Whether you are a scratch golfer or a high-handicapper, double bogeys are never good news - they can wreck your card.
It seems logical that limiting these big numbers should help cut your handicap, but with the help of Shot Scope, our official data partner, we can share just how costly those dreaded doubles are.
In the table below, you can see how many double bogeys golfers make on average per round (18 holes) of golf, across different handicap levels.
The numbers above make for interesting reading, especially the column on the right which displays the average number of double bogeys or worse.
Whereas a scratch golfers averages just 0.27 doubles or worse per round, the 25-handicapper typically makes one approximately every other hole. Ouch.
This opens up a whole big debate about where they can make improvements in order to shoot lower scores.
Club golfers of all levels have room for improvement in every department, even low handicap players, especially if we're comparing the standard to tour level.
However, for the mid to high handicap player, especially, you'd have to say there would be some quick wins in the short game department that could help bring the handicap down sharply.
Better players are obviously able to turn bogeys into pars and reduce the damage to a single shot when they find themselves in trouble.
Higher handicap players have a tendency to follow one bad shot with another, and make poor strategic decisions.
We've all seen this type of golfer in action, and we've all seen better players (and tour pros) take their medicine to keep their scorecard as clean as possible.
The 'or worse' part of doubles is also worth mentioning, because quite often we're not just dropping two shots (a double) but a fair few more.
When you consider that a 25-handicap player loses an average of 5.6 balls per round, it's safe to say some of those 9.18 doubles or worse will fall under 'or worse'.
And when you start making sevens, eights and nines, your scores really are going to suffer.
However, if you can turn just a few of the double bogeys or worse into just bogeys, you'll start to get that handicap down.
This might be easy to say, of course, but the statistics are clear to see.
