This month’s article will be short and sweet. I thought long and hard about a couple of simple things that golfers could focus on this season that might help make their experiences as good as they could be on the golf course this year. I find myself repeatedly falling back to ‘Campbell’s Swing Rules,’ and think of them when I watch players on the golf course and the driving range.

I would encourage all of you to adopt my 80/80 and 20/100 rule — or at least give it a shot and see what happens to your score the next time out.

It goes like this: 80 percent of the time, I swing the golf club with 80 percent effort. Twenty percent of the time, I swing the golf club with 100 percent effort (At least I try to, that is!).

With the 80 percent swing, I try to achieve the following:

• Good tempo and rhythm. If you want the golf ball to go further, change the club that you use. Don’t try to hit it harder.

• Solid ball contact. Hitting the golf ball in the center of the club face is much easier to do when swinging easier. When you hit the golf ball in the center, a couple of great things happen: it goes straighter and further!

• Better balance. With better balance, it is a lot easier to maintain the consistency that you need in the golf swing to be successful. You also have a better chance of finding your golf ball after you hit it!

• Better distance control. The importance of this obviously is getting your shot into a green or short of any trouble that you may be laying up to avoid.

The 80 percent effort is the tempo that I try to think of when I am swinging a wedge or short iron in particular. A wedge or short iron is a club that is used to hit the correct distance. It is not a golf club that you are necessarily trying to hit hard (most of the time). As a result, the distance that you hit the ball when swinging at 80 percent will be more consistent; this is ultimately what you want. It is not the distance that you hit an iron that matters. What matters is that when you want for it to go a certain distance, it does!

As a matter of fact; the next time that you are on the range, try to hit all of your irons the same distance. There is no better way to tell (except than with a simulator like the one that Brandon Proudfoot owns at Mount Si Golf Course) on how hard you are swinging than by how far your golf ball goes (assuming you are hitting square).

Also, the next time that you are on the range, start your practice session with the short irons — swinging them easy and under control. Work your way down to the longer clubs and eventually hit the driver. Then try hitting the driver at 100 percent or as hard as you can. Then chill back down to the short irons, ending your practice session with your wedge or short irons at 80 percent. You will then feel the different speeds and what kind of results that each swing speeds produces.

When swinging at 100 percent, I am trying to achieve the following:

• Hit the ball a greater distance. This obviously only happens when you hit the golf ball square, which can be much harder to do when swinging with increased effort.

• When swinging with a driver if a hole is wide open with no or very little trouble, or when I am trying to hit it further than my buddy, just so that I can say I did. This seems to be happening less and less as of late, though. The older I get, the less I care about this!

Also, I use this swing when the reward of a longer tee shot is much greater than the risk associated with a harder swing, or when I am trying to hit a golf shot high.

• If I have to carry a tree or high object that is in my way, I will have a tendency to swing the golf club harder to get the ball up quicker and have it go further.

• If I am in between clubs and the pin is located in the front portion of the green, I will take less club and swing harder at it.

Hitting the ball harder puts more spin on it, thus stopping it quicker, which is essential to keep the ball on the front of the green (in warmer and dryer conditions).

As mentioned previously in this article, this is the goal each and every time I go on the golf course. When I focus on this and do this, my score automatically goes down every time. I will guarantee that yours will, too.

P.S.: Check out Little Si Links! It is now open and is a great place to practice and play golf! It has a par-three pitch and putt, huge grass tee driving range and pitching green.

• E-mail Matt Campbell, Mount Si Golf Course PGA head golf professional, at matt@mtsigolf.com.