The Cog: The Scorecard Paradox

Dear Golfers,

Let me ask you something. When you finish a round, what's the first number you look at? Your total score, right? Maybe you glance at how many putts you had or whether you hit any fairways. Then you either feel good about yourself or terrible, post something vague on social media about "working on my game," and move on with your life.

Here's the problem. Your score is lying to you.

I don't mean you're cheating (unless you are, in which case we need to talk). I mean that your final number is giving you almost zero useful information about whether you actually played well or not. You can shoot 78 and play brilliantly. You can shoot 78 and play like a clumsy beginner who just discovered golf clubs exist. Same score, completely different rounds, totally different trajectories for your future performance.

This week we're diving into something I call the Scorecard Paradox, and I'm going to show you exactly how I track my rounds to actually understand what happened out there. Spoiler alert: it's not just about counting strokes.

Walk into any clubhouse after a round and listen to the conversations. "Shot 82 today." "Had a 76." "Couldn't break 90." Every single conversation is about the final number like it's some kind of sacred truth about how you played.

But here's what that number doesn't tell you. Did you shoot 82 because you hit 16 greens and chipped poorly three times? Or did you shoot 82 because you hit 8 greens and somehow scrambled like your life depended on it? Those are completely different rounds with completely different implications for your game.

Mark Broadie, the Columbia Business School professor who invented Strokes Gained analysis, discovered something fascinating when he studied millions of golf shots. The final score is actually a terrible indicator of skill level or future performance. What matters is how you lost or gained strokes, and whether those patterns are repeatable or just random luck. Like finding out your "good swing" was actually just a happy accident that you'll never replicate.

Two golfers can shoot identical scores while one is trending toward major improvement and the other is spiraling toward disaster. The score doesn't tell you which one you are. This is the scorecard paradox.

After years of trying to figure out why some rounds felt great despite bad scores and some rounds felt terrible despite decent scores, I developed a system that tracks six specific things on every hole:

1. Score (obviously) 2. In Play? (Did I avoid penalties and stay in play, or did I visit the woods/water/OB?) 3. GIR (Greens in regulation) 4. Chips (How many chips or pitches around the green) 5. Putts (How many putts per hole) 6. Mental Process (This is the key one we'll dive into)

Most of these are standard stats you've probably tracked before. But Mental Process is different, and it's the most important number on my entire scorecard.

Here's how it works. Mental Process is a number that represents how many shots on that hole I fully executed my mental routine on. If I make bogey (5) on a par 4, but my Mental Process score is 4, that means I went through my complete pre-shot routine and mental process on four of those five shots. One shot I rushed, or got distracted, or didn't commit, or let my brain go rogue.

If my Mental Process score is 5 and I made bogey, that's actually perfect. That's A plus golf. I executed my mental game on every single shot. The physical execution just didn't match up that hole, but that's okay because I controlled what I could control.

If my Mental Process score is 3 and I made bogey, that's a massive red flag. I mentally fell apart twice on that hole and only survived because I got lucky or scrambled.

This distinction changes everything.

Here's what makes this scorecard system so powerful. When you track all six categories, every single hole tells you a complete story about what actually happened out there. Not just the final number, but the entire narrative of your mental and physical performance.

Let me show you what I mean with a real example from one of my scorecards:

Hole 7, Par 4, Score: 5 (bogey)

This hole tells a complete story. I hit my drive in play (didn't go OB or into hazards). I missed the green in regulation but stayed out of trouble. I chipped once and two-putted for bogey. And most importantly, my Mental Process score of 5 means I executed my full mental routine on all five shots.

What's the story here? I played smart, controlled golf. I didn't hit the green, but I stayed in play, made a good decision on my approach, executed a solid chip, and finished with confident putting. This is A plus mental golf even though I made bogey.

Now imagine a different hole with the exact same score of 5, but the stats look like this: In Play: No, GIR: No, Chips: 0, Putts: 1, Mental Process: 3. That's a completely different story. That's probably an OB drive, a scramble to get on the green, a one putt to save bogey, and only 3 shots where I actually executed my mental routine. That's the golf equivalent of showing up to an exam having not studied and somehow guessing your way to a C. Sure, you passed, but you're definitely failing the next one.

Same score. Completely different narratives. One predicts future success. One predicts future disaster.

When you track all six categories, you can reconstruct exactly what happened on every hole weeks later. More importantly, you can see patterns. If most of your holes show Mental Process matching your score with high In Play percentages, you're playing championship level mental golf regardless of your total score. If your holes show low Mental Process scores with penalties and scrambling, you're playing survival golf and getting lucky when you score well.

Let me give you a real example. Last month I played a round where I shot 84. Pretty decent score for me, right? Except when I looked at my scorecard, my Mental Process scores were all over the place. On 8 holes, my Mental Process score was 2 or more shots below my actual score. That means I was mentally checking out, rushing shots, not committing to targets, basically playing golf on autopilot and getting bailed out by decent ball striking.

Two weeks later, I shot 88. Worse score, worse round, right? Wrong. My Mental Process scores were nearly perfect. On 14 of 18 holes, my Mental Process matched my actual score. I was mentally locked in, executing my routine, making good decisions. The ball just didn't cooperate that day.

Guess which round predicted better future performance? The 88. Within three rounds, I shot 81, my best score ever, because my mental process was dialed in. The 84? That was fool's gold. I was playing sloppy mental golf and getting away with it.

Research by Dr. Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott, who've worked with LPGA Tour players for decades, shows that mental execution quality is a better predictor of future scoring than current scoring patterns. Players who maintain high mental discipline during poor scoring rounds tend to break through quickly. Players who score well with poor mental discipline tend to regress hard.

Your Mental Process score is basically your golf future talking to you. Listen to it.

Here's where this system gets really interesting. The gap between your Mental Process score and your actual score reveals exactly what's happening with your game.

Mental Process MATCHES score: This is A plus golf. You made 5, executed your routine 5 times. Perfect mental discipline. This is what you're chasing every round.

Mental Process LOWER than score: Danger zone. You made 5 but only executed your mental routine 3 times? You're getting away with mental laziness, and it will catch up with you.

I track this gap religiously. If I shoot 84 with Mental Process matching my scores on most holes, that's championship mental golf. If I shoot 81 with an average gap of minus-2, I might have shot my best score ever, but I'm actually in trouble.

Now let's talk about the stupidest thing most golfers do. They look at their score constantly during the round, calculate what they need to shoot on remaining holes, and basically guarantee they'll play worse on the back nine.

Dr. Gabriele Wulf's research on attentional focus shows that internal monitoring (focusing on results and scores) significantly impairs motor performance compared to external focus (focusing on target and process). When you're doing math on your scorecard trying to figure out if you can still break 80, your brain isn't focused on the next shot. It's focused on outcome anxiety.

I don't look at my total score until I'm done. Not because I'm being disciplined or fancy. Because looking at it makes me play worse, and I have the data to prove it.

Here's what happens when you look at your score mid-round. Let's say you're at plus-3 through 10 holes. Your brain immediately starts calculating. "If I can play the next 8 at plus-6, I'll shoot 81. But that means I can only bogey six more holes and need two pars. Better play safe." Congratulations, you just switched from playing golf to playing not-to-lose golf, and your score is about to fall apart. You've gone full Anakin Skywalker. "I'll just play it safe" never ends well.

Or worse, you're at plus-8 through 10 and your brain goes, "Well this round is already rough, might as well grip it and rip it." Now you're playing reckless golf with no mental discipline, and you're programming yourself to give up when things get hard.

Research published in the Journal of Sport Sciences shows that golfers who monitor their score during rounds have significantly worse back nine performance than golfers who stay process-focused. The score checking group averaged 2.3 strokes worse on the back nine. That's massive.

Your score is information for after the round, not during it. During the round, all that matters is your process on the next shot.

Let's talk about the "In Play?" category for a second because this one is brutally honest about your decision making and mental state.

Every hole, I mark whether I stayed in play (no penalties, no OB, no hazards) or not. This isn't about whether I hit fairways. This is about whether I made catastrophically bad decisions that resulted in penalty strokes.

Here's a simple truth that most golfers refuse to accept: it's better to hit 4 iron off the tee and be in the fairway than grip driver and take a penalty. You might feel like you're "playing scared," but you're actually playing smart. Your ego wants the glory of a bombed drive. Your scorecard wants you in play.

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Interested in applying for next year’s event? Visit the website above and connect with Carlos Brown to learn more!

Here's what I've learned from tracking this. When my Mental Process scores are low, my In Play percentage drops significantly. It's almost perfectly correlated. When I'm not executing my mental routine, I make aggressive, poor decisions that put me in places where I have to hit hero shots to recover.

Strokes Gained data from the PGA Tour shows that professional golfers lose more strokes to penalties and OB than recreational golfers think. For amateurs, it's even worse. Scott Fawcett's DECADE system found that avoiding penalty strokes is worth more than gaining 20 yards off the tee.

But here's the thing. Most penalties don't come from physical mistakes. They come from mental mistakes. Trying to thread a gap you have no business trying to thread. Going for a green over water when you know you should lay up. Hitting driver on a tight hole because you're mad about the last hole.

When my Mental Process scores are high, I almost never hit penalty shots. Because I'm actually thinking through my decisions and committing to smart plays instead of letting my ego make my club selection.

Track your In Play percentage and watch how it correlates with your Mental Process scores. I guarantee you'll see the pattern.

Here's what I want you to do next round. Track these five categories exactly like I do:

At the end of the round, don't just look at your score. Look at the gap between your Mental Process and your actual score on each hole. Calculate your average gap. Look at how your In Play percentage correlates with your Mental Process scores.

I promise you'll learn more about your game from one round of tracking this than you've learned from your last 10 rounds of just tracking score.

Your score is the result. Your Mental Process score is the cause. Stop obsessing over results and start tracking what actually produces those results.

The golfers who figure this out start improving consistently. The golfers who keep chasing scores stay stuck forever wondering why they can't break through.

Time to track what actually matters.

The Cog is where golfers come to upgrade their mental game. Every Tuesday and Friday!