How can I hit more approach shots onto the green? (Video) - by Pete Styles
How can I hit more approach shots onto the green? (Video) - by Pete Styles

Hitting greens in regulation is quite an important part of any golfer’s improvements. So a green in regulation is going to be a good drive down the fairway and the second shot going on to the green on a par four, three shots onto the green on the par five and hitting the green in one shot on a par three. Now if you’re trying to improve your greens in regulation stat which will generally be a good barometer of whether you’re improving your score we could consider that hitting the green in regulation is way more important than firing at a flag.

Often firing at a flag particularly if the flag is towards the edges of the green will result in either birdies or bogies or double bogies. Whereas hitting for the center of the green might be a better tactic if you’re trying to hit greens in regulation and just shoot a large number of pars. Now it can be quite difficult for a golfer to change his attention or his or her focus away from the flag and onto the center of the green. Whenever we line up behind the ball we lock down the target line, we see where we’re aiming for. But for a lot of golfers their eye gets drawn towards the flag. Even if that flag is surrounded by water or bunkers it becomes very difficult for a golfer to switch their focus back to the centre of the green. So it’s very quite important that when you decided where your target is and if you decided, hang on a minute, it’s not the flag on this occasion, I don’t to aim at the flag, I want to aim at middle of the green. You got to have something else then to focus on maybe a tree in the background or a patch on the green that you’re really going to focus intently on that is now my new flag. I’m going to aim at the centre of the green, line up at the centre of the green, swing to the centre of the green, and be happy when I hit at the centre of the green. And then just expect that when you get there, you can put a cross to the flag. The last thing you want to do is kid yourself that you’re aiming at the centre of the green, and then during your swing push or pull the ball to try and guide back onto where the flag is. So if you want to hit more greens in regulation and improve your scores, focus on a specific target dead in the centre of the green and you’ll hit more greens and improve your scores. 2015-03-27

Hitting greens in regulation is quite an important part of any golfer’s improvements. So a green in regulation is going to be a good drive down the fairway and the second shot going on to the green on a par four, three shots onto the green on the par five and hitting the green in one shot on a par three. Now if you’re trying to improve your greens in regulation stat which will generally be a good barometer of whether you’re improving your score we could consider that hitting the green in regulation is way more important than firing at a flag.

Often firing at a flag particularly if the flag is towards the edges of the green will result in either birdies or bogies or double bogies. Whereas hitting for the center of the green might be a better tactic if you’re trying to hit greens in regulation and just shoot a large number of pars. Now it can be quite difficult for a golfer to change his attention or his or her focus away from the flag and onto the center of the green.

Whenever we line up behind the ball we lock down the target line, we see where we’re aiming for. But for a lot of golfers their eye gets drawn towards the flag. Even if that flag is surrounded by water or bunkers it becomes very difficult for a golfer to switch their focus back to the centre of the green.

So it’s very quite important that when you decided where your target is and if you decided, hang on a minute, it’s not the flag on this occasion, I don’t to aim at the flag, I want to aim at middle of the green. You got to have something else then to focus on maybe a tree in the background or a patch on the green that you’re really going to focus intently on that is now my new flag. I’m going to aim at the centre of the green, line up at the centre of the green, swing to the centre of the green, and be happy when I hit at the centre of the green.

And then just expect that when you get there, you can put a cross to the flag. The last thing you want to do is kid yourself that you’re aiming at the centre of the green, and then during your swing push or pull the ball to try and guide back onto where the flag is. So if you want to hit more greens in regulation and improve your scores, focus on a specific target dead in the centre of the green and you’ll hit more greens and improve your scores.