re: Golfers who have done it: How did you finally break 80?

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ive hit 80 on the number probably 10 times and have yet to break it.

has to be mostly short game and mental toughness.

when I have a good round going it's hard to calm the nerves in the end because you are thinking about the great round you have going.

what did you do to finally break 80?

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From what I remember, it started happening a lot when I became confident about two things:
- barring a quite tough lie or shot, I could get up and down from just about anywhere
- I could keep it in play with a driver off the tee almost every single time

Everything else fell into place pretty quickly after that. I was playing and practicing a lot (and hitting a growth spurt), but those two things were critical.

It gets much tougher as you get closer to scratch as the marginal benefits of your practice time diminish, but getting to scratch for me took a lot of effort in three areas:
- controlling wedge distances and wedge game from 50 to 140 in general
- becoming even more consistent with your driver and fairway woods
- learning to shape shots

Key to breaking 80 is avoiding the big number. Key to getting to scratch is getting the precision to make enough birdies to offset the bad swings.