Hit more fairways without rebuilding your swing

Hitting more fairways is rarely about swinging better. It is about aiming somewhere sensible, choosing a club you can control, and accepting the ball flight you own rather than the one you would like.

Aim at the side the trouble is not on

Most golfers aim down the middle and miss both ways. Better players aim down one side and miss into the fairway. If your bad shot goes right, aim at the left edge and let the whole fairway catch the slice. Nothing has been fixed, and you will find twice as many fairways.

Know which miss you own

Write down where every tee shot finishes for one round. Almost everybody has a single dominant miss, usually to one side. Playing a shape you produce eight times out of ten beats hoping for a straight ball that turns up twice.

The driver is not always the club

On a 330-metre par 4 with bunkers at 230, a 3-wood finishing at 200 leaves a comfortable full shot from short grass. The driver leaves either 90 metres or a wedge sideways out of sand. Look at where the trouble sits, not at how far you can hit it.

On a firm sandbelt course in February the ball runs a long way after landing, which moves every one of those numbers further down the hole.

Tee height, the adjustment that works

With a driver, half the ball should sit above the crown at address. Too low and you deliver a descending blow that adds spin; too high and you catch it off the top edge. Against a stubborn slice, teeing slightly lower with the ball a fraction further back often does more than an hour of swing thoughts.

Swing at eight tenths and count

Play one round hitting every tee shot at what feels like eight tenths effort. Most golfers lose five to ten metres and gain three or four fairways, and that trade lowers scores every time.

The routine is the aiming system

Stand behind the ball, pick a target, then an intermediate spot a metre in front of the ball on that line. Set the clubface to the spot and the body to the clubface. Aiming from beside the ball means aiming with your shoulders, which is why so many players finish thirty metres right of the intention.

Afternoon wind and hard ground

Coastal courses from Melbourne to Perth get a sea breeze most afternoons. Into it, take more club and swing easier, because spin is what the wind punishes. Downwind on firm fairways the ball can run forty metres past where you planned, so the bunker you normally carry becomes the bunker you finish in.

What to try in your next three rounds

• Note where every tee shot finishes and find your dominant miss.
• Aim at the fairway edge your miss moves away from.
• Play a round hitting 3-wood on every par 4 under 350 metres and compare the score.

Fairways hit is the statistic that moves fastest, because most of the gain comes from decisions made before the club moves.