Practice these 3 crucial skills for guaranteed lower scores

According to the legendary Jackie Burke Jr., your performance in golf comes down to three key areas: driving, wedge play and putting. Everything else is secondary, so your practice should be built around improving these core skills.

Here’s how I suggest you work on these three crucial skills.

1. Driving

If you can’t consistently hit solid, accurate drives with adequate distance, scoring becomes extremely difficult. To improve, practice your driver on the course rather than relying solely on the range.

Choose the most demanding driving hole at your home course and hit multiple tee shots from that location (assuming there’s no one waiting behind you!) to simulate real playing conditions. The range cannot replicate the pressure of a tight hole, where you must commit to a target and control your start line. The goal is to develop comfort, trust and consistency with the driver when it matters most.

2. Wedges

All short-game shots — chipping, pitching and bunker play — depend on distance control. An effective way to practice is to place a tee on the green as your landing spot and hit shots to that same point using different clubs, from a 7-iron through a lob wedge. As you do this, pay close attention to how far each shot carries and how much it rolls after landing.

This process teaches you the relationship between air time and ground time for each club. The objective is to consistently hit your landing spot and accurately predict how the ball will react, allowing you to get dialed in and save strokes around the green.

3. Putting

If your putting is not at a high level, scoring well becomes unlikely. Focus your practice on putts just outside your comfort zone — distances where you have a realistic chance to make more putts and increase your one-putt percentage.

In addition, spend significant time on lag putting from 30 to 45 feet to develop precise speed control and reduce three-putts. Strong putting is built on making more mid-range putts, controlling distance on long putts, and eliminating avoidable mistakes.