In June 2022 I was a 16 handicap. By October 2023 I finished the season at 8, with a low of 7.7 in September. That’s eight strokes in about 18 months, and almost none of it came from the thing I assumed would fix my game.
I could already hit a driver 300+ yards when I caught one. That was never the problem. The problem was that I’d blast a drive 20 yards from the green on a par 4 and still walk away with a bogey — then start the next hole with a slice into the trees.
What actually lowered my handicap was finding out where I was really losing strokes, which turned out to be nowhere near where I thought.
This page is the whole project in one place — what moved the number, what didn’t, and the things that set me back. I tracked it publicly the whole way, so the numbers below are real rounds, not a highlight reel.
The Progression
| When | Handicap | What was going on |
|---|---|---|
| June 2022 | 16 | Starting point. Big drives, no scoring. |
| September 2022 | 12.2 | Arccos data + simulator work on intermediate irons |
| End of 2022 season | 11.2 | Second-best round of the year, mental game clicking |
| April 2023 | 9.3 | First rounds after a winter entirely in the simulator |
| September 2023 | 7.7 | Season low. Best golf of my life, mid-July to mid-August. |
| October 2023 | 8 | Season close. Made the club championship flight. |
If you’re wondering where that sits, I’ve broken down what the average golf handicap actually is and how the calculation works separately.
What Actually Worked
1. Tracking my own data — this was the turning point
I put Arccos sensors in my grips in July 2022. Within about a month the data said something I did not want to hear: my strokes weren’t leaking on the putting green. They were going out on approach shots and driving accuracy.
My approach shots felt like they were getting close. They weren’t. I wasn’t hitting enough greens in regulation, and the biggest culprits were poor club selection and picking the wrong target.
You cannot fix what you’re guessing about. Everything that worked after this point worked because I finally knew where to aim the effort.
2. Reading The Four Pillars of Golf
Jon Sherman’s book landed at exactly the right time, because it explained in statistics what my own Arccos data was already showing me. Drive for show, putt for dough is not really true — the comparison between amateurs and professionals doesn’t support it.
It changed two concrete things: which club I pulled, and where I aimed. It also quietly fixed a lot of my mental game, because once you accept that laying up is often the correct play, a bad lie stops feeling like a personal insult.
3. Simulator reps on the distances I actually face
My intermediate iron distances improved more than anything else in my bag, and it was almost entirely simulator volume. Not smashing drivers — grinding the 100-to-175 yard shots that were costing me greens.
If you’re considering a setup, I’ve written up the space you actually need for a golf simulator.
4. Building a wedge matrix
Over the 2022–23 winter I built a wedge matrix — my own carry and roll distances for every wedge from each clock position. About 30 minutes per club, at least 10 shots per position, logging each clock position as a separate “club” in the simulator so the data came out clean.
This is the single most useful reference I’ve ever built for my own game, and it cost me a few winter evenings. Here’s how to build a wedge matrix for yourself.
It also forced me to deal with a 50-degree wedge I had genuinely hated and left in the corner for an entire season. Turns out I just had no idea what it did.
5. Fixing the driver path
My misses weren’t random. I was coming significantly out-to-in, closing the face, and catching it off the heel — so the ball started left and then hooked further left. Some of those went well over 300 yards and finished 80 yards offline. On my home course the first three holes are OB left, which is exactly as expensive as it sounds. I took a quadruple bogey on the 1st.
Working through a structured driving program is what let me identify the actual fault rather than guessing at it. By spring 2023 my driving was, in my own notes, “absolutely AMAZING compared to what it was.”
6. The mental game — and I had an unfair advantage here
My wife was a competitive pistol shooter who made the 1996 Olympics. She spent years learning visualization and meditation from sports psychologists at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado. I got that coaching for free over dinner.
What I do is simple: five minutes, eyes closed, walking through a tee shot in full — the approach to the box, the thoughts, the feel, the strike. Your mind doesn’t cleanly distinguish a vivid rehearsal from a physical one.
The measurable effect was on carryover. Bogey then triple bogey used to cost me two more holes. In September 2022 I made that exact start and birdied the next two. That round took me to 11.2. She’s written up the full approach in the mental game of golf, and I’ve covered meditation for golfers in more detail.
7. Swing speed training — last, not first
I’ve gone from around 116 mph at the end of 2023 to a max of 121, with about 115 feeling genuinely easy. That’s real, and it’s the part of my game I get asked about most.
It’s also seventh on this list on purpose. Speed didn’t lower my handicap — accuracy and approach play did. Speed made the good rounds better; it never fixed the blowup holes. If you’re a 16 trying to become a 10, do these in the order they appear here.
If you do want the speed work: my Stack System review covers what I use, the swing speed trainer comparison covers the alternatives, and how to increase swing speed covers the methods. I track mine with a PRGR launch monitor.
What Set Me Back
Leaving this out would make the whole thing dishonest.
I hurt myself, twice
I have a desk job and bad posture. Before one round I got on an inversion table I hadn’t used in two years. My back popped — not in a good way — and I was flat on the floor for 20 minutes. I played anyway, couldn’t take a full swing, pulled everything, and collected OB penalties. Worst round of the year.
Separately, chasing clubhead speed in the simulator got me 6 mph in about a month and gave me back and knee pain that forced me to scale it right back.
The lesson I actually adopted: do the aggressive speed work in the off-season, then maintain during the season. Trying to build speed while playing regularly got me injured and cost me rounds.
Simulator golf is not course golf
After roughly four months indoors, my first real round was genuinely strange. Addressing the ball felt wrong. Uneven ground, odd lies and real turf were hard for the first few holes.
It faded fast — about half a round the first time, five or six holes the second, a couple of holes by the third. But if your handicap jumps after a winter inside, that’s why, and it isn’t permanent.
I got lazy
I set a goal of +10 mph over the 2023–24 off-season. I hit it hard early, then fell off for months. I got most of the way there, and I’d have cleared it comfortably if I’d just kept going. Day job and life, which is a poor excuse and still the real one.
Worth noting: the gains I did make stuck even through three months of doing nothing.
Along the Way
- Won longest drive at the 2022 Hacemos Golf Classic, a local charity tournament
- Tied for 2nd in our end-of-season couples scramble
- Made the club championship flight in 2023 as the 16th seed — the exact goal I’d set a year earlier. I drew the reigning club champion and went out on the 15th. He’d have beaten me on my best day.
- Won a Me & My Golf competition: a TaylorMade Stealth 2 driver, a private coaching call and a video swing analysis
- Closest to the pin on a league night, which I’m counting
For context on the wider picture, I’ve looked at what percent of golfers actually break 100, 90 and 80.
If You’re Trying to Do the Same Thing
The compressed version of eight strokes:
- Measure before you fix anything. Whatever you think is costing you strokes is probably wrong. Mine was.
- Chase approach play and driving accuracy before distance or putting. That’s where the strokes were.
- Learn your own numbers. A wedge matrix beats any general distance chart, because it’s you.
- Work the mental side deliberately. Not letting one bad hole become three was worth strokes on its own.
- Periodize the physical work. Speed in the off-season, maintain in season, or you’ll get hurt like I did.
- Add speed last. It’s the most fun and the least efficient path to a lower number.
I’m still chasing 4, and still trying to win that club championship. Both goals are older than I’d like. But I’d rather show you the real curve — including the injuries and the months I wasted — than pretend it was a straight line.
Questions about any of it? Leave a comment — I answer them.