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I want to get down to a 2 or lower this year.

Good on you for making full-swing progress! This is one of the ways statistics can be mis-used. Its one thing to understand general trends, but YOUR choices should be made to address YOUR specific weaknesses. It sounds like you're doing exactly that!

Last season, I started as a 9, played the best golf of my life and finished the season at 1.4. i would like to get to scratch, and will keep working towards that, but if I finish this season under 5, I would consider it a successful year. Any season under 5 is a successful season.

One of the biggest things I am focusing on this off-season is getting the feel of my approach wedge shots dialed in from 25, 35, 45, etc. yards. @GolfSpy_BEN recently gave me that advice during a conversation about my wanting to continue progressing on a positive trajectory with my game. It can get tedious, but that is the type of work that brings scores down.

Realistic hdcp goal for 2024 is a 12-13, massive success goal is 10.

I see a little contradiction here. You lost strokes due to poor play off the tee, but you've been told that short game practice is the most valuable. Something that the Strokes Gained research has shown is that the difference between two "classes" of golfers is about 2/3 full swing, and about 1/3 short game and putting. That's a statistical thing, it definitely doesn't apply to every single player, but its something to keep in mind as you allocate your practice time. On the other hand, you can hit 50 putts a lot quicker than you can hit 50 full swings, and progress is generally faster with putting. I'd suggest that you'll find your biggest gains with full swing instruction and practice, but its also the toughest improvement to make.

Honestly, since I don't know my HC yet (almost) but guessing it is near as high as it can get, I would like to see marked improvements through longer distance holes to improve my handicap. But as far as an actual number, somewhere between 25-35 sits nice for me first year.

I should have clarified that early in the 2023 season, my biggest penalty came off the tee box. I made significant progress in that aspect by the end of the season to where losing balls, and therefore strokes, was significantly reduced. Now that doesn't mean that I don't still duff/shank a tee shot, but it's much less frequent than when I had started out last year. I still work on my full swing as I can absolutely become more consistent with my iron striking, but as I do find myself missing GIRs and having approaches and chips inside 50 yards frequently, I would like to get to a point where those shots become an automatic feel. So being able to get to the point where I don't necessarily have to think about how long my backswing should be for a given distance. I do see how that statement does contradict itself, though.

Yeah I play a smaller 9 hole right now and around the 45 yard range leveled me. I could get to that point from the tee pretty well, but after that, I was digging graves for the ball because I wasn't practicing it. Another solid tip from the spies for sure.

Good question. I had a really interesting season last year. I injured my ankle and had a severe high ankle sprain for about 3 months right in the middle of the season. I refused to stop playing, which was probably a mistake. I had to adjust to be able to generate power because I didn't have the lower body power I normally have. So my normal swing just went bye-bye. I was still scoring ok, but developed some really bad things like stance issues, launch angle problems, and grip and alignment changes. When I was finally feeling better I started using my lower body the way I normally do, but because I had to make adjustments during the injury I had to readjust back to normal. That was super hard. My grip had changed, my launch point was different, my stance was out of whack and my alignment was off. It took a good month to get back to normal. If you look at my scoring history you can see where the scores got crazy. After a lot of thought about handicap goals, I am not as concerned about lowering my handicap as I am about being more consistent than I was last season.

Thanks man. I like the idea of working from the inside out. I have been focusing on my iron swings which has seen improvement but then yesterday on the course, my wedges/approach and putting was killing me. I had decided last night instead of focusing on the range to spend more time in the practice area. Great advice! And you shaved on 14.2, very nice. I hope to see you progress this year as well!

I started last year at 30.3 and worked my way down to a 16.1. It can be done! My biggest hurdles were penalty strokes due to not being able to keep the ball in play off the tee and missing greens on Par 3s (still working on this one). Many, many members here give me the same advice. Start at the green and work your way out. Putting and short game practice can get monotonous, but you can save so many strokes by eliminating/limiting three putts. Another thing that helped me play more freely was to not get so hung up on hitting greens in regulation, because most times, and still frequently enough, I do not. Being able to get myself close enough to the pin from 50 and in where I only need two putts, though, is huge. When we are in that higher range of the handicap chart, playing bogey golf equates to a 90. Looking forward to hearing how you progress this year!

My handicap goal is to be consistent enough to not have it fluctuate between the courses I play. I'd like to keep my scores within 5-7 strokes total per round difference. Right now I'm at a 23/24. I'd like to get to around 20-21 at both places.

I too dislike the word "potential" in this context, what the system calculates is a measure of your "pretty good" play. To me, "potential" might be based on your single best score from the past ______ scores, or the past _____ months. Why look at something better than "average", why calculate "pretty good" instead? Do you expect to win anything by playing average? Don't you expect to have to play "pretty good" to have a chance? To me its perfectly logical to base your handicap index on the scores that actually have a chance to win, and throw out the clear "losers".

Gotcha. As I mentioned, the official recommendation is to take 35% of the low and 15% of the high for a scramble. Fourball stroke play should be 85%, fourball match play at 90%. They do suggest that for small fields the handicaps shouldn't be reduced as much, perhaps 90 or 95% would be appropriate for fourball stroke play. For match play, the low handicapper gets no strokes, and the rest get the difference. None of these are requirements, just suggestions based on analysis of millions of rounds of posted scores. Again, this is all presented in Appendix C to the Handicapping Rules. You're free to do whatever you choose, but those recommendations are a good starting point.

When we do our annual guys trip in August we do a team event format and we take 60% of the low handicap and 40% of the high handicap to create a team handicap. We do this because we know the lower handicap player will carry most of the weight. Not sure if this is an “official” way of doing it but one of our guys is a former PGA pro (now he owns a bar in Omaha but still a scratch golfer) and it was his idea. Figure he knows a thing or two about this stuff.