How to Break 80 in Golf Consistently (Proven Tips + a 5-Week Practice Plan)

Breaking 80 consistently is hard work.

There are some key skills that need to be developed in order to learn how to break 80 in golf and then do it on a daily or weekly basis.

Shooting 78 one time is too much of a tease. If you have done it once, you can do it again.

We will show you the key skills you are missing, some great drills to work on, and how you can start breaking 80 in golf consistently.

How to Break 80 in Golf (Key Takeaways)

To break 80 in golf, you have to develop a course management plan, be in good physical condition, understand the role of the wrists in the golf swing, and work on hitting fairways and greens in regulation, but most importantly, you have to change your mindset on the golf course.

Here are the six most important things you can do to break 80 in golf:

• Develop a practice plan.
• Set a goal that you can achieve (you can do this in pieces).
• Learn to control the clubface using the proper wrist positioning.
• Strengthen your mental game.
• Know how to react when the plans change.
• Dedicate the time.

How to Break 80 in Golf Consistently

Every golfer and golf professional goes about the process of breaking 80 differently.

However, these important steps in learning how to break 80 will all happen at some point in the process.

Know Your Game

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Do you know how far you hit each of your clubs? Not how far you want to hit them or how far you should hit them, but how far they all go.
• Do you know what your miss is?
• How about your strengths and your weaknesses?

To break 80 consistently, you have to dive deeply into who you are as a player, what makes your game great, and what makes it not so great.

Begin taking notes after each practice session and maintain a journal of your data.

The key is to identify what parts of your game need the most work. You’ll also probably want to start looking at strokes gained data to know exactly what to practice.

Eliminate Penalty Strokes

Breaking 80 gets a lot harder when your tee shot goes OB or finds water. Want fewer penalty strokes?

Start with better driver control. Your wrists control the clubface.

The best players follow a consistent wrist pattern – slight extension at setup, flexion at impact. That’s how they hit it straighter and keep big numbers off the card.

Here’s a quick drill to help ensure better wrist and body action for better drives and less penalty strokes:

Control the Clubface

When you first started playing, it probably felt like you were just swinging a club, grip it, rip it, and hoping for the best. It might’ve even felt like baseball or hockey.

But as you improve, the focus shifts. It’s not just about swinging the club; it’s about what the clubface is doing at impact.

If you want to break 80, that’s where your attention needs to be.

• The clubface angle at impact (square, open, or closed) determines your shot shape.
• That angle is controlled by your wrists.
• Golfers who break 80 consistently understand and manage this relationship.

Check the Equipment

At this level, small equipment mismatches show up as missed greens and inconsistent distances, not terrible shots. A quick launch-monitor check can confirm whether your clubs support repeatable launch, spin, and start direction.

If something is off, simple adjustments to shaft profile, lie angle, or loft can tighten dispersion and improve distance control often without replacing what’s already in your bag.

Check	Why It Matters
Launch & spin	Predictable carry and stopping power
Dispersion	More greens, fewer recovery shots
Lie angle	Controls start direction
Gapping	Clean distances, especially wedges

Improve Physical Fitness

Today’s PGA Tour players are stronger, more flexible, and more physically prepared than ever and for good reason.

When your body moves well and stays pain-free, golf gets easier. You’ll have more energy on the back nine, more speed off the tee, and a better chance of staying consistent from the first hole to the last.

In this video below, you’ll find five simple exercises that can help you move better and play better.

Mental Game Improvement on the Course

The better you get at golf, the more influential the mental game becomes.

PGA Tour golfers can all hit the ball far and straight, but the ones with the better mental game can win week in and week out.

To consistently break 80, you must focus your mental game around being positive and only allowing positive thoughts on the golf course.

These are my top tips for how to improve your mental game to perform better on the course.

• Always stay positive, regardless of the shot you hit, you will always make a few poor swings. Move on from them and make the next shot better.
• Overcome your fears. Head out to the golf course late in the afternoon, go to all of the spots that you find to be the most difficult, and overcome your fears.
• Control your emotions, no club throwing, no lashing out. Take a deep breath and move on.
• Visualize each shot and tell yourself that you can pull it off. Positive self-talk and visualization, combined, are quite powerful.

Start Placing Your Tee Shots

To make approach shots easier, you need control over your shot shape.

That starts with better backswing mechanics and face control.

Here’s a quick drill to help you create a more square clubface and eliminate the weak slice:

Make the Same Putting Stroke Every Time

Take a closer look at your putting stroke, from one hole to the next, or one round to the next. If you’re like most golfers, there’s some inconsistency, and it usually comes from the wrists.

Even pros have minor wrist movement in the stroke. The difference? They keep it consistent.

After analyzing over 1,000,000 putting strokes, we’ve found that the best putters repeat their wrist action with minimal variation, and that’s what leads to better roll, direction, and speed control.

Here’s a quick drill to help you quiet the wrists and improve your stroke:

Leave Yourself Uphill Putts

The easiest putts to make in golf are uphill. If you’re trying to break 80 consistently, make it a priority to leave yourself uphill putts whenever possible.

When approaching a green, don’t just aim at the pin, use a GPS or rangefinder to identify a smart landing area that gives you the best chance for an uphill look. That might mean aiming slightly short, long, left, or right of the flag.

As you get closer to the green, especially on chips and pitches, take the time to plan your landing spot.

One of the simplest and most effective strategies:

Walk up to the hole, find your ideal landing area, and walk back to your ball. For anything inside 15–20 yards, it’s a small effort that can lead to lower scores.

Be Aggressive When It Makes Sense

Aggressive golf can get you in trouble. However, making a birdie or two in a round is a really great way to keep your score under 80. There are times when getting aggressive makes sense.

Here are a few things to walk through in your mind before you play the aggressive shot.

• Do you trust the yardage?
• Is there trouble?
• What is the lie?

If you trust the yardage, the trouble is nowhere near where you normally hit it, and you have a clean lie, go ahead and get aggressive. Fire at a pin and see if you can hit it close.

As long as your aggressiveness doesn’t cost you that double bogey, pull it out when the time is right.

Vary the Shots You Hit Around the Greens

If you want to break 80 consistently, you can’t treat every wedge shot the same.

Better players control trajectory and contact, and that comes down to understanding how your wrists and wedge bounce work together.

• Lower, running wedge shots: Shorter swing, quieter wrists, and a stable lead wrist through impact. This keeps the ball down and lets the bounce skim the turf instead of digging.
• Higher, softer wedge shots: More hinge going back and a little more lead-wrist extension through impact. That keeps the face from shutting down, adds loft, and helps the bounce work for you, especially from tight lies.

Part of being able to break 80 includes learning to vary the flight of your shots, trusting your setup and wrist structure and understanding how to manipulate the face to produce shots that you want.

Use Technology

When you’re trying to break 80 consistently, technology isn’t about chasing perfect numbers. It’s about understanding why certain shots keep showing up and whether those misses are coming from decision-making, ball flight, or strike.

A rangefinder or GPS is already a given at this level. Where technology becomes more useful is in showing patterns you can’t see during a round and confirming what’s actually happening when you practice.

Helpful tools to consider:

• Shot tracking to see where you’re losing strokes over time, not just on bad days
• Launch monitors to understand ball flight, launch, and spin when distances or trajectories don’t match expectations
• HackMotion to check how wrist angles are influencing clubface control at key points in the swing, especially when impact consistency or start direction becomes an issue

HackMotion has built in drills to help make practice sessions both more entertaining and more beneficial.

Smart Decisions Lead to Lower Scores

Breaking 80 usually has less to do with making birdies and more to do with avoiding doubles.

Players aren’t firing at every pin or chasing something that isn’t there. They’re hitting the percentage shot, keeping the ball in play, and taking bogey when a hole goes sideways.

A few simple decisions go a long way:

• Aim for the middle of the green, not the flag. Even the best players do this more often than people think. Center-green targets turn average swings into safe outcomes.
• Get the ball back in play first when you’re in trouble. Trying to pull off a low-percentage recovery is how one bad shot turns into two.
• Don’t chase birdies. Breaking 80 comes from limiting doubles, not stacking five birdies in a round. Par shows up naturally when you give yourself enough chances.
• Choose clubs that remove trouble, especially off the tee. Position beats distance when you’re protecting a score.

Golfers who shoot in the 70s still miss fairways and greens they just miss them in places that help them save par or at worst make a bogey.

A Structured Practice Plan to Break 80 Consistently

Breaking 80 consistently requires more than just working on your swing. At this level, improvement comes from refining impact, tightening dispersion, and practicing in a way that holds up under pressure.

This practice plan is designed for golfers who already have a functional swing and want to turn low-80s rounds into consistent trips into the 70s.

You’ll practice two times per week for 45 minutes, focusing on the areas that most often separate single-digit golfers from everyone else.

This is a five-week plan, and each week outlines the exact focus for both practice sessions that week.

Rather than jumping between drills every session, you’ll repeat the same priorities twice to build consistency. After five weeks, assess where strokes are still leaking and repeat the weeks that matter most for your game.

Weekly Warm-Up (Use Before Every Practice Session)

Use this same warm-up before each session to prepare your body and timing before focused work.

Total time: 5–7 minutes

• Light movement (1–2 minutes): Loosen shoulders, hips, and upper back with simple rotations and stretches.
• Short swings (2 minutes): Easy half-swings with a wedge or short iron. Focus on balance and centered contact.
• Build to smooth full swings (2–3 minutes): Gradually lengthen your swing and add speed only as your body feels ready. No max effort.

Putting Focus (Included Every Week)

Breaking 80 consistently comes down to eliminating careless three-putts and making more putts inside 8 feet. At this level, the issue is rarely green reading, it’s stroke consistency.

Use putting practice to focus on repeating the same stroke under pressure.

• Monitor lead-wrist flexion and extension with HackMotion.
• The goal is consistency, not zero movement.
• A repeatable wrist pattern leads to better roll, speed control, and start line.

Week 1: Impact Efficiency & Start Direction

Goal: Tighten dispersion and reduce penalty strokes

• Use the HackMotion Motorcycle Drill to improve lead-wrist control and impact efficiency.
• Pair the Motorcycle Drill with the Release Drill to blend face control and speed.
• Focus on consistent start direction rather than curvature.
• Hit controlled tee shots prioritizing accuracy over swing speed.
• Practice mid-iron shots to center-green targets.
• Putting: lag putting from 20–40 feet to reduce three-putts.
• On the course: choose tee clubs that take trouble out of play.

Week 2: Wrist Position at the Top & Flight Control

Goal: Improve predictable ball flight with long clubs

• Practice the HackMotion Top Drill to refine wrist position at the top of the backswing.
• Blend the Top Drill into smooth, full-speed swings.
• Work with hybrids and fairway woods off the turf.
• Practice intentional lower and mid-flight shots.
• Focus on trajectory control, not shot shaping.
• Putting: short putts inside 6–8 feet with the same stroke every time.
• On the course: trust flight control instead of manipulating the club late.

Week 3: Low Point Control & Wedge Precision

Goal: Improve scoring inside 120 yards

• Practice partial wedge shots with consistent contact.
• Focus on controlling low point to eliminate thin and heavy misses.
• Work on both lower-running and higher-flighted wedge shots.
• Use HackMotion feedback to maintain wrist structure on shorter swings.
• Putting: use the HackMotion Flexion/Extension Drill to repeat the same stroke.
• On the course: play wedges to safe zones instead of forcing tight pins.

Week 4: Scrambling, Bounce & Recovery Shots

Goal: Turn missed greens into bogeys or pars

• Practice chipping and pitching from tight lies and rough.
• Focus on using wedge bounce instead of digging.
• Hit punch shots and knockdowns with controlled wrist structure.
• Practice recovery shots that advance the ball to safe positions.
• Putting: pressure putting (must-make putts, one-ball drills).
• On the course: accept bogey early instead of forcing low-percentage shots.

Week 5: Scoring Simulation & Pressure Practice

Goal: Prepare skills to hold up on the course

• Mix clubs and shot types randomly during practice.
• Revisit the Motorcycle, Release, and Top Drills.
• Simulate tee shot – approach – short game sequences.
• Practice shots that match the misses you see most often.
• Putting: repeat the Flexion/Extension Drill under pressure.
• On the course: commit to percentage targets and avoid chasing birdies.

Break 80 Practice Plan Recap: Weekly Focus Overview

Week	Primary Focus	Full Swing Priority	Short Game Focus	Putting Focus
Week 1	Impact Efficiency	Motorcycle + Release	–	Lag putting
Week 2	Top Position & Flight	Top Drill	–	Short putts
Week 3	Wedge Precision	Partial swings	Low point control	Stroke consistency
Week 4	Scrambling	Punch shots	Bounce & bad lies	Pressure putts
Week 5	Scoring Simulation	Mixed practice	Up-and-downs	Repeatable stroke

FAQs

Here are a few of the most commonly asked questions about how to break 80 in golf.

How long does it take to break 80 in golf?

For golfers who commit to a practice plan and are serious about shooting lower scores, breaking 80 can happen in one to two years.

However, some people play their entire lives and can never break 80.

What is your handicap if you shoot 80?

Golfers who shoot 80 have a handicap of around 8, and golfers who consistently break 80 have single-digit handicaps.

Is it easy to break 80 in golf?

Breaking 80 in golf is not easy if you have any inconsistency in your game.

Once you develop a consistent swing that hits the center of the clubface often, breaking 80 becomes much easier.

Summary

Hopefully, you now have a better idea of how to break 80 and how your game can change by becoming more intentional and focused.

There is no reason not to start on this project today; start working on your mental strategy, or go hit a few balls with your least favorite club in the bag.

Great golfers put in the work, and now that you have all the details you need to break 80, you can do it too.