7 Dumb Golf Shots KILLING Your Score (And How To Fix Them Fast!)

If you're a high handicap golfer frustrated with your score, here's a game changer. You don't need a better swing, you just need to stop hitting these 7 dumb shots that are silently sabotaging your game. Hero shots from the trees. Forcing a driver on short par 4s. These costly mistakes are more common than you think and they're keeping you from breaking through. Stick with me as we uncover these 7 dumb shots and how to ditch them for good. Your scorecard will thank you. One shot to eliminate and one shot to add. The shot to eliminate is the flop shot. These should be very rare throughout a round, especially if you have a high handicap because so much could go wrong. You could blade it over the green, you could hit under it and chunk it. So much could go wrong, even for golfers who are better. It's a very difficult shot. I would forget the flop shot, I'll put my 60 away and do a bump and run. So what a bump and run is, see the hole down there Josiah? I'm not going to try to fly it and have it land all spinny and stop next to the hole. I'm just going to bump and run it. So I'm going to hit it nice and low and bump it down there and let it run on out to the hole. A bump and run. Now we got a tap in. That was pretty simple. Let's try it again. And then it just runs out there. Go in baby. So little can go wrong when you just hit a bump and run. Versus if you do this wild flop shot nonsense, you'll blade it into the water, you'll chunk it. There's so much could go wrong. Why not a little high percentage bump and run shot? Bump, run, almost went in. It's just the process of elimination. Very little can go wrong with the bump and run. All of these should be easy up and downs. Nope, that was a bad putt. There we go. Two or three ain't bad, but I didn't blade any over into the water. I hate losing a Pro V1 that way. My tip is if you're a high handicapper trying to get down and break 80, no more flop shots. Go with the bump and run when you chip. Tell me if this is relatable. You miss a putt that you thought you were going to make, and then you're annoyed. So you rush a three footer coming back and then you miss it and your friend didn't give it to you. Now you three putt it for no reason. So this is what it usually looks like. You're going down there. You're all excited. You're like, oh, that's going to go in. That's going to go in. That's going to go in. Oh man. Now that rolled past three foot. Let's just pretend it's three foot. You're a showboat. You're all mad. Oh man. No one says it's good. You just rush it. You missed it. You got a three foot. Have you ever done that before? That is destroying your score. So here's a proper way to do this. On every putt, you have the same exact pre-shot routine. So here's my pre-shot routine. I take a practice stroke. I'm imagining the ball going into the hole, following my line. I got a feel for my speed. I know which way it's going to break. Okay. I missed it. What you don't want to do. Now I'm all mad. Man, that was a bad putt. You don't want to just walk up like this, half butt lined up and then out of annoyance, you miss it. What you want to do is on this next putt, do your same thing. If you have a ball marker, mark your ball. My number one tip I've ever learned about putting to tell me is I exhale right before I putt kind of gets all the stress and tension out. So I'm doing my pre-shot routine. I'm going to exhale right about now. Tap it in. One of the dumbest shots that I hit as a 3.7 handicap is we go for these sucker pins. So these guys that set the pins in the morning, maybe their wife got in a fight with them the night before and they're just grumpy. They didn't have their coffee. They're mad. They put these pins basically next to the fringe and they sucker you into hitting them here. Just, I want you to show them the trouble left of this green. My golf bag's up there, but you see that big dip. So here's what they want you to do, but I'm going to go for that sucker pin. It's just, it's just calling your name to hit it there. And then watch what happens when you go for the sucker pin. Now I'm down in that crap. The dumb shot is to take direct aim at that sucker pin. What I'm going to do here, see all that, all that real estate to the right of the pin. I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to aim right at a pin, try to have good distance. So I'm up there pin high, but to play it safe, I'm going to go right at the pin golf shot. So I took the trouble away and I didn't go for the sucker pin, which could land me in that big gulf Valley over there. But instead I'm pin high. I played it safe. Next time you're out, remember them sucker pins. Remember my first shot. I went for the sucker pin. I ended up down in the grand Canyon, but on the other two, I aimed a little bit right at the pin. I took all the trouble out. Nothing could go wrong if I hit it towards the middle of the green there. And I got some putts for the up and down. Don't go after sucker pins. Okay. So I was playing here recently and my friend had a dumb shot. He hit a flop shot from here. He was literally right in this little fake sand bunker. And it's really wet in here. He tried to hit this flop shot and he flubbed it to about right here. He ended up getting a bogey on the hole. So flop shots are fun, right? You kind of, you kind of open the stance a little bit and you just swing right under the swing, right under the ball. And I kind of, kind of chunked it a little bit. Now, if I hit a flop shot, typically the ball would hit like right here and I'll blade it over the green. I don't want to demonstrate that because I have Taylor's probie ones here and I ain't trying to demonstrate a probie one going into the snake infested Florida trees. So what, what should have my friend hit here? So instead of the big old flop shot here, we'll just chip it up there. It's a lot. It's a lot less can go wrong with the regular chip from here than the flop shot. This grass is really gnarly. That that's a lot better. It took a little bit of a difficult bounce there, but don't try to hit these hero shots with the flop shot from difficult lies. Cause you could blade them over the green or you could chunk them. One big dumb shot that happens, especially on par threes is people aim right at the pin. So something that's shocking to me is most PGA tour golfers and live golfers as good as they are. Cause they don't aim right at the pin. So Josiah, you don't even play golf. When you look up at this green, where's the one place you don't want to hit it in the sand bunker. Exactly. But let's imagine they put a sucker pin right by the sand bunker. It would be absolutely stupid to aim at that pin. So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to aim on the right side of the green, kind of towards the middle right side of the green, because if I push it, then I can still get up and down from right of the green. But if I yank it short and into that bunker, I'm in trouble. That's exactly where I was aimed. Josiah money. That ball is exactly where I was aimed safe and sound on the right side of the green. And by aiming away from that bunker, I didn't go for the sucker pin. Now I got a putt for the birdie or as they say in the hood, but in for the hot wing. So next time you're teeing off on a par three, don't fall for the trap, find the spot center, the green or wherever. I have a tendency of missing, right? Sometimes if I miss a little right there, no problem. I can still get enough and down there. So aim smartly and avoid them sucker pins. One dumb mistake that is really affecting our scores. I used to make this mistake a lot, but I'm growing up. As they say, as we get to the tee box and we take out the old driver, just because it's a par four or par five, doesn't mean we should grab the driver and walk up here. Now this hole here, it's a short par four. It's a dog Lake, right? There's no need for me to hit driver here because it's a shorter par four. So what I'm going to do, we'll put my driver and I love this thing on a short par four. There's no need to hit this club and it's something called shot dispersion. So if I hit a driver, it could go way left. It could go away, right? It could possibly go straight. Why risk that dispersion on a longer distance club? When it's a short hole, I'm going to take a six iron here, which has a better dispersion out there, meaning it's not going to go as far left. It's not going to go far right as my driver, there is a lot of trouble on this hole. So I'm going to see if I can get a par or a bogey because all you really need to break 90 is a bogey with leaving my nice tailor-made QI 35 driver in the bag, six iron off the tee bomb.com baby. That's right down the middle. Left side of the fairway. So I still have myself in position here to hit the next shot on the green because it's a short par four. It's a dog lake right. If I were to hit my driver and try to get it up there close to the green, I could have hit it right into the hazard. I could have hit it left out of bounds. A lot could go wrong. I'm not against hitting my driver when it makes sense, but on a short little par four, it makes zero sense. So we're going to leave it in the bag. Let's go see if we can get a par bogey with teeing off with a six iron on this hole. Okay. One really dumb shot that we often do trying to be a hero is when we're in tree trouble, like I am here, we try to go for the green back when I was young and dumb and I was getting triple bogeys and quadruple bogeys and double bogeys. I would look at this shot, which you can't even see the green here, but it's tucked around the right side there. So I'm thinking, you know what? I can hit a nice little fade. I'm going to take my four iron out here. I got to hit it low under these limbs. And then I got to curl it around with a little fade. And I'd literally think to myself, I got this shot. I'm going to hit a low fade right around that bend. So it's going to start off nice and low. It's going to curve to the right. If I hit this shot 10 times, maybe I would happen two or three other times. I would push it right to go into the hazard. I'd have to take a penalty shot. I chunk it. I'd have the same tree trouble on my next shot. So as I've grown up as a golfer, I've gotten better at making the mature move here. This is called being blocked out. I don't have a direct path at the green. And I got this tree in my way. The smart play here is to aim back into the middle of the fairway. And I'm going to just chip it back in play to the middle of the fairway. Just like that. Boom, baby boom. I'm in the middle of the fairway. I took out trouble. I didn't try to bend it around the corner and go for the green. I didn't try to be a hero. I advanced at about 100 yards with a chip shot with my 7-iron. I'm back in the middle of the fairway. I can hit it on the green from there, two putt, and still get a bogey and be on track to break 90. The dumb shot is trying to be the hero from the trees. You watch those Tiger Woods clips where they put the epic music in the background and the Johnny Miller, the announcer is going crazy. Your name ain't Tiger Woods. Let's humble ourselves, chip it back in the fairway, and try to avoid those double, triple, quadruple bogeys. I'm telling you, how many times have I gotten mad that I got a double bogey, a triple bogey, a quadruple bogey because I tried to be a hero. I got about 130 yards left here. I'm going to knock it up there, try to hit it on the green, two putt and get a par, but it's because we didn't hit driver off the tee. It's a nice wedge at the middle of the green. All right, should be pretty good. In review, if it's a short par four, think about leaving your driver in the bag and hitting your fairway finder club. Because I hit the six iron in the fairway, I knocked my wedge onto the middle of the green. Now I have a birdie putt here. We're going to talk about avoiding three putts because another dumb thing we do on the golf course, notice I said we, is we three putt because we try these hero putts where I think, oh, I really want to this birdie. You try to make it and then you, you hit it way past. So what I'm doing standing over here is I'm looking at the line of the putt. I'm trying to get a feel for which way this thing's going to break. I'm trying to get this muscle memory attachment feel and kind of the distance. It's just the feeling that I have. I do notice it's downhill and I do notice it's going to break a little bit right to left. So again, the dumb butt thing to do would have been to hit driver because then I'd have a penalty stroke stroke probably. And then it'd be a dumb butt thing to three putt this on. I'm just focused on hitting it down the hill, a little right to left. If anything, I miss it on the high side. So I missed it on the high side a little bit. We have an effortless par by hitting a six iron off the tee. Yes, sir. All right. So case in point, six iron wedge, two putt effortless par. It might not be great to brag to your friends that you hit a six iron off the tee. Your fairway finder might not be a six iron. I really like a six iron. I just feel like I hit it accurate. I shot this version is not going to go too far left or right. Whereas my driver could easily went in those woods back there or it could have went out of bounds. And then I'm getting off this green with a six, a seven, and I'm just mad. But now I got off with the par. I feel pretty good. Okay. Here is a dumb shot that is guaranteed to make our scores go up, up and up. And that is trying to hit it over the water. When there's a very likely chance that you don't have enough yardage to get it over the water, meaning I'd have to hit it so good to get it up over the water. So Josiah, can you show them all that water up there to the left? It's two 44 to the green. I hit my hybrid two 40. Theoretically, I got a decent lie. What I could do is I could try to muscle a hybrid. And if I hit it perfect, I'm going to be on the green. But if I pull this sucker just a little bit to the left, I'm with the alligators. If I push it a little bit to the right, I'm with the snakes, a dumb butt decision that we make on the golf course. If we look at that green and we think I'm going to go for it, baby, the smart play that's going to lower our scores is saying, you know what? I'm not going to probably hit it on the green from two 45. So I'm just going to lay up, play it smart. There we go. Now from there, I got about 130 yards. I can knock a wedge on the green from there and play it smart. If you want to lower your scores, don't try to muscle it over the water, be smart and lay up and it will lower your scores. A mistake that I noticed a lot of golfers make because I was a caddie and I play a lot of golf. They try to hit their three wood off the deck way too often. So you'll see this when you're on a par five and you're back on the tee box and you're waiting for the guys in front of you. And you're like, these guys are hacks. I've been watching them dribble the ball around the course all day long. And they're two 40, two 50 out. And you're thinking, what in the world are they waiting for? And you, you zoom in with your range finder and you see, they got their three metal in their arm and they're sitting there waiting as if they're going to hit this three wood onto the green from two 50. So that lies beautiful. It's sitting up nice. This three wood right here, the Callaway elite. Ooh, we, it sounds good. When I hit it, it would be done for me off the deck here, two 50. What happens is I'm standing back on the tee box or when I'm caddying and they don't listen to me and they hit this three metal. They hit it into the woods. They hit it into the water. They hit it out of bounds and they get a seven and eight or nine every single time. I have a three metal in my bag. Cause it's sometimes I hit it off the tee. I rarely hit it off the fairway because the shot dispersion can just be so scattered. If it's a wide open hole and I need to hit a three wood or whatnot, I have it in the bag. But if you're trying to break 90, you're trying to lower a high handicap. Don't try to hit this thing off the deck on a part five to be a hero. I guarantee you, you're going to get a lot of doubles, triples, quadruple bogeys. If you do that, hit something to advance the ball up the hole, knock your next shot on the green, and that's going to help lower your scores. So one thing I like to do when I finished my round is analyze how I played the scorecard tells a story. And when we see these triple bogeys and these quadruple bogeys, we have to ask ourselves the question, why did I get a triple? Why did I get a quadruple? Why did I get a 10 on that hole? And the storyline usually is there was some hazards or out of bounds involved, not to get into like psychology or too much of therapy here, but you got to look at the root. So they, they call it like the iceberg effect, right? You see the iceberg in the middle of the ocean. You only see the tip of it, but you don't see the root of what's really going on. These things affect our score. And so I hope that by addressing these seven dumb decisions that we make on the golf course and how they affect our score is going to help you reconsider what decisions you make the next time we play. We're not trying to be heroes out here. We could have chose baseball and hit a home run over the fence and everyone's going crazy as we're rounding the bases. Hero stuff doesn't work in golf. It's cool for a highlight on Instagram from Tiger Woods with a nice soundtrack. But if we actually want to get lower scores, we have to make smarter decisions. So I hope this video has helped you. I really enjoy all the comments that you guys leave and where you're watching from and all that stuff encourages me to come out here in the Florida heat and film some more for you. So thanks for watching. If you're not already subscribed, please smash that subscribe button and I'll catch you in the next video.