Golf is one of the only sports that is practiced primarily on a range. It would be very expensive to build practice holes, and it is impractical for golf enthusiasts to practice solely on a course.
Golf is similar to shooting, in that it is essential to maximize your time on the range to truly build your skills and reach your goals. As with shooting, there are many strategies that can help us get the most out of our practice sessions. Golf also bears similarities to other sports, in that there are optimal ways to practice and to approach training to achieve the best results.
Not sure where to begin? Follow these simple steps to help improve your game:
- Plan what you are going to do before you arrive. You wouldn’t go to the gym without a workout plan. Similarly, when you go to the range, you need to have a plan in place. Having a plan in place also means you’ll never have to worry about what you’ll be practicing next, or pausing as you decide on the next swing to hone. Having a plan will also hold you accountable and force to work on skills that you might otherwise shy away from. In other words, effective planning allows you to bring all of your focus to the skill you’re perfecting in the moment, and ensures that your skillset will be well-rounded and complete.
- Always have a target! It is important to measure every shot based on a target. You wouldn’t go to the gun range and just shoot bullets all over the place, and the same rule applies to the driving range.
- Alignment is key! You have to make sure that you set your body up the same way every time. This makes it easier to make an adjustment if you need to. A range mat can be very helpful for this: don’t be afraid to adjust or turn the range mat to aim perfectly at your target.
- Take your time. You have to wait 5-8 minutes between shots on the golf course, so why rush on the range? On a shooting range, bullets are expensive, so it’s important not to waste them. Imagine a range ball costs you a dollar for every ball you hit, make them count. Focus carefully on your aim and alignment.
- If you miss the target or hit a bad shot, learn from it. Never grab another ball without considering what happened. Take some time to consider what went wrong, make an adjustment, and then try again. You will learn more from bad shots than good shots if you take the time to figure out what happened. This will help you improve quickly and can prevent you from falling into frustrating ruts.
- Start with a close target. You need to know exactly how far away a target is and roughly how close you hit it. If you can’t hit a close target you will never hit one that is far away. The closer your target the more accurate you have to be. On a gun range you have to hit the bullseye at 50 yards if you want to be close at 200 yards.
- Practice with multiple targets. An example of this would be to practice two yardages inside 100 yards (40 and 70 yards), two targets outside 100 (120 and 170 yards) and then practice your driver. If you want a great way to practice this please send me an email and ask for my 30 ball scoring game.
- Practice different trajectories. Hitting the ball high, low and curving both directions aren’t just skills for elite golfers. You can’t play tennis with only a backhand shot and you need to hit more shots in golf to be able to truly succeed at and fully enjoy the game.
If you’d like a PDF that explains how to master this skill, send me an email and ask for our impact drills. - When it comes to practice, choose frequency over duration. You need to practice multiple times per week rather then for several hours once per week. If you practice your targets often you only need enough time to ensure you are able to hit your target. Hitting your target in the least amount of balls increases your confidence. On the other hand, hitting your target for hours at a time will decrease your confidence on the course, as you might feel you can’t hit at target unless you have hit at it for an hour.
Think of it like the gym: the most effective results come from training for an hour three times per week rather then for three hours once per week. - Take care of your equipment. Clean your gear and make sure you have grips that are in good shape. Practicing like this may also help you figure out if you need a club that goes with a yardage you are working on.
Contact Us
Want to improve your golf game? To schedule a consultation and find out which training option is best for you, call our team a call at 403-453-4653, or send us a message through our contact form We'd love to hear from you.
