Tracking shots during a round

[DavidY]

To determine what my main problems are, what categories would you recommend for tracking shots during a round for a hacker/beginner? Straight drives, slices, hooks, topping, fairways, chips, greens, putts, etc? I would like to keep it simple...for each hole, I would just generally check off a prepared spreadsheet of rows and columns, what my swings were like. There are many more bad shots than good ones....unfortunately for me.

Thanks.

Dave

PS Thanks to Chief for his suggestion.

[dbleber]

What I use to do is, first take your own score card even if you have friends playing with you. Mark you score for the hole, Fairways hit, Greens in reg, putts and then a comment. Just use the space they give you for other names and scores. For the comments, I would put S- slice, H-Hook, OB- out of bounds etc... You'll come up with your own system but after a few games you'll see where you need improvement.

[leftylucas]

Its really up to you. I found that when I started tracking shots that it took some of the fun out as I was always writting things down but it was very helpful for my practice sessions as I was able to work on the shots that seemed to be doing the most harm. The ball flight is helpful only if you know what to look for. The flight is generally affected by the club path, your alignment and the club face at contact. Knowing which one is the culprit of a bad shot is not so easy. I suggest you go take a lesson (or more) at a range with a teacher who can analyse your swing and teach you how to work and practice. That helped me more than anything.
Good Luck

[Colby]

Here is the shot charting printout from GStat. It makes it easy to track and if you use GStat, it will give you some reports.

BTW, I disabled printing as this would violate the copyright of GStat. It's cheap, buy it

[Thom Panikorn]

I don't know how good you are but if you are just starting out on this "crazy" game I suggest you track two things. First, how many good shots and, second, what club you hit the shot with. At the end of the round you can go back and replay the shot in your head. The next round try to use the club you hit those good shots with. Golf is the game of "little things". If you start with confidence in your head good things will follow. My rule for beginner is "hit(not miss) the ball", then, "hit it straight", next, "hit it far", and last but not least, "put it in the holes". A lot of beginners want to hit it far from the start and they get frustrated because the ball go everywhere but straight. Don't count your score just yet because it won't be correct one anyway. There are so many rules you have to learn to count score correctly. Just count how many good shots per round and try to improve on that. If you par or birdie the par three, go ahead brag about it but remember if you swing and miss that counts as one stroke.

TP

[albatrossman]

I bought Gstat during the winter. Would someone kindly tell me how to print out GStat's shot charting printout.

Thanks.