up holes.
The difference between a typical round of 99 versus an 89
Here are some typical stats which show the difference between shooting a 99 and an 89.
| 99 | 89 | |
| Birdies or Better | 0 | 0 |
| Pars | 3 | 6 |
| Bogeys | 6 | 8 |
| Double Bogeys | 6 | 3 |
| Triple Bogeys | 3 | 1 |
| Greens In Regulation | 3 | 5 |
| 3 Putts | 5 | 2 |
| Penalty Strokes | 3 | 1 |
The biggest thing to notice is that lowering scores from a 99 to 89 isn’t about making more birdies. It’s about reducing big errors like 3 putts, duffed shots, penalty strokes, and taking two chips to get on the green. Most of your gains need to come from turning triple and double bogeys into bogeys.
Eliminate a couple penalty strokes a few 3 putts and you’ve dropped 5 strokes right there. The key is to examine the holes where you are making double bogeys and worse and identify what mistakes you are making that are creating these blow up holes.
What the data tells you to work on, in order
Breaking 90 has four levers, ranked by how many strokes each one is actually worth.
Penalty stroke elimination is the highest-leverage change available. Two fewer penalties per round is two strokes you gain right off the bat. This comes from making better decisions plus reducing your dispersion on bad shots.
Double bogey prevention matters more than avoiding bogeys. You don’t need to play perfect golf. You need to stop the hole that becomes a 7 or 8. One bad shot followed by a worse decision is how 93-shooters stay at 93. Make bogey your ceiling on most bad holes and your scores will drop.
Getting the ball on the green is the approach shot goal. Not close to the pin. Just on. Scoring an 89 means hitting 3-5 greens per round. You might be able to hit a couple more greens just by better club selection and aiming for middle of greens.
Lag putting is the final lever. Not holing more putts, just finishing close enough on your first putt that the second is easy. Cutting three-putts from 5 per round to 2 is worth 3 shots. This is doable with the right practice and mindset about lag putting.
Course management rules to help you lower your scores quickly
These work the next round you play. No range session or practice required. Change your strategy and the odds will be more in your favor.
Take more club on approach
Amateurs are short of the green more than 70% of the time. Some of this is due to poor strike leading to fat shots. But the average golfer often doesn’t know their true carry yardage. They take too little club, assuming the next shot will be their best strike as opposed to an average result.
A trick that many course management coaches recommend is to aim for the center back of the green. As a mid to high handicap golfer, your average shot is going to end up 10-15 yards short of the best shots you hit at the range. So play for your normal shot instead of your best.
In addition, it’s much harder to go up and down near the greens if you short side yourself. This means if the pin is on the right side of the green, don’t aim for the pin. Your chance of missing the green to the right and short siding yourself is too high. You’re better off just aiming for the middle back portion of the green, no matter where the flag is on your approach shots.
Manage risk at every decision point
Blow up holes are usually a combination of multiple bad shots and decisions. With every decision you make, you should be focusing on reducing the penalty for a bad shot. And once you end up in a bad spot, don’t compound your errors.
For example, if you hit your drive in the trees, if you have a safe punch out that you can execute a high % of the time, take that shot. If you’re in a fairway bunker 180 yards out, take the club that’s going to maximize your chance of getting out of the bunker. You can hit a wedge and leave yourself less than 100 yards for your next shot.
If you have a tough tee shot where there’s out of bounds or a hazard on one side of the hole, it’s okay to favor the other side of the fairway, even if you are sometimes aiming at the rough on the opposite side of the hole. Take into account your own dispersion with the club you are using and pick spots to aim for that reduce your chance for penalty strokes.
Lag putts close to the hole
On longer putts, your goal isn’t to always get the ball past the whole. Your goal is to leave yourself the shortest next putt on average. So the next time you have a 30 foot putt, imagine a circle with a radius of 3 feet where the hole is the center of the circle. Your goal is to get your putt inside the 3 foot circle. It’s okay if you’re short half the time. You aren’t trying to 1 putt from 30 feet. You’re trying to avoid 3 putts.
There’s a saying, “never up, never in”. This applies for putts where you have a reasonable chance of making the putt and it’s unlikely you will 3 putt. For example, get the ball past the hole on a 10 foot putt. But on a 30 foot putt your mindset needs to shift to reducing 3 putts, even if that means half your putts never get to the hole.
Skills to build over time to reduce your scores
Keeping your tee shots in play
Your can lower your scores quickly by keeping your ball in play off the tee. Learn to hit your driver longer and straighter either by practicing it on your own or by finding a coach to help you.
In the short term, you want to use the club off the tee that goes the furthest while keeping your shot in play a high percentage of the time. Keep in mind this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to hit the fairway. It just means you can hit a tee shot that goes reasonably far and you aren’t stuck in the trees or taking a penalty stroke.
Your goal off the tee is to have the shortest next shot to the green. If the rough isn’t too thick and is playable, it’s perfectly fine to end up in the rough as long as you have a clear shot at the green on your approach shot.
50-100 yard wedge consistency
This is a great skill to have for a high 90’s player. Getting the ball on the green from inside 100 yards doesn’t require power or a technically complex swing. It requires a consistent, repeatable partial swing. Spend some of your practice time learning to hit partial wedge shots. Your goal is to be able to get it on the green from this distance, not necessarily get it close.
Practice Lag Putting
There are three skills you need to be a good putter. 1) having good speed control, 2) being able to start the ball on your target line, and 3) being able to read the greens properly.
Often the most important skill that reduces your scores the fastest is to improve your speed control so you reduce 3 putts. There are many drills you can do to improve your lag putting you can find online.
Almost any of them will work but the key is just to practice longer putts in general. Another tip that helps many golfers is learn a few different putting strokes in terms of how far back you take the putt and how far it goes. The same way you know how far an 8 iron would go vs a pitching wedge, you want to have a feel for what you do on a short putt, medium putt, and long putt and calibrate that with the speed of the greens before every round.
Short putts under pressure
You might be able to make 95% of 3-footers in practice. But you miss a lot more under pressure. Try to recreate pressure during your practice sessions. But the 5% you miss on the course happen at the worst possible moments and cost confidence on top of strokes. The fix is the “10 in a row” drill: make 10 consecutive putts from 3 feet before you leave the practice green. Casual putting repetition doesn’t transfer. This drill adds mild pressure, which is what trains the stroke to hold up on the course.
Punch-out and recovery shots
Most high handicap players lose 2-3 strokes per round because they don’t have a recovery shot once their drive puts them in trouble. A ball in the trees costs one stroke if you punch out to the fairway. It could cost three strokes if you hit a tree again and end up in a worse spot.
Practice punch shots and low runners as deliberately as you practice full swings. Knowing you have a reliable recovery shot changes your risk tolerance on the course: you’re less likely to over-commit on a hero shot when the conservative play gets you back in position cleanly.
Why a coach accelerates this
When you are scoring in the high 90’s it’s likely you have many areas of your game you need to work on. You can just work on all of them.
But if you have a coach, they can help you 1) figure out what areas of your game are hurting you the most, and 2) help you find the fastest and most effective path to improving those areas of your game.
Let’s say you need to improve your tee shots so you hit the ball longer and in play. You can watch a bunch of free videos on how to do that but the majority of videos won’t apply to your specific issues.
On Skillest, you can work with a coach remotely by uploading a short video, explaining your challenges, and sharing your on course data from apps like Arccos. A coach builds a plan around your specific leaks, not a generic framework.
Ready to break 90? Work with a Skillest coach to get a personalized plan built around your game. Browse coaches at Skillest.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to break 90?
It depends on your current skill level and how far away you are from that score. Making better course management decisions could save you a few strokes every round almost immediately.
Improving your skills so you reduce your biggest mistakes on the course takes more time and it depends on the specific issues you need to fix.
If you want to speed up your progress, find a coach who can help you identify the weaknesses you have so you can be efficient by focusing on the areas of your game that are hurting you the most.
Do I need to swing harder to break 90?
Swinging harder doesn’t necessarily mean swinging faster. Increasing club head speed is often a great way to lower your scores. But if you do it properly by improving your sequence and technique, you can hopefully find opportunities where you increase your clubhead speed while also reducing your dispersion.
A 220-yard drive in the fairway is much better than a 250-yard drive in the trees. But the further you can hit the ball and keep it in play, the easier it is to shoot lower scores.
What is the average golf score for amateurs?
According to the National Golf Foundation, the average amateur scores around 91 per 18-hole round. Roughly 26% of golfers break 90 regularly. About 2-5% break 80. Breaking 90 is not easy to do and most golfers who play don’t get there.
Should I get fitted for new clubs before trying to break 90?
This depends on many factors including how repeatable your swing is and how good or bad the fit of your current clubs is. Learning course management strategies and improving your swing has long lasting effects.
If you have a coach or use an app like Arccos, you can see whether your clubs are hurting you or not by looking at your gapping and whether some clubs don’t perform as well for you as others.
Is breaking 90 easier on shorter courses?
Yes, meaningfully so, for several reasons. Shorter courses tend to be easier to score lower on. In addition, shorter courses are often not par 72 so technically you score could be under 90 even if you play bogey golf.
Why do I shoot 88 some rounds and 96 others?
This differs for every golfer but keep in mind that the best golfers in the world can have a difference of 10 shots between one round and the next. If the best and most consistent golfers in the world have variance they can’t eliminate, it makes sense for average golfers to accept there is a normal range of variance that is just part of the game.
It’s not uncommon to look at the last 20 rounds a golfer plays and see a range of 15 strokes or more comparing the best to worst rounds.
As your skills improve and course management improves, you can reduce the variance by making your worst rounds a little better. But variance and wide ranges in golf scores is an unavoidable part of the game.