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Isaak Ramsey Golf

@play_ready_golf

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I help busy golfers turn practice into lower scores
Building the Play Ready Golf App
Free practice planning calculator👇

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Most golfers score worse from 80 yards than from 30. Mark Broadie proved it 12 years ago.

His book Every Shot Counts calls laying up to a full swing wedge distance a falsism. The data killed it and golf never got the memo.

Shot Scope’s on-course data backs him up. Lay back from the 25 to 50 yard zone to 75 to 100 and your green hit rate drops at every handicap. Around 10 points for 15 handicaps and up. A 25 handicap falls from a coin flip to 1 in 3. Proximity gets worse too. Even scratch golfers average 27 feet from 75 to 100 yards.

And yes, the half wedge feels awful. Here is the nuance. 25 to 50 is your worst zone compared to chipping range. It still beats laying back. A 15 handicap gets up and down 43% of the time inside 25 yards and 16% from 25 to 50. Both numbers point the same direction. Closer wins at every step.

The rule: get as close to the green as you sensibly can without bringing trouble into play. Your favorite number is a story you tell yourself. Your shortest safe shot is the play.

Sources: Mark Broadie, Every Shot Counts. Shot Scope on-course data by @play_ready_golf

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3 months ago

Nobody taught you how to practice golf.

They taught you how to swing. How to putt. How to chip. But not how to actually get better with the time you have.

Play Ready Golf builds your practice plan around where you actually lose strokes. Pick your time. Pick your space. The app builds the session.

15 minutes with a plan beats an hour without one.

Get your free week in the bio. by @play_ready_golf

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7 months ago

Want to get better at scoring? Practice hitting random shots correctly the first time! Easier said than done… by @play_ready_golf

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7 months ago

There's a gap in your golf game you're never going to close. A 20 handicap pulls 5 iron from 187 yards. Guess how far it goes.

Comment SHOTS and I'll send you my free guide to how close you should be hitting it from every distance.

Data: Arccos, Lou Stagner by @play_ready_golf

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7 hours ago

A 15 handicap breaks 90 about 1 round in 3. So if you're a 15 and you shoot 92, that's not a bad day. It's a normal one.

Comment STATS and I'll send you my free simple stats tracker.

Data: USGA, World Handicap System by @play_ready_golf

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19 hours ago

Comment STATS and I'll DM you my free stat tracker. Follow me first, or the DM gets stuck in your message requests.

In our app, a 5 handicap makes 1.5 doubles a round. A 15 makes 4.9. So which holes turn into doubles?

A penalty: 72% went double or worse
Two or more short game shots: 56%
A three putt: 48%

Here's the part that changes how you play. When our golfers got on or near the green with 2 shots left for par, only 4% went double or worse. When they didn't, it was 37%.

So after a bad shot, your next one has one job: take the easiest path to the green. Bad shots happen. Most doubles don't have to.

Data: Play Ready Golf app, 453 rounds from 127 golfers. by @play_ready_golf

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a day ago

Comment RANGE and I'll DM you my free practice card. Follow me first, or the DM gets stuck in your message requests.

Stanford tested 4 ways to calm down: box breathing, fast breathing, meditation and a cyclic sigh.

The sigh won. It improved mood more than meditation and slowed breathing more (Balban et al., 2023).

How to do it: two breaths in through your nose, then one long breath out through your mouth.

One catch: people in the study did it 5 minutes a day for a month. You don't get better at something without practicing it, so do it in the car before your round, then take one long exhale before your first tee shot.

The card makes your range time feel like the first tee, so the real one isn't a shock. by @play_ready_golf

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2 days ago

Comment YARDS and I'll DM you 4 free speed checks. Follow me first, or the DM gets stuck in your message requests.

A study of 304 golfers at Pinehurst found only 18% warmed up the right way (Fradkin et al., 2008). To count, you needed at least 2 of these 3:
1. Get your heart rate up
2. Stretch for golf
3. Make some real swings

A real warm-up matters. In a smaller study of 20 golfers, clubhead speed went up 12.8% the first time they tested after starting a warm-up routine (Fradkin et al., 2004).

But a warm-up can't give you speed you don't already have. Mike Carroll from Fit For Golf gave me a check for each of the 4 areas that could be holding yours back. Warm up the speed you have, then go find the speed you don't. by @play_ready_golf

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2 days ago

Comment STATS and I'll DM you my free stat tracker. Follow me first, or the DM gets stuck in your message requests.

Fairways hit is the stat golfers love to track, but it barely separates scratch from a 15 handicap. Shot Scope has it at 50% vs 48%.

Here's where the gap actually shows up:
Penalty strokes: about 0.5 a round for scratch, about 2.5 for a 15
Doubles: 1.5 a round for a 5 handicap, 4.9 for a 15 (from our app)

That doesn't mean your tee shot doesn't matter. It means the question isn't "did I hit the fairway?" It's "did I stay on the course with a clean second shot at the green?"

The tracker has that stat in place of fairways hit, plus 3 other simple ones that show where your shots are really going. by @play_ready_golf

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3 days ago

Comment WEEK and I'll DM you my free 45-minute practice week. Follow me first, or the DM gets stuck in your message requests.

40 yards out, tucked pin. If you're a 15 handicap, aim at the middle of the green, not the flag.

In our app, when a pitch from 25 to 50 yards found the green, 19% of those holes still went double or worse. When it missed the green, it jumped to 60%.

And Shot Scope has a 15 handicap getting up and down from that distance just 16% of the time. So unless you're a great wedge player, the green is the goal and the flag is a bonus.

The practice week is three 15-minute scored sessions, and one of them, Up and Down 9, is built for exactly this shot. by @play_ready_golf

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3 days ago

Comment TIME and I'll DM you my free practice planner. Follow me first, or the DM gets stuck in your message requests.

If you only get 2 hours a week, here's how I'd rate the way most golfers spend it, for scoring:

Bucket of drivers, no target: 2/10
Same 7 iron, 20 in a row: 3/10 (a 7 for swing work, but a 3 for scoring)
New club and new target every ball: 8/10, even though it feels worse
Keeping score: 10/10

Why does the messy one win? Shea and Morgan (1979) found the group that repeated one thing looked better in practice, but the mixed group did better on the later test. It was a lab study, not golf, but it's the same reason your range swing doesn't always show up on Saturday.

And if you don't keep score, you'll never know if your 2 hours worked. by @play_ready_golf

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4 days ago

Comment RANGE and I'll DM you my free 9 Hole Range Card. Follow me first, or the DM gets stuck in your message requests.

Your first tee nerves won't get fixed on the first tee. But they should be gone by your second shot.

I finished 4th at the Ohio Mid-Am, and I had the same nerves I've had in events where I finished near last. So what changed? For 18 months, I practiced less than ever, but every single ball had one target and a score.

So the first tee wasn't a shock, because I'd been practicing with pressure the whole time. The more real your practice feels, the easier real golf gets.

The card gives every range ball a club, a target, a shape and a score. by @play_ready_golf

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4 days ago