Oh, those double bogeys. They just ruin our day. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could find a way to not get any. Just once?

I did that once in my memory. I shot an 85, a few strokes above average, but with not one DB. In my golfing heyday, breaking 80 was always a possibility, and I never did it without having a double on the card.

On a golf forum that I used to belong to, until I got tired of the know-it-all proprietor, I asked the 80± golfers which was harder, breaking 80, or playing 18 holes without a double bogey. No DB won hands down as the harder one to do.

Yesterday I saw Rickie Fowler put his drive smack in the middle of the fairway and up with one. Also yesterday, Sebastian Muñoz of the LIV Tour shot a 59–with a DB on his card.

So don’t worry about it too much. You’re going to get them. But you don’t want to get the too often. Here are a few ways to get the less often.

– Hit fairways. Use a club off the tee that is a fairway finder, no matter how much distance you have to give up. If you miss the fairway, switch from thinking about par to bogey. That doesn’t mean giving up on par, it generally means salvaging a good score (bogey) and leaving par in play at the margin.

– Greens are smaller targets than fairways, generally. Play onto the green if you’re sure you can hit it. Otherwise, plan on playing up to the green and chipping on.

– Play away from trouble. Get out safely, then play to the green. Death to penalty strokes.

– Don’t get too precise around the green unless you have a short game to back it up. Just get the ball on the green with one shot and let your putting take over.

– If you make a double bogey, forget about it by the time you have picked the ball out of the hole. Keep your mind moving forward to the next hole.

All this sounds like stuff you have heard before, and it is. I didn’t make it up. Let’s just call it a reminder that you shoot lower scores if you play smart and play within yourself.