Find more fairways: aim, club, and the wind

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 for a shape you produce eight times out of ten beats playing for a straight ball you produce twice.

The driver is not always the club

On a 350-yard par 4 with bunkers at 250, a 3-wood finishing at 220 leaves a comfortable full shot from short grass. The driver leaves either 100 yards or a wedge sideways out of sand. Look at where the trouble sits, not at how far you can hit it.

On a links in a crosswind the calculation shifts again: the ball runs, so the bunker you could not carry in still air is suddenly in play.

Tee height, and 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 yards 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 yard 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 end up thirty yards right of where they intended.

Wind on an exposed course

Into the wind, take more club and swing easier: a harder swing adds spin, and spin is what the wind punishes. Downwind the ball flies and runs further, so the fairway bunker becomes reachable. Across, aim into it and let the ball ride rather than holding a shape against it. On a British links this is most of the game.

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 380 yards 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.