Home

The Proper Way To Practice For Golf

The Proper Way To Practice For Golf

How many of you golfers have been enticed to buy the latest driver or golf club set and then been disappointed that your game did not improve? I imagine quite a lot; I have done it myself because I got taken in by the slick advertising that promised me more distance and more accurate drives. The truth is that new golf clubs or balls will not always improve our game.

Of course, it is always a good idea to get the right clubs and golf balls for your type of game, but there is more to golf than the equipment. There is in fact an easy way to improve your game that few golfers know about or forget to put into practice. The good news is that it doesn’t involve buying anything; no new golf equipment, golf aids, or golf books.

Practice for Golf

We all know that we should practice for golf but most golfers go about it the wrong way. What I am about to reveal is no big secret or involve some new mental golf techniques. The best way to improve your game is by practice and even though you may already know that, my guess is that you are not practicing efficiently. Here is an example; I bet you have been to the driving range and seen someone buy a big bucket of balls and pull out their driver and start smacking balls down the range without warming up first – maybe you have done the same thing!

If you didn’t already know, that is totally the wrong way to practice for golf. It will do nothing to improve your game and you could even do your self some damage like a pulled muscle. To improve your game you have to learn the proper way to practice for golf. Let’s start with a few statistics that will give you an idea of how you should go about your practice time on the range.

Golf Statistics

To understand the proper way to practice for golf you have to know about course management skills. For example, if you are on the tee and you are faced with a fairway that is only 20 yards wide and you pull out your driver. What is the probability of a successful shot? For the majority of us, we would have a low probability of hitting the fairway with a driver. Good course management means choosing a club that will have more chance of being successful. This means choosing a 3-wood, 5-wood, or a 3-iron for instance. The same holds true for a par-5 where you have hit a good drive to the middle of the fairway and you have to decide if you are going to go for the green in two or to lay-up.  

You also have to take into consideration the breakdown of shots that are made in a normal round of golf. For example, there are more shots taken within a hundred yards of the green than there are taken with a driver from the tee and there are probably more putts taken than there are off the tee. With this information, you can see that your practice time needs to mimic the breakdown of shots taken in a round of golf – this is what is meant by proper golf practice time.

Proper Golf Practice Time

As you can see, the proper way to practice for golf is to concentrate on the type of shots that make up the majority of a round of golf. You need to practice more putting, pitching and chipping; this is also the area of the game where more shots can be saved and not from the tee box. As you can see, it makes no sense to go to the practice range and spend half an hour hitting our driver, 5 minutes on the practice green, and a couple of minutes practicing chipping.

The proper way to practice for golf is to spend more time putting, the short game, and the sand game. Finish off with your medium irons, long irons, and finally your driver. By spending more time on the area of the game where you can save a few shots from your round you will have more opportunity to lower your score and your handicap. It could make the difference between shooting in the nineties or the eighties. Just remember that you need to warm-up and stretch before your practice time or before a round of golf.