How to break 90
A bogey on every hole of a par 72 is 90. So breaking 90 is bogey golf minus 1 shot. Not a better swing, not more distance, not a putting stroke: one hole better than a bogey, eighteen times in a row without a disaster. That is the whole problem, and it is a different problem from the one most golf writing solves.
What the card looks like
89 is 17 over par. There are only a few honest ways to get there without birdies, and seeing them written out is usually the moment it stops feeling impossible:
| Pars | Bogeys | Doubles | Holes | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 17 | 0 | 18 | 89 |
| 4 | 11 | 3 | 18 | 89 |
| 7 | 5 | 6 | 18 | 89 |
Every row totals 89.
The trade that decides it. With no doubles you need 1 par and 17 bogeys. Make 3 doubles and you now need 4 pars. Every double bogey costs three pars, and pars are the hardest thing on this page to produce. That is why avoiding disasters beats chasing good holes.
What a double actually costs
Doubles are not bad luck, they are a small number of specific decisions. Each of these is priced from the published expected strokes tables rather than asserted:
| 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 kinds of mistake cost a full stroke on their own, and neither is a bad swing. The most expensive is a tee shot out of bounds at 2.05 strokes. Two of those is the difference between 89 and 93. Note what is missing from the list: laying up from the rough is not on it, because the tables say advancing wins, which is the opposite of what golfers are usually told.
Where the strokes actually go
A 15 handicap gives up about 16 strokes a round to a tour field. Split by where they are lost, against how many shots each category gets:
Off the tee and approach
10.4
strokes a round, over 14 shots
Short game
3.2
strokes a round, over 7 shots
Putting
2.4
strokes a round, over 30 shots
10.4 of the 16 are lost before the ball is near the green, across just 14 shots. Putting costs 2.4 spread over 30 strokes, which is 0.080 a putt. That is why a month of putting practice barely moves a score and why the range does. The full benchmark tables break every handicap down the same way.
What to do on Saturday
- Take the tee shot that cannot go out of bounds, even if it leaves 40 more yards. At 2.05 strokes, no drive is worth that risk on a hole you are trying to bogey.
- After a bad shot, play to the middle of the green. The recovery attempt is the second shot that turns a bogey into a double.
- Aim at the centre of every green, not the flag. You are trying to two putt, not to make birdies you do not need.
- Take the bogey. Seventeen of them and one par is 89.
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 do you need to break 90?
How long does it take to break 90?
Do you need to make pars to break 90?
What is the fastest way to break 90?
Should I focus on putting to break 90?
By The PinFlag Team.
See the cost before you swing
PinFlag prices the shot in front of you on the hole you are playing, so the tee shot that risks a double has a number on it while you can still choose the other one.