Congratulations, you’ve gotten a lot better at golf in 2021! But now is the time to take another step in your game away from the season. That’s right, we’re talking about targeting that magic number that most golfers focus on: a ’70s score. Here, in our eight-step guide to cracking the 80’s, we’ll talk to experts, pros, and more to come up with the perfect plan for you to take your game to the next level.

Step 1: How to Ruin Your Tour Before You Go
Step 2: How to stop wasting a range warm-up
Step 3: How to Play the Right Tees for You

Step 3: How to Play the Right Tees for You

When I played golf often and seriously, I quickly realized that keeping the ball on the tee was essential to competitive golf. The only problem was that I wasn’t particularly good at it. But that was before I got into the network of brilliant minds found at Golf dot com. And while I don’t spend a lot of time writing how-to articles, I definitely read them—and picked up some coins in the process. Here are 10 tips for straighter engines that I gathered from this research.

1. Curve Less!

For at least seven or eight of these tips, I expect you to start with a groan or some variation on the “Yes, No!” But hopefully, we can get through that together and glean a little bit of insight. This comes from a study by golf data expert Mark Brody, who was curious whether it was more effective to contact the ball with a big swing or to have it start straight and stay straight. Hitters win the straight ball convincingly. Here is Brody:

“To see the relationship between the curve and accuracy, I calculated the correlation of these values ​​across players. Guess what? The correlation was negative 40 percent, which in plain English means that players whose motors deflect less tend to hit more streamlined paths! ( For the stat pros out there, the negative correlation holds even after controlling for driving distance.) Top slopers Andrew Putnam, Phil Mickelson and JP Holmes, for example, achieved eight percent fewer track counts.

“The leanest group of Armor, Furyk, and Reavie had a 13 percent off-track increase, which is a statistically significant difference between the two groups.”

You can read the rest of Brody’s piece here.

2. Own your own ball flight.

I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m actually contradicting myself. But just because you want to hit the ball straight, as per tip #1, that doesn’t mean that’s the reality for you at the moment.

“Most players have dominant shooting form (draw/fade) and should use that during the round,” says Joe Bleecker, GOLF Top 100 Instructor.

Brian Manzilla adds the Top 100 “You have to go with your stock shot.” Doing so will help you stick to your aim and allow you to choose an appropriate aiming point.

3. Hit the driver.

For decades, conventional wisdom has dictated that players get off a tee to keep the ball in play. Not so, says Bleecker. For one thing, your driver’s face is bigger than any other club in the bag. Also, you are more likely to hit the big stick than any other club in the driving range. Take advantage of this practice!

“Most players hit more drivers in their practice sessions than three woods from a tee, so making a temporary swing with a rarely used club is a recipe for disaster,” Bleecker says.

4. Use the font.

This guy looks amazingly simple, but that’s probably the beauty of it. Many golfers use the line on the side of the ball to make sure their shots are going in the right direction. Why not do the same in the tee shots? Bryson DeChambeau thinks it helps. Maverick McNeely thinks so, too:

“I use the line on the tee to make sure my eye line is square and aligned well,” McNeely told GOLF.com. “A lot of the tee boxes are not always aligned. Some are oriented to the left; some are oriented correctly; if your body alignment is out of order, that is a big loss.”

All it takes is a Sharpie and a split second. Worth a try in the new year, to say the least.

5. Use the tee box to your advantage.

Where you play the ball up may seem like a relatively unimportant detail, but you can moderately improve your chances of keeping the ball in play by using the angles of the tee to your advantage. If you prefer a right-to-left ball flight, Luke Kerr-Dineen recommends bouncing your ball up on the left side of the tee box and shooting down on the right until the ball’s flight is back in play. (Read more here.)

6. Aiming small.

Brian Mogg shares the Top 100 Teacher theory that you should set a very specific target for your tee shot – leaving you with the maximum margin for error.

“When you absolutely have to get on the right track, narrow your focus to the smallest goal or thing you can find. You need to be specific in your mind as to what you aim for and stick to it.” “Fairways are usually 35-40 yards wide, and there’s plenty of room for your ball to find.”

7. Don’t obsess over fairways.

Fairways is not everything. We tend to focus on the duality of whether or not we’re driving on short grass, but getting off track with a shot in the green is definitely different than being in a rough patch behind a tree — or worse, in water. You don’t always have to aim for the middle of the road if that means taking unnecessary risks, points out Scott Fawcett, course management expert, who regularly charts courses for tour professionals. Here’s how he thinks about the player’s distraction in third place at the Augusta National:

That same reasoning, Fawcett adds, means you shouldn’t sacrifice tons of distance away from your tee to get to just a few lanes.

“You won’t hit the three woods in the lane much more than the driver. Backtracking is to give up 30 yards on 100% of your tee shots and hopefully hit 5-8% more lanes; that’s a bad trade-off,” he says.

8. Check back on the boring stuff.

If you’re a good player suddenly feeling out of control, there’s a strong chance that you’ve inadvertently changed something in your setup. Check your grip. Check the direction of your feet, strokes, and shoulders. And check your ball position.

“Always check your basics,” says Lisette Salas, LPGA veteran.

9. Think positive thoughts – and stick!

If you’re having a high-pressure shot due to a problem or situation, work on a positive mindset.

“Focus on what you want to do instead of what you don’t want to do,” says Kevin Sprecher, Top 100 Teacher. “Imagine the shot you want to hit, make it the most reliable shot. You can even imagine a shot similar to the one you hit in a previous hole, or at range. Get a good mental picture.”

Then, he says, he committed. There are no prizes for being temporary.

“Swing aggressively, it’s never a good idea to swing easily under pressure.”

10. Check out your clubs.

If you’re fighting a hook or slide, adjustable tech can help — you can adjust the loft, weight, and flip angle on many modern drivers.

But many golfers don’t play the right equipment for their swing speed, as we’re frequently reminded of the folks who wear the clubs at our sister company True Spec. They’re right – if you play the wrong part of your driver, for example, it will be much more difficult to align the front of the club on impact, leaving you vulnerable to a Big Miss. Check out these clubs.

My final advice is personal: Don’t try to think of all these 10 tips at the same time, while standing over a tee. may burn.

Happy swinging!

Dylan Dither

Golf.com Editor

Dylan Diether is a senior writer for GOLF Magazine / GOLF.com. The Williamstown, Massachusetts native joined GOLF in 2017 after two years of squabbling on the mini-tours. Dethier is a 2014 graduate of Williams College, majoring in English, and is the author of 18 in America, which separates the year he spent when he was 18 years old living out of his car and playing a round of golf in every state.