How To Break 70 - The 70 Percent Golfer Model Will Show You How to Break Par in Golf Tournaments

In our opinion if you’re not training your golf skills to learn how to break 70 and perform under pressure, then the real question is what are you training them for?

Our aim at Pro Tour Golf College is to train our students to become what we call the ‘70 percent golfer.’ The 70 Percent Golfer is a golfer who can accomplish or even exceed a 70 percent score average in four key performance categories in training and then transfer them into lower golf scores in tournaments.

 
Learning how to break 70 in competition is easier to achieve when you have clearly defined your training objectives.

These are three key questions we ask golfers who wish to become top amateurs or touring professionals.

1.      What are your current practice objectives?

2.      What is the overall purpose of your practice?

3.      Where do you see your score average in 12 months?

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When we ask these questions to elite amateurs and professional golfers the impression we mostly get is that they don’t have clearly defined objectives with a plan for achieving them.

This will make it almost impossible for any elite level golfer to lower their golf score average to below 70 in a competitive environment on a consistent basis.



At Pro Tour Golf College we have a very simple approach to helping our students learn how to break 70 in competition and become successful professional golfers. In our approach we are mainly focused on improving the high pay-off golf skills.

These are the golf skills that will have the most dramatic effect on helping you to learn how to break 70 in tournaments. We have a very structured way of going about this, which essentially is to take them through three development phases which you can see in the model above.

We describe this model as the Pro Tour Golf College Golfer Performance Platform and this platform helps up to divide our training hours into the areas of the game that are the weakest, and then to formulate the most effective strategy for improving their golf score average in competition.

Every golfer in the PTGC program is at different levels within these platforms and they each have a development strategy and structure for improving their skills to move towards their goal of learning how to break par consistently.

Basically our platforms describe the following.

1.     The Capability Platform...........Technical skill development

2.     The Confidence Platform.........Mental/Emotional skill development

3.     The Competition Platform.......Strategic skill development

You’ll notice that the pyramid is inverted and the reason for this is that we usually begin by developing the technical skills of golfers in our program to the level where the student develops a high level of confidence in executing their golf skills under increasing pressure which they ultimately learn to transfer into golf tournaments.

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How do we decide what the high pay-off skills are that need to be developed? At Pro Tour Golf College we have developed the 70 Percent Golfer Model to help our students to understand where their game is currently and then where they have to take it too to become a successful touring golfer.

The 70 Percent Golfer is our training and performance model at Pro Tour Golf College that helps us to define for our students what the minimum required performance standard is for becoming a successful touring professional.

We believe that when you understand the numbers that are relevant and important in your game it will help you to drive your performance in the right direction---to a lower golf score average.

In our program at Pro Tour Golf College out of the twenty five to thirty hours that we train our students each week 75 percent of those hours is spent developing shots played within 100 yards of the green and on the green, and just twenty five percent is focused on developing the long game skills.

There is a huge emphasis on ‘perfect golf swing technique,’ in golf culture - especially at the elite end of the golf spectrum, and our approach at PTGC is just the opposite. In-fact we embrace the opposite and teach our students to do the same.

In our opinion most of the failure of elite amateurs and golf professionals to find their way to break 70 in competition consistently is because of their almost obsessive compulsion to develop their golf swing.

Fairways and greens hit in regulation - the ball striking component in golfer development is important as part of an overall training approach to developing a lower score average, however in our 70 percent model it is only twenty five percent of the 70 percent golfer model.

You need to define your destination and design the most suitable pathway for you to achieve the scoring average that leads you to competitive results in tournaments when you play under pressure. Spend too much time on any one area of the game and you could very well reach a plateau with your scores.

What are your numbers in these four categories at the moment? Do you know? Using the blank model below fill it out your current average in the four categories by drawing a line on the percentage point where you think you skills are currently.


How do you work it out? In Pro Tour Golf College our students do it this way...This is an example to give you an idea of how you can work out where you are on the 70 percent golfer model.

Putts Made from 3 to 12 Feet

• Putts made from 3 feet = 97 out of 100

• Putts made from 6 feet = 65 out of 100

• Putts made from 9 feet = 52 out of 100

• Putts made from 12 feet = 43 out of 100

Total of 97 + 65 + 52 + 43 = 257 divided by 4 = 64.25
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Fairways and Greens Hit in Regulation (Ball Striking Category)

• 100 tee shots (driver, 3 wood, hybrid) to a target 25 yards wide on the driving range/practice fairway = 57

• 100 irons shots to targets from 10 yards to 20 yards wide on the driving range/practice fairway ranging from 110 yards to 190 yards  = 48 (ball must travel 95 percent of the distance to count)
  

Total of 57 + 48 = 105 divided by 2 = 52.50
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Up and Downs From Less Than 30 Yards

• 100 chip shots from 15 to 100 feet into 6 foot zone = 73

• 100 pitch shots from 15 to 100 feet into 6 foot zone = 55

• 100 lob shots from 15 to 50 feet into 6 foot zone = 46

• 100 sand shots from 15 to 50 feet into 6 foot zone = 37

• 100 trouble shots from 15 to 100 feet into 6 foot zone = 29

Total of 73 + 55 + 46 + 37 + 29 = 240 divided by 5  = 48
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Wedge Approach Shots Less than 100 Yards

• 100 wedge shots from 20 yards to 30 yards into 6 foot zone = 64

• 100 wedge shots from 30 yards to 40 yards into 6 foot zone = 59

• 100 wedge shots from 40 yards to 50 yards into 6 foot zone = 62

• 100 wedge shots from 50 yards to 60 yards into 6 foot zone = 47

• 100 wedge shots from 60 yards to 70 yards into 6 foot zone = 40

• 100 wedge shots from 70 yards to 80 yards into 6 foot zone = 33

• 100 wedge shots from 80 yards to 90 yards into 6 foot zone = 28

• 100 wedge shots from 90 yards to 100 yards into 6 foot zone = 25

Total of 64 + 59 + 62 + 47 + 40 + 33 + 28 + 25 = 358 divided by 44.75
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Now add the four category's together
64.25
52.50
48.0
44.75
209.5 divided by 4 = 52.37

If you drew lines close to 70 percent in the four categories then you are a great golfer and will become a successful touring golfer.

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If you’re low in any area go to work on improving it today. Also you might want to look at the percentages on this test as a question of how much time you actually spend (or don't spend) in any of these key skill areas. 

If you're spending too much time in one area maybe you should develop a new strategy that encompasses more time in the other areas so that in the days, weeks and months ahead you discover that you’re making progress towards breaking 70 in golf tournaments consistently.

Lawrie Montague and David Milne - Pro Tour Golf College 
The Professional Golf Tour Training College

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