Use this little GPS hack to keep big numbers off your scorecard

Golf Digest senior writer Alex Myers is on a one-year mission to see how good he can get at golf through daily training, practice and playing. Read more from his “Late Scratch?” series here.

From my first day meeting with Quaker Ridge head pro Mario Guerra back in the fall, he preached the importance of finding a way to keep big numbers off the scorecard—especially after you've hit a bad shot. So when I played a full round with him for the first time six months later as he took a scouting trip to Fairview Country Club ahead of a U.S. Open qualifier, I was hoping to glean some good course management tips.

Most of what I’ve learned and written about during this 12-month project to this point has had to do with things you do away from the golf course to get better. But now that the golf season is fully underway, I'm realizing there are a lot of strategic ways to improve while you're on the course. And as I quickly learned, one of those involved using my phone.

Always limit the damage

Studies show that the biggest difference between scratch golfers and 5-handicappers is their ability to avoid double bogeys. According to Arccos Golf stats guru Lou Stagner, a scratch golfer makes 0.7 double bogeys on average while a 5-handicap makes 1.6 or twice as many. And a 10-handicap makes four times as many doubles (2.9) as a scratch. Scratch golfers aren’t racking up birdies (2.2 per round), but are a lot better at not racking up blowup holes, which often come from compounding mistakes.

Where do these blowups come from? For his Low Net newsletter, Sam Weinman found out by talking to Columbia University professor Mark Broadie, the founder of the strokes gained metric and author of the groundbreaking book, Every Shot Counts. According to Broadie, the two main culprits are penalty strokes and recovery shots gone wrong. And on my first hole playing with Mario, one of Golf Digest's Best In State Teachers, I managed to combine the two on my way to making a double bogey.

The worst part? It could have—and should have—been prevented. After hitting my opening drive into the right trees, Mario asked me what my thought process was, to which I quickly said I was just going to punch something back into play. Part of me didn’t want to hold up the group so I grabbed my 5-iron and aimed at the right side of a fairway bunker expecting it to cut back into the fairway. Instead, I smoked one dead straight that disappeared into the woods on the other side.

I was dismayed by the loss of a golf ball and the waste of a good swing. But the ever upbeat pro smiled and said, “I’m going to call you off next time.” It didn’t take long for that to happen.

Use technology to your advantage

In recent years, I’ve finally started using a rangefinder. And last fall I started using Arccos Golf to track my stats, which I’ve found very helpful to assess my game. However, another nice thing about that app is the GPS feature. I just hadn’t been taking full advantage of it.

As Mario explained, I needed to establish a proper target before I hit that ill-fated recovery shot. I had gotten yardage to the end of the fairway for if I had hit a fade as planned, but not fully factored in all the other possibilities. Here’s how that turned out:

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Not good. And just three holes later on the next par 5, I was left with a semi-blind, awkward layup after another poor tee shot. This time, Mario pulled out his phone and went to work as my caddie. As I faced a tricky shot on an unfamiliar hole, Mario showed me my different options on the screen before determining that I could hit at most a 175-yard shot up the right side to be safe.

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Now you’re probably thinking that getting a safe yardage and going from there is pretty obvious. But what wasn’t as obvious to me is what to do next. After determining I wanted to aim at a tree through the right side of the fairway, Mario used the GPS to trace a line on the screen that went straight back to my golf ball. Following that line told me that I should aim at the right corner of bunker in front of me, and having an aiming point closer to me made it easier to line up the shot. (Obviously, you still have to be able to line up correctly to whatever target you wind up picking and for more help on that, check out our 2-minute clinic on aiming.)

That start line gave me some wiggle room if I pushed or pulled it, as did taking an 8-iron that would max out at about 160 yards. So I felt confident over the ball that I had a sound plan unlike a few holes before. And when I pulled my second shot slightly, it still found the left-sloping fairway safely. From there, I hit a wedge onto the green and made an easy two-putt par. Here’s how the second shot looked with a black arrow line added in to show how the GPS was used to aim more accurately.

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With the hole going downhill past that bunker it was impossible to see where my ball was going to land. So, having that intermediate target, thanks to the GPS, really helped me find my bearings, especially on an unfamiliar shot. Looking back on that first, lost recovery shot, I should have been aimed well right of that bunker and taken much less club. That way, I still would have been in play even with a bad shot, which probably could have prevented making double.

And, again, it probably could have been avoided thanks to technology as golfers now have so much more help at their disposal to help them navigate a property even before they take a scouting trip. Many golf carts come equipped with GPS, and if not, there are plenty of GPS apps out there that have most courses preloaded from Arccos (If you’re playing in an official competition, you can still use the GPS, but make sure it’s in tournament mode) to the Grint to 18Birdies to the revamped USGA GHIN app.

Of course, this tactic also works off the tee, where the No. 1 goal is to avoid those dreaded penalties Broadie puts at the top of his double bogey culprit list. And to give one more example from that day, the par-4 seventh hole has a very intimidating tee shot with a big pond down the right side. Clearly, the strategy is to aim left, but the GPS helped me pick how far. I settled on the widest landing area about 250 yards out with a tall tree as my far target, but I was able to set a line that allowed me to aim down the left of a cart path that was only about 30 yards in front of me:

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I had hoped my tee shot would fade, but even when it didn't it found the left rough. And even partially blocked out by trees, I was able to put my second shot up by the green. I didn't get it up and down for par, but at least I gave myself a chance. And by keeping it away from the water, I avoided a penalty stroke and kept another double bogey off the card. Do that a few times a round and your final score will look a lot better.

So the takeaway here is to use GPS to your advantage. Not just to figure out how far to hit your golf ball, but where (exactly) to aim it. Yes, this does require using your phone from time to time during a round, which some people don’t like. But taking that little extra time to fully plan out a shot can help you keep those big numbers off the card.

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