Butch Harmon has long been regarded as one of the top coaches in golf, having spent decades alongside some of the game’s biggest names.
He’s held in high esteem across the sport, with many elite players seeking him out when they need to sort out specific parts of their game.
Tommy Fleetwood is a recent example. He turned to Harmon for help with his driving, and the 82-year-old’s input made a noticeable difference in Fleetwood’s form.
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Over the course of his career, Harmon has worked with a who’s who of golf legends, including Tiger Woods, Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson.
These days, he isn’t as active on the coaching circuit. Instead, he spends more time sharing his thoughts on various issues within professional golf.
Harmon even called on the PGA Tour to address slow play more aggressively following Patrick Cantlay’s deliberate pace at last week’s Tour Championship.
While he does occasionally take on commentary roles, his real passion has always been coaching. So for amateur golfers looking to improve their game, there are few better sources of advice than Butch Harmon.
Butch Harmon tells amateur golfers the fastest way to lower their scores
What makes Harmon such a standout coach is his ability to keep things straightforward. He’s not one to overhaul a player’s swing, preferring instead to make small adjustments that add up over time.
This time, he’s offered up some advice for amateurs looking to bring their scores down. Harmon pointed out that 65 per cent of shots in a round come from inside 100 yards – wedges, chips, bunker play and putting all count.
He said: “You know, I’m asked this all the time by club golfers. ‘What do I need to do to improve’? ‘What do I need to do better’?
“If you think about it, 65 per cent of the shots you hit during the course of a round are from under 100 yards – wedge shots, chip shots, bunker shots, putting.“If your long game never improved and you improved your short game, you would shoot four or five shots lower every time you play.”
How a golfer with an 18 handicap stacks up against a scratch player
Arccos Golf ran a thorough analysis comparing the stats of the average club golfer to those of a scratch player. The findings showed clear differences between the two levels, especially in key areas around the course.
For example, scratch golfers hit about 56% of greens in regulation, while that figure drops to just 23% for players with an 18 handicap.
From within 25 yards, scratch golfers get up and down roughly 57% of the time. For those off 18, it’s only 26%.
Poor putting also adds up quickly. The average three-putt count is 3.7 per round for an 18-handicapper compared to just 1.3 for a scratch player.
The gap between these two groups is already big enough, and when you compare scratch players to PGA Tour pros, that gap widens even further.
This all backs up Harmon’s point: focusing on your game inside 100 yards can make a real difference faster than any new driver ever could.
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