So if you have a goal to improve your scores, first work out what your personal par is for a course. Use your handicap or an average of your last five scores. Then have a look at these scores and work out how many birdies, pars,bogeys, double bogeys or worse you have.

Eliminating your bad holes is usually the best way to reduce your scores. Work out how many tee shots you hit in the fairway, greens you hit in regulation, up and downs, total putts, putts per green in regulation, number of greens you can hit from 100 and 50 metres, and sand saves. Then set goals for improvement in each area.

If you are 18 handicap or above and your scores are over 90, your green in regulation calculation will be one more as your par score is really a bogey.

Next, work out how well you can play shots to targets. If you know your percentages of success with certain shots, it will help your decision making on the course. You will avoid the high risk shots that if missed will put you in areas where you face a difficult shot with a low success rate and therefore make higher scores than taking a conservative approach.

If you see that there are shots that are difficult for you or you see areas that need improvement, then you can start to set technique goals. The better your fundamentals, the more consistent your game will be. Then there are small adjustments to the way you play a shot that add variations to help in certain situations.

You might go to your pro to find out some new shots or play with better players and ask them. Wherever you get your knowledge, you'll need to do some practice to master them. So that's the next area to set your goals.

What are you going to practice? How long are you going to practice? Where are you going to practice? How can you tell if the practice is working? That's a lot to keep track of, but it is the only way to get better.

There are lots of books on golf which give you a better idea of where your game is at and help you decide what to work on.