How to Break 90 for Average Golfers

How to break 90 is a constant chase and search for many amateur golfers. Data suggests that the number of golfers who break 90 on a regular basis hovers between 25-30%, meaning many of us are still working towards this goal. As a mid-handicap golfer myself, I only recently found success in breaking 90 in the last two golfing seasons here in Wisconsin. In this article, I’ll focus on what I did in my own game to help me achieve this goal. Let’s talk about how to break 90 and what steps I took to get into that elusive 80s club.

How to Break 90

Before we dive into the strategies and steps I took towards breaking 90, we first need to understand what it takes from a scoring perspective to achieve a score starting with the number eight. Breaking 90 isn’t about stacking birdies, it is about double bogey or worse avoidance. One of the quickest ways to see your scores start to drop is to avoid costly mistakes and penalties that lead to sixes or worse on your scorecard. At it’s simplest form, shooting 90 means playing bogey golf. By eliminating those doubles and triples while mixing in a handful of pars, your score will be sub-90 in no time.

Find Your Weakness

The first thing to do when figuring out how to break 90 is to diagnose the weakest parts of your game. Where is it that you’re giving up the most strokes? Whether it be putting, approach or off the tee, finding that area and focusing on improving it first will help eliminate a handful of strokes. If you’re not sure which aspect of your game needs the most work, start tracking your shots. Whether it be with products from Shot Scope, Arccos, or an app on your phone, data never lies.

I needed to improve my consistency off the tee. Losing strokes to penalties from wayward tee shots was killing my scoring. Through both lessons (which we will discuss shortly) and increased practice AND playing time, I was able to find more consistency. By no coincidence, some of my best driving rounds in 2025 correlated with my lowest scores of the season.

When you find your weakness, you’re on the first step to breaking 90.

Work with a Professional

I cannot overstate the importance of this next section enough. Whether it be with a local PGA pro or an online coach through an app like Skillest, working with a professional will help you on your quest to breaking 90. I spent years watching YouTube, guessing at which videos would help me improve.

They never did.

One swing “fix” would seemingly lead to an issue I didn’t have prior. The next “fix” would lead to another issue. On and on and on with no real improvement.

I stopped trying to improve my swing on my own last offseason and worked with Jeff Wright, a UK based instructor on Skillest, to improve my game. I went into the lessons thinking I knew exactly what we’d work on, and we started with drills I’d never have thought to do on my own because he knew what to look for in my swing to improve it. We worked towards improving some very basic, foundational errors, all without a total teardown of my overall swing. Can you guess what it led to? I’ll tell you.

A personal best score of 81 on a course I had never played before to finish my 2025 season. My index improved by three strokes over the course of the year, and I’ll be carrying that momentum into 2026 as I look to break into the single digit index threshold.

Working with a pro can change your game in ways you’d never imagine.

There Goes My…Hero?

Look, I get it. You’ve pulled your tee shot into the trees and you “have a window” to get the ball closer to the hole. If you pull the shot off, you look cool in front of your buddies and maybe save par. What could possibly go wrong?

A golfer much better than myself once said, “You just missed a fairway that is 40 yards wide. What makes you think you can hit that ball through a 10 yard gap between those trees?” And that, my friends, is the cold hard truth. 80% of the time, tour pros make bogey from the trees. I’m not saying it is impossible, but the odds are not in our favor. When I was figuring out how to break 90, eliminating the hero shot and taking my medicine by playing laterally was a key step. Get the ball back into play and give yourself a chance to make bogey. It is much less penalizing than your ball careening off a tree and into a penalty area, where you’ll be dropping three and hitting four just to get back into play.

Avoid Pin Seeking

Another area that amateurs can improve on when working on how to break 90 can come from something as simple as playing to the middle of the green. Your average distance for any given iron in your bag is just that. An average. That means that sometimes it will hit that number, but other times it’ll be short or occasionally even long. For a front pin location, this can result in needing to chip to save par vs. having a potential two putt opportunity. Getting the ball on the putting surface as early in the hole as possible should always be the goal, and playing to the middle of the green is a great way to achieve that. Hit more greens, see your score drop.

How to Break 90

Breaking 90 is an attainable result for many amateur golfers. The problem for most doesn’t necessarily come down to a lack of skill, but rather a lack of effective course management. Making the smart play, and taking what the course gives you combined with finding the weakest parts of your game to focus on improving, will help you on your journey of learning how to break 90. In summary:

• Find your weakness and focus your practice
• Work with a professional to unlock your swing
• Eliminate the hero shot
• Aim for the center of the green

By implementing these strategies, you will be well on your way to breaking 90 in 2026.