‘That’s the 150m marker – I’ll hit a 6-iron’ | Inside Golf. Australia's Most-Read Golf Magazine as named by Australian Golfers

THE golf lessons I give are largely conducted under the cover of the driving range where we have a flat lie every time and many attempts to hit more shots to correct our mistakes.

However, the more I listen to players the more it becomes clear that striking the ball alone is not their only problem. Of course, fixing the slice or improving the grip on the range is important, and I always finish a lesson in the belief that I have delivered everything that my student expects, so why is it then that golfers handicaps over the years have improved so little.

As an instructor over the past 25 years, the depth of my knowledge and skills are worlds away from those I had when I first qualified.

TrackMan and modern day teaching equipment gives us the chance to measure things that we couldn’t have dreamed of when I was younger.

Add to that the fact that most players use the driving range more often than they would have in the 1990s. And we all use equipment and ball technology that, if the marketing machines of the big companies are to be believed, have delivered us at least 10 yards extra distance per new driver that we have bought and 20% more accuracy to boot.

On that basis, I should now be hitting my driver 400m and my iron shots should all be inside 2m every time I hit them. If that were true, yours truly would be sitting writing this article on the deck of my private yacht that was moored somewhere off The Whitsundays. And just for the record, that’s not the view I have as I look outside today.

The average handicap of the club golfer has altered little over this period of time.

For men, it is just under 16.9 and for women it is 26.7. The stats show that it has changed less than a shot over the last 20 years, which is frankly incredible.

So why is this so? I’m reminded of a time from back in the UK when I worked at a 5-star resort that had both a driving range and 27-hole golf course.

From time to time I would give students who had been regular lesson customers a chance to do a playing lesson on the golf course.

A couple of the players who were students of mine come to mind. Both were customers from the range and both had golf swings that had improved dramatically over the time I had worked with them. (I have video evidence to prove it).

In both cases, we had worked together over a number of years. However, it was only on the golf course that I saw the biggest faults in their game. Out there, it was blatantly obvious that it wasn’t all their technique to blame – it was their game and decision-making.

Golf is made up of two factors – the first is your ability to hit the ball and, for both, we had improved this dramatically with our sessions on the range with their much-improved techniques.

The second factor is actually “playing golf” – something I had worked little with them at over the years. Although their ability to hit the ball had improved, their ability to play golf had not progressed at the same rate.

For one of them, simple alignment aiming way to the right of both tee shots and approach shots was leaving them well off the mark; helping him to hit perfectly good shots that still missed their targets.

The other player couldn’t accurately calculate distance. He was near the 150m marker and just pulled out a 6-iron. When I confronted them about it, the answer was “I always hit a 6-iron from the 150m marker”.

“Oh dear,” or something similar was my reply!

The pin was at the back of a 40m long green, the ball was on a slight upslope and there was a light breeze blowing against him and the ball was 6m behind the 150m post which had distance measured to the centre.

I then made my calculations of the distance: 168m to the flag was the first part (150 from the post + 6m behind the post + 12m flag past centre = 168m).

Add to that with one club extra for the wind and half a club extra for the slope, which increases the height of the ball flight. In my mind, the “real world” distance to the flag was 184m.

Unsurprisingly, the 6-iron came up short. It would have needed a solid 4 or ¾ 3-hybrid to get the ball pin high.

If you really want to improve your scores, you need to improve your game on the course as well as the golf swing.

Remember the real world choices of how the lie and conditions affect distance and how far your average shot carries and not your Sunday best can still leave you the wrong side of par even if you hit the ball well.