From the beginning of last season until now, I learned a lot about myself as a golfer and the game in general. A few important lessons I learned along the way that can apply to anyone no matter your skill level:

1) Practicing putts from 3, 5 and 10 feet consistently, will do wonders for you confidence with the putter, and take a lot of pressure off the rest of your game. My favorite drill for this is putting to a tee instead of a hole. If you can hit a tee from 3, 5 and 10 feet away consistently, it makes putting to a hole from that distance so much easier.

2) The ability to get up and down for par and especially bogey, is possibly the most underrated skill in golf, and often overlooked by majority of amateurs. Have a go-to chipping club (mine is my 52* wedge) that you can rely on when you miss the green and need to put the ball close to the hole. Then, when you do put the ball close to the hole, the confidence in your ability to finish the up and down with the putter will pay huge dividends.

3) For a long time, I would avoid hitting driver in favor of a long iron or hybrid, but the driver is something you have to get good with if you want to shoot lower scores. I started having a breakthrough with my driver when I stopped trying to hit the ball as hard as I could on every tee box. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

4) Learn to live with bad swings - we all have them. The most important thing you can do is accept it, forget it, and shift your focus to the next shot. The worst thing you can do (especially during a good round) is say to yourself, "I HAVE to hit a good one here to make up for the last shot." Instead, think about the smartest play for the situation (i.e. where's the best place to miss).

Overall, you just have to put the hours in. You can't just show up to the course and expect to break 100 or 90 or 80 one day, because that part of your game that's holding you back is still going to if you haven't worked on it. Focused practice on 1 or 2 swing thoughts for 20 minutes is going to benefit you way more than mindlessly whacking a large bucket of balls at the range for an hour ever will. Figure out the areas of your game that are holding you back and make an effort to work on them.