How to break 100

You can shoot 99 without making a single par. 9 bogeys and 9 double bogeys is exactly 99. Read that again if you have been practising to make pars, because it means breaking 100 is not about playing good holes at all. It is about not playing catastrophic ones.

The arithmetic that changes the goal

A bogey on every hole is 90. Breaking 100 gives you 9 shots on top of that, to spend however you like. Here is what 99 can be built from, without a birdie and without a par:

Every row adds to 99. Bogey golf is 90, so breaking 100 allows 9 shots of slack on top of it.
Pars	Bogeys	Doubles	Holes	Score
0	9	9	18	99

There is only one honest row, and it is the point: 0 pars, 9 bogeys, 9 doubles. Nothing on that card is a good hole. Nothing on it is worse than a double either, and that is the entire difference between shooting 99 and shooting 108.

Where the triples come from

A triple bogey is almost never seven bad swings. It is one penalty, or one recovery attempt that failed, on a hole that was heading for a bogey. Both are priced here from the published tables:

Costs computed from the published expected strokes baselines. Each of these is a full stroke or more, on its own.
What happened	Strokes lost	How that is worked out
A tee shot out of bounds on a 400 yard hole	2.05	You are on the tee again lying 3, so the hole now costs 5.99. A drive to the fairway leaving 150 costs one shot and leaves 2.95, 3.95 in all.
Three putting from 20 feet	1.12	Twenty feet averages 1.88 putts, so the third one is 1.12 you did not have to spend.
Three putting from 30 feet	1.02	Thirty feet averages 1.98 putts. A long first putt is meant to be two, which is why this costs less than the twenty footer.

Just two things on a golf course cost a full stroke on their own, and they are a penalty and a three putt. One tee shot out of bounds is 2.05 strokes. Four of those in a round is more than the 9 shots of slack the target gave you, and none of them required a swing change to avoid.

Stop laying up from the rough

Nearly every article about breaking 100 tells you to lay up. The published tables do not agree, and this is worth more than any other sentence on this page. From the rough, advancing wins at every distance:

Expected strokes to hole out, published baselines. Laying up leaves 100 yards in the fairway and costs the shot it takes to get there.
Lie	From	Go for it	Lay up	Better
Rough	180 yards	3.310	3.800	Advance, by 0.49
Rough	200 yards	3.420	3.800	Advance, by 0.38
Rough	220 yards	3.530	3.800	Advance, by 0.27
No swing at it	180 yards	3.820	3.800	Chip out, by 0.02
No swing at it	200 yards	3.870	3.800	Chip out, by 0.07
No swing at it	220 yards	3.920	3.800	Chip out, by 0.12

The lie decides it, not the distance. From 220 in the rough, advancing is worth 0.27 of a stroke over laying up, because 3.53 already includes the times it goes badly, and a lay up spends a certain shot to avoid an average one. It only flips when you have no swing at the ball: from a recovery lie at 220, chipping out wins by 0.12, and the lay up leaves 2.80 from 100.

Four rules that get you there

Never take on trouble. Off the tee, off the deck, anywhere. At 2.05 strokes a penalty is worth more than any two good holes you are likely to make.
From the rough, advance. Chip out only when you genuinely have no swing at the ball. The table above is the reason, and it is the opposite of what you have been told.
Play every par 5 as a par 6. Three comfortable shots and a pitch is a bogey. Two heroic ones is usually a seven.
Aim at the middle, always. You are not trying to hole anything. You are trying to reach 99, and the middle of the green does that.

What is deliberately not on this page. The published expected strokes tables begin at 20 yards and are flat below it, so chipping and pitching cannot be priced from them. Every number here is a full shot or a putt. Other pages will tell you exactly what a chip is worth; that number has to be invented, and this one is not going to invent it.

Frequently asked questions

What handicap is breaking 100?

Roughly 27 or 28 on a par 72. In practice it is a golfer who plays some holes perfectly respectably and loses six or eight strokes on three or four of them.

Do you need pars to break 100?

No, not one. Nine bogeys and nine double bogeys is 99. That is the single most useful fact for a golfer stuck in the low hundreds, because it moves the goal from making good holes to removing terrible ones.

What is the fastest way to break 100?

Stop taking penalty strokes. A tee shot out of bounds costs over two strokes on its own, which is more than any other single mistake in golf. Remove two of those and most of the gap closes.

Should you lay up if you are in the rough?

Usually not, and this is where the common wisdom is wrong. The published tables say advancing from the rough beats laying up at 180, 200 and 220 yards, because the expected strokes from rough already include the bad outcomes while a lay up spends a certain shot. Chip out only when you have no swing at the ball.

How many golfers break 100?

Most golfers who play regularly get there, and a large number never do. The ones who do not are usually not short of ability; they are losing whole strokes to penalties and second bad shots that never had to be played.

Should I use a driver if I am trying to break 100?

Only on holes where a miss cannot cost you a stroke. The driver is not the problem; out of bounds is. If the trouble is only down one side, the club that keeps the ball away from it is worth more than the yards.

By The PinFlag Team.

Put a number on it

PinFlag prices the shot in front of you on the hole you are playing, so the tee shot that could cost 2.05 has a number on it while you can still hit the other club.

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