Golf improvement

Your handicap tells you almost nothing about why the season went the way it did. A structured end-of-season review does.

Going from a 20 to a 10 means finding seven strokes per round. They do not come out evenly, and they do not come out in the order most golfers expect. Here is the route the data actually takes.

Break 80. Get to single digits. Those are outcomes, not goals. Here is how to build goals out of your own round data so you know each week whether you are on track.

Telling yourself to concentrate harder rarely survives the back nine. Your shot data shows exactly where attention slips, and gives you something specific to hold onto instead.

A 25 mph day can wipe two strokes off your round before you make a single bad swing. Wind does not get subtracted from your strokes gained, so it pays to know exactly where it takes the strokes from.

The club you trust most is often not your best club, and the part of your game you apologize for is often fine. A simple self assessment against your strokes gained data shows where belief and performance have come apart.