Here are five ways that are guaranteed to lower your handicap and no practicing is involved.

1. Grip down. I’ll bet you hit your short irons—PW, 9-iron, 8-iron—pretty well. It’s the longer clubs that give you problems. The solution is to grip down on the longer clubs so they feel like a short iron. Try taking your grip with about 1¼” to 1½” of the shaft extending beyond your left hand (right hand, for left-handers). The balance of the club will change dramatically. You’ll feel connected to the clubhead and in full control of the club. You will hit a very good shot.

2. Slow down. You swing too fast. I don’t have to see you swing, I know you swing too fast. You swing back OK, but you charge down into the ball. Your downswing doesn’t flow naturally out of your backswing. The backswing and down swing are one motion, not two. Make the downswing a rhythmic continuation of the backswing.

3. Take a religious vow to develop a perfect setup, and do it. Pay special attention to: grip pressure (not too tight), aim (pick a spot on the ground on a line from your ball to the target, align the grooves on the clubface square to that line, and set your stance square to the grooves), and ball position (x-axis: one ball forward of center for the driver, center for everything else; y-axis: swing without a club and the club flashing past you marks the distance away it should be).

4. End every swing with a high, balanced finish. If you’re balanced at the end, you were balanced all the way through. Staying balanced is what lets the club come into the ball at race-car speeds with precision.

5. Learn to play the game. Knowing how to hit good shots is only one half of golf. Knowing which shot to hit, with which club, and to where, is the other half. I know you don’t know how to play the game when I see you pull driver on every par 4 and par 5 regardless of whether that club will help you make a good score. Or when you try to make an impossible recovery shot. In other words, play a recreational game within your skills instead of mimicking a pro game that you don’t have.

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