Nearly 60% of every shot you take happens within 50 yards of the hole. The data has always known this. Most golfers haven't wanted to hear it.
Seve Ballesteros and Phil Mickelson are considered two of the finest short game players the sport has ever produced. Not just technically — something deeper was happening. They excelled around the greens because they genuinely wanted to be there. They revelled in it. There was not a shred of dread. Why? Because their imaginations got fired up. The creativity required was like fuel to their shot making.
Think about Phil's lob shot — the one where he goes up in the air and lands behind himself to a hole that's at his back. Who would even conceive of that, let alone practise it? Someone who enjoys using their imagination. Someone who loves what this part of the game asks of them. Someone who arrives at a buried lie in a bunker and feels something closer to anticipation than anxiety.
That inner state is not a personality trait. It's a trained response. And it shapes everything.
Those numbers don't lie — but they don't tell the whole story either. What they can't show is the weight a golfer carries into those 12 or 13 missed greens. The quiet resignation before the chip. The putter gripped a fraction tighter because the last one didn't drop. The swing that shortens because somewhere, without consciously deciding it, the goal shifted from making the shot to not making it worse.
A 13 handicap and a tour professional can stand over a chip from the same piece of ground, the same distance, the same lie. The shot is identical. The inner conditions are not.
The pro expects to get up and down. Not hopes — expects. That expectation isn't arrogance. It's the product of a mind that has been in this situation thousands of times and has learned to find it interesting rather than threatening. The short game demands something the full swing rarely does: complete presence, real creativity, and a willingness to feel the shot rather than think it into existence.
The golfer who dreads the chip is fighting on two fronts before the club even moves. And the numbers show us what that costs — hole after hole, round after round, year after year.
58% of your score. More than half. Happening in the place most golfers practise the least, and approach with the most anxiety.
If nearly 60% of your score is determined by how you manage your short game, it stands to reason you should be spending close to that amount of time practising it. My approach to lower scores starts from within. Thinking clearly is step one. And thinking clearly makes one thing obvious — nothing will drop your scores faster than a genuinely good short game.
So if your real desire is to shoot lower numbers, spending 90% of your efforts on the part of the game that only accounts for 40% of your score makes almost no sense. Reverse that ratio and several things happen.
Your scores drop. Your anxiety around the greens disappears. Your putting starts to annoy your playing partners in the best possible way. And a side benefit — you stop needing to buy new clubs every season hoping something changes.
I understand the appeal of the long game. There is a genuine thrill in hitting the ball flush and watching it carry past everyone in your group. But that is a moment inside the game, not the game itself. Golf is far more than a driver. The driver is the sexy club — no question. Which is exactly the point.
You can be different.
You love the short game. You thrive there. You become like a pit bull — quietly grinding away at your opponent's belief that they can beat you, hole after hole, while they're still admiring their drive from the middle of the fairway and then making six.
A 32-yard flop over a bunker to a tight pin is not glamorous. But it beats the player who bombs it 310, hits a wedge from the fairway, misses the green, and then uses those same sledgehammer hands around the flag. Every time.
Make Your Short Game Your Weapon
When the focus shifts to short game, the scoring drops faster than most golfers expect. Not because something magical happened. Because they finally directed their attention toward the shots that were costing them the most. Simple. But transformational — particularly when you start winning matches you had no business winning on paper.
That was my self-made advantage. I loved the short game and putting. The closer I got to the green, the more confident I became. For most players that relationship runs in reverse — they feel safest from the fairway and exposed around the flag. I was the opposite. And that confidence fed a belief that I could compete with anyone at my level.
When I played in the 0–4 flight I was, without exception, the shortest hitter in the group. By a considerable margin. It never concerned me. I was not there to watch my opponent or be impressed by his ball speed. I was there to win — in whatever way my game and my playing style would allow.
Build a Foundation that Compounds
That inner conviction is available to you. And here is the reality of it — almost no one will do this work. Not long enough to let it actually change their game. Not with the patience it requires. They will chase the next tip, the next fitting, the next swing change. You will be doing something else entirely. Building a foundation that compounds.
Start with a single intention: become the best short game player of anyone you regularly compete with. Then expand from there. Your confidence will build in a way that is hard to explain until you feel it.
You may not conjure shots like Seve or Phil. But you can absolutely build your own version of what they had — that irreplaceable feeling of arriving at the hardest shot in the round and knowing, without doubt, that you belong there.
