Do you want to find out how good you really are? Find out what shots you really need to practice? Try this next time you go out to the course. Play a one-man scramble.
Take a mulligan, just one, for every shot you hit that is, well, pretty awful. Give yourself one do-over any time you want. After you’ve hit the mulligan, move on, but to keep things honest, your next shot has to be from where that second ball ended up. It’s not hit and choose. It’s hit and commit (sort of).
Now this is a modified scramble. You don’t have to take a mulligan if you don’t want to. In many cases, you wouldn’t. If you take one every time you miss the green, you never get to test your short game. If you take one when you miss the fairway by a hair instead of 10 yards, you never get to try out how you do from the rough.
This exercise is meant to take you through every aspect of your game, and show you what needs a lot of work, what needs a little work, and what is doing fine.
Here’s how to make this scramble work for you. Odds are the mulligan will be the shot you wanted to hit. Reflect clearly on what you did differently to make the second shot turn out well. It might be a technical point you’re forget from time to time. It might be that your mind was wandering.
Whatever these points are, remember them, because adds are they will crop up again and again during your round. Your job now is to learn to hit that second shot first, more often, when you can’t take mulligans at the drop of a hat.
The way to do that is to go to the range after you have completed your round. With the clear idea of what you did that make things work still fresh, hit balls emphasizing those things, and those things only. Give yourself immediate and quantitative feedback on the things that make you play your best.
That’s extra time at the course, true, but you don’t have to play 18. You can get the information you want in only nine holes.
What about your scoring potential? Keep two scores for the hole–one score counting all mulligans and one score without mulligans. For example, you hit your drive, and approach that wasn’t so hot, another approach, and two putts. Your scores would be five (counting the mulligan) and four (not counting it).
At the end of the round, the difference between the two total scores is how much you could improve by ironing out the wrinkles in your game.