Dave Phillips’ 21 Game makes golfers finish nine different short-game recoveries

Dave Phillips’ new Titleist lesson gives short-game practice a scorecard: scatter nine balls around a green, play each from its lie and count every stroke until it is holed. The October 7 video calls the challenge “21.”

A perfect session takes 18 strokes. The target of 21 corresponds to six two-stroke finishes and three three-stroke finishes. Five two-stroke finishes and four three-stroke finishes produce a 22. Each missed recovery remains in the total, including any attempt that takes more than three shots.

Phillips demonstrates a bunker shot followed by its putt, then chooses the putter for a ball sitting just off the green. He follows his normal routine on both. The setup asks the player to choose a shot and finish the recovery before moving to another ball.

Difficulty comes from the starting positions. Phillips suggests adding rough, downhill or sidehill lies and longer putts as skill improves. Another person can scatter the balls to make the starting shots less predictable.

Phillips calls 21 a tour-level benchmark. Treat it as the lesson’s scoring target; the video does not establish a current season scrambling average.

For simulator golfers, this is an outdoor companion to measured wedge practice. Phillips’ version needs real lies and a green where the player can finish each putt. A mat-based carry session and this recovery test answer different questions about the short game.

The USGA’s championship practice-area guidance also emphasizes matching course conditions, including green speed and firmness. That is tournament facility guidance, rather than a validation study of Phillips’ drill, but it explains why the surface matters when preparing for a round.

Keep the score with its conditions: where the nine balls started and which green was used. A lower total on easier lies is useful practice information, but it cannot be compared fairly with a session scattered into bunkers and rough.