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Depends on how athletic you are and what your baseline is.Getting from a 30 down to a 20 is relatively easy. Getting down to 10 means you are putting in practice time and maybe a lesson or 2.
But to get down to a scratch or plus you need to dedicate probably 10 hours at least per week to practice alone and not like practice just to hit balls with actual intent along with instructions. I have a friend who does this and he can’t get below 5. He hit a hard wall.
But your real gains are going to be your 8i in. You need to be able to hit 60% of GIR and then avg basically 1.6 putts per hole. That means you better be dropping the ball within 8 feet each time.
It’s not impossible with budget / time - lessons, practice (range, short game, putting), and plenty of playing. I’d say on course lessons may help a lot. Course management / IQ is probably one of the challenges to go from beginner to competitive in a short period of time.
Other things to consider… competitive play is usually at longer, faster, tougher courses. + playing recreationally rules / nerves are different. Standing over a 3 footer in a rec weekend round feels totally different than a 3 footer in regulated stroke play.
Not directly answering your question, but you don’t have to be scratch to play competitive golf. There are tournaments to be found that are handicapped and flighted to allow for competition regardless of how well you’re playing.
Club Champion is always low gross. Feel like every club and tournament is different, but you usually have net and gross winners within each flight.
For reference, the difference between a 10 and a 5 is significant and very noticeable on the course. 5 and below is a complete measure of consistency in my mind, not so much ‘ability’. A 5 can generally hit the same shots as someone who is scratch or better, they just mis-hit more and have more frequent lapse in judgement. This is how I think about it anyhow
It’s all about repetition once you break that 10 barrier, which is a great achievement! At that point is where I think you can really start to develop your ‘feel’. Understanding and the immediate body/club feedback to where you can describe what you did to produce the outcome (whether indented or not) is the next step. I personally think lessons are difficult prior to that point because what someone is seeing and telling you about your swing is different than what you feel you are doing. Im avoiding the time to handicap question because to me, it’s all about reps.
I totally get where you are coming from when you play with people that absolute sticks. The game looks borderline boring to them but in the best possible way lol.
Scratch and competitive/amateur golf can be different things at times. A scratch golfer is still a few strokes away from being competitive in a competition. Those guys probably also started pretty young and have had highsschool and in many cases college golf experience.
That doesn’t mean you can’t get down into the lower single digits or even scratch with enough time and practice. If you’re not yet, take lessons. You won’t get there without them. Otherwise have fun with it and keep up the great progress so far
Thank you for the insight; I just put my eventual goal as Scratch as I know with decreasing returns on investment, it is extremely hard even to get there (don't want to say that I'll eventually be a +7 or something). My +2 friend gave me an estimate of being scratch 2025 which I think is a bit ambitious :P.
I have been taking lessons throughout the past 2.5 years - so with every range session I am actively working on 1-2 things
To qualify for High level amateur events (state level golf associations, not USGA sanctioned) requires a scratch or better handicap in general. Some will be much more competitive than others (Carolinas, California, NY, Florida, Texas etc golf association) . USGA events will be closer to +4 to qualify (you still have to perform under pressure even if you have a +4, that is a whole different part). But there are other local events and other organizations like golf channel am tour that you can play at different handicap levels
This is not true. The handicap index for amateurs to enter US Open local qualifying is 1.4
The Texas Amateur requires 6.4
(These are ‘minus’ handicaps as in the USA we don’t put anything on the number unless it’s +)
You should check out the book Paper Tiger by Tom Coyne. He’s a well known golf writer who wrote a book on trying to get as good as possible to see if you dedicate yourself to golf, can you compete with the pros. Long story short is scratch golf means nothing when it comes to competitive golf and there’s a HUGE difference between “competing”for your club championship and “competing” at mini-tour events.
How old are you? Do you have, or are you planning to, any family commitments over the next say... 15 years?
Honestly with your age, if you know you are going to be in your location for quite a while it might be worth checking out some country clubs. Most have really advantageous entry fees for people below 40, and then again below 30
What is your actual driver and 7 iron club head speed? (Not your inflated for the internet numbers) Have you compared your smash factor (ball speed / club head speed) for these clubs with data out there related to handicap? What you will find is that as handicap improves, the quality of strike improves across the board. Consistency of trajectory, spin etc all very important to being more consistent.
Awesome Roland, thanks a lot. Just started on Short Game Bible - it looks great.
And good luck with your journey!
analytics will help you accelerate your journey - turn your weaknesses into strengths. what would you say are the best and worst parts of your game right now?
also curious if you have a similar assessment of your own game / what your index is at
You are correct about minimum requirements to attempt qualifying, but you probably won’t make it through basic qualifying unless you are close to the handicaps I provided (source: have played many of these events)
Never heard what it takes to qualify turned back into a handicap. Every venue is different, field strength varies and one day weather can make a huge difference. I guess technically you could take the qualifying score and index it but is that ever reported?
I played in a local qualifier where the wind was blowing 25 with gusts up to 50. One guy broke par, I shot 82 and was stoked about it.