You just found out where your strokes go. If the top of your list surprised you, this lesson is about why.
A bad drive is loud. Out of bounds, the reload, the walk back to the cart. A 7 iron that comes up 15 yards short is quiet. It lands on the front fringe, you chip it to 12 feet, you miss the putt, and you write down bogey. Nobody in the group says a word.
So your memory keeps a tally, and it is a bad accountant. It counts every loud shot twice and the quiet ones not at all. That is why most golfers blame the driver and practice the driver, while the strokes leave through the irons.
The data says the quiet miss is the common one. Arccos looked at more than 6 million approach shots. 40% finished short of the green. 5% went long (Arccos, reported by the Wall Street Journal, 2017). Coming up short is not a loud miss. It is the normal one.
It also says your handicap cannot tell you where your leak is. Golf Digest and Arccos sorted 1,000 golfers who were all 7 to 9 handicaps into six types. One type lost 0.22 strokes a round on approach shots against scratch. Another lost 3.65 (Golf Digest, 2023). Same handicap. Opposite leak.
That is why the Planner asked you for counts, not opinions. Three putts a round. Tee shots that found trouble. Those are things you can check on a scorecard. How you feel about your driver is not.
How to read your Leak Rank
Trust the top. Trust the bottom. Hold the middle loosely.
Five numbers from a few rounds can find a big leak. They cannot separate two parts of your game that are close. Lesson 3 shows you how to check the middle, and three logged rounds settle it.
Your one action this week
Save your Leak Rank somewhere that is not your memory.
The fastest way is the app. Your ranking is the setup. Four taps, and it becomes this week's practice. It is free for 30 days on the web with the link below.
The other way is paper. Write the four parts in order at the top of the tracker card from your welcome email. Either way, it is written down, and your memory is out of the job.
Get it out of your memory
Tap your four parts in the order your Leak Rank gave you. Biggest leak first. Tap one again to undo.
No ranking yet? Get it in 2 minutes.
Kept on this phone for the next lessons. It is not a backup, so put it in the app or on paper too.
30 days free at app.playready.golf. Code COURSE20 takes $20 off the annual plan, every year.
Rather use the App Store? Start 7 days free there.
Tomorrow: your handicap is your good day, not your normal one. That one explains more bad Saturdays than any swing flaw.