I once had a student who wanted to schedule a lesson because he could not seem to lower his score no matter how much he practiced. Wanting to pinpoint the issue, I pressed him for details and all he could come up with was the fact he could not lower his score.
Before scheduling a lesson I suggested he go out and play 5 rounds of golf without keeping score. His only responsibility was to carry a notebook with him and make notes after each shot: how he hit the shot, where it went, etc.
After 5 rounds we determined that he had indeed developed a pattern. All his approach shots were coming up short.
I suggested he go out and play another 5 rounds with the only change being taking an extra club on each approach shot to the green.
The very next round he played he beat his all time best score by 4 strokes. He had lost a bit of distance with his irons over the years without fully realizing it. By being aware of his game, improvement followed. We did schedule a lesson to work on increasing his distance and it was very helpful to know exactly what our focus would be for that particular lesson. It took all the guess work out of it and we were able to get right to work on the issue.
So before you can improve your game, it is imperative that you know where to start. Pay close attention to your golf game: missed shots, patterns that you may have, etc. It will put you on a faster track to improvement.
Know Your Game
