How score tracking can seriously improve your game

Golfers track their scores for various reasons such as wanting to analyse and improve their game, needing an up to date handicap certificate, or because their society secretary wants proof that their handicap is accurate!

Whatever the reason for tracking golf scores, it has been proven to benefit your golf game. Simply keeping track of your shots every time you play, keeps you up to date with how you are scoring and allows you to pin point areas of your game that are in need of improvement.

Golfshake.com's Score Tracking service is designed to help every day golfers seriously improve their game and keep track of their performance. In fact, over the 2008 season golfers who tracked their scores using the Golfscoretracker system saw their handicaps drop by an average of three shots. This enviable improvement in performance can in part be put down to regular use of the Score Tracker, combined of course with some hard graft on the golf course!

However, the real secret to game improvement is in the detail. By recording your on-course stats such as the number of fairways and greens you hit in regulation, your putts per hole, and the number of bunker shots and sand saves you make, it allows you to really identify your strengths and highlight the areas of your game that are in need of improvement.

Even the Pros do it

Eric Johnson, who formerly worked with former European Ryder Cup member Per Ulrik Johansson, said the first thing a player has to do to get better is figure out where his game is weakest.

"When I worked with Johansson, the first thing that I did before every lesson was to look at his tour statistics," Johnson said. "That gave us a clear path on what we were going to work on during his lesson. Unfortunately, you do not have PGA Tour statistics to look up."

This is what Johnson suggests:

Keep simple statistics of your own -- fairways hit, greens in regulation, short game up and downs and total putts. From this, you can determine your weaknesses. The best solution that I have found for keeping statistics is shotbyshot.com, which helps you electronically track your rounds and gives you a handicap for each part of your game. This can provide a much more in depth look at your statistics and give you an idea what you need to work.

The more information you have, the easier it is to solve a problem.

Let the Stats do the talking

Once you have added a round plus your on-course stats you can then sit back and view your golf in glorious colour through a multitude of easy to use reports and charts that help you unravel the intricacies of your game and spot exactly where you are dropping those shots. Start with your stats dashboard to get an initial overview and then dive into individual round performances, monthly stats, your season’s progress and your entire playing career! In addition you can compare your rounds to those of your playing partners and take that on-course banter online.

One of our regular members recently described the impact of the Score Tracker on his game as, “Awesome… since tracking my advanced stats, my handicap has dropped by 7 shots!” Whilst another said, “It’s so easy to use; I wish I had done this years ago.”

For those of us obsessed with handicap reduction, the Score Tracker allows you to keep an up to the minute record of your handicap, as it automatically recalculates it whenever you add a new round onto the system.  All of your old rounds are archived against your profile to enable you to quickly view any round you have played and allow you to chart your improvement over the golfing season as well as compare your game to specific points in the past.