When Tiger Woods won the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in 2006, he went in with a clear strategy. The course was hard, fast, brown, in a drought. And to avoid the pot bunkers, he hit driver once in 72 holes.

Yes, hitting two-iron stingers was the work of a genius. But it was tactical genius, too. And all golfers can learn from the man’s discipline. Tiger made sure to play within his capacity. He planned his round, planned each shot, and then set his mind to executing. And he stuck to it.

Course management and pre-round planning is something commonly lacking among club golfers, who can tend to blaze away with the same club every week on each hole. It’s not an approach for consistent scoring.

Like Tiger, you need to know your capacity. You need to collect data. Next time you’re on the range, take out a wedge and hit 10 shots towards the 100m sign. Then walk out and see where they landed. Some will be 10 metres right, some will be 10 metres left. Some will be long, some will be short.

Then, mentally, draw a big circle around the perimeter of those 10 shots. Then, take that mental circle onto the course. And when you have a shot that’s a hundred metres to the pin, overlay that shot dispersion pattern onto the fattest part of the green.

For example, if the pin is dead centre of the green, you can go at the flag, and your shot will likely end up somewhere in your circle around it. But, if the pin is cut right with a water hazard on the right of the green, you should aim for the fattest part of the green, which would be well left of the flag. Your target line, meaning the  middle of your shot dispersion pattern, might be just inside the left edge of the green. Even a miss left is better than the alternative.

Where the discipline comes in is not changing strategy due to emotion. Whether you’re up or down, or somewhere in the middle, the plan remains the same.

For example, you play a par-four, dog-leg right, your plan is hybrid to middle-left of the fairway, eight-iron in. But you turn up at the hole after double-double and you may be thinking you have to catch-up. Go at the hole with driver, cut it around the corner. And then you hit it in the crap and make another double and things go from bad to worse.

On a long par-four, into the wind, hitting it in regulation might be the preserve of low single-figure players only. The best play for you could be three-wood, six-iron, wedge. There are times to leave your ego in the bag. Discipline is key.

You don’t need to get carried away with position on the fairway. You needn’t necessarily be on the extreme edges of a fairway to go at certain pins. You don’t want to compromise narrowing your fairway target because that could bring bunkers or out-of-bounds into play. Yes, there are ideals of where to come in from. But, statistically, centre of fairway is a very good place to approach any pin.

Obviously, conditions are a factor. You might see where the wind’s coming from and if it’s downwind, hit rescue. If it’s into the wind, you might hit three-wood or tee driver low. Your strategy stays the same, though: get the ball to the pre-ordained target area.

It’s about staying within your strategy, executing according to that strategy, and just trusting that pars and birdies will come. Because, sure enough, as soon as you chase birdies with a risky strategy, you’re bound to make bogies.

You need to be disciplined, trust the plan and process, and eke out the best score you can.