This is what typically happens with me. I hit an extra large bucket on the range and I am fairly consistent and feel confident. I put in 30 minutes chipping and 30 minutes putting. I think, “I’ve got this!” Then I go out on the course and make 7 pars, a birdie, 3 triples and two doubles on simple par 3s.

What happened? Why did great practice not translate to consistent play on the golf course? The problem is that my practice sessions consist of one club that I hit many times in a row, called “blocked practice.” I also discount the first worm-burner or occasional duck-hook to not being “warmed up.”

When I warm up, I typically move through my bag sequentially, ensuring after a dozen or so shots that I am satisfied with my ability with each club. Next, I go to the putting green, and before I know it, I’m lipping out 50-foot putts and draining 8-footers from every angle. Feeling like the Champions Tour is probably Google-searching me, I go to the chipping area, where 30 minutes later, Mickelson would be impressed. I am SO ready! I confidently walk to the first tee, and on the second hole I barely hole that 3-footer for a triple bogey.

After a round like that, I started to think about how an actual round of golf works. I make a couple of practice swings, then have one chance, with one ball, to execute a good shot with one club. I then walk for 4 or 5 minutes, decide how far I need to hit the ball, select a club, take a couple of practice swings, and again have one chance with one club and one time to hit a good shot. A few minutes later, one chance at a pitch, then one chance to lag putt, then (hopefully) one chance at a short putt. Now I’m on the second tee box. I last hit my driver about 15 minutes ago, and perhaps the image of a big slice is burned into my memory. I take two practice swings, then have one chance, with one ball to hit a good shot.

Think about the less common shots. A green-side bunker, or the flop shot, or the long, uphill bump-and-run. You might have just a few of those in a four-hour round of golf. You still only have one chance with one ball to make a decent shot, but you haven’t done it in hours or days. The point is, I realized I tend to practice totally differently than I play, then wonder why I was not able to score… or can score on half the holes in a round of golf, but not the other half. I have reasonable consistency, but I can’t seem to take it out to the course and post a better score. “How can I be more effective,” I wondered.

Five years ago, I played golf with a friend that had been playing a couple of months at Torrey Pines. He almost beat me the first time we played, and I’ve played for decades! I was shocked, and determined to improve. I started downloading golf apps, but I was frustrated with all of them because they were so cumbersome to use. I found that I was focusing on using the app, not my golf game, and playing more slowly as a result. Therefore I decided to design and built my own app. In ended up calling it 80BREAKR, and I wanted it to have the best scorecard as the core, as well as an integrated game improvement mode modeled after spreadsheets I developed trying to improve with my friend at Torrey Pines.

Since my app has an easy way to track the quality of my shots on the golf course, it is equally effective on the range. Using this feature in my app, an idea came to me that I call Scoring Practice. It’s not very fast, and I get some strange looks at the practice area, but it is extremely effective. I go to the range, and after warming up like I would for a regular round of golf, I pretend to play a round of golf. I use an iPad and an app, but it works fine with a piece of paper and a pencil. I pick my most frequently played golf course, and pretend I’m walking around that particular course. When I start, I imagine I’m on the first tee and do my normal routine. I imagine the fairway, pick markers on the range that are trouble left, sand traps right, etc., and then play the shot.

I carefully note how far I hit that shot and if it lands in the fairway, left, right, and project what kind of shot and distance I needed next. I characterize shots as Good, OK, or Bad, and enter how far from the hole I would estimate I am for my next shot.

Here’s how I last played that hole in Scoring Practice. After my “drive,” I picked up my clubs and walked to the far edge of the driving range. The first shot was in the fairway (per the markers I picked before the tee shot), so I estimated I needed an 8 iron to the green. I took out my 8 iron and selected the size of the green with features or markers on the driving range. I took my practice swings, and then I hit one 8 iron shot noting if it was “on the green,” and if not, how far off the green the shot ended up. Then, I picked up my clubs and range balls and walked to the chipping area. I dropped one ball about as far away from the green as I imagined I was after my 8-iron shot. Next, I placed it for the kind of shot I would be facing on the imaginary course. For instance, I imagined I missed the green right, which has an uphill pitch to a close pin location. Therefore, I selected the wedge I would normally take, selected my landing spot, took a couple of practice swings, and hit one shot, one time to that pin, noting how far from the pin the ball ended up.

Now, I was on the green of that imagined first hole for this Scoring Practice round of golf. I took out my putter and walked to the practice putting green and set the ball down as far away and on as similar of a slope as possible for the result of the previous pitch. I did my normal ball-marking routine, set up, practice stroke, and then hit the putt. If I missed, I would finish putting as if this were actually the first hole on my favorite course, and I would record each shot and characterize if they were Good, OK, or Bad.

One hole was completed on my imaginary round. Next, I picked up my clubs and range balls and walked back to one side of the driving range. I then imagined the look of hole No. 2, and picked targets again for trouble left, right, and continued in this manner. I recorded the quality of every shot, and I made my way around the imaginary first nine holes of my favorite course this way one shot at a time.

It goes faster than a normal round, and sometimes I’ll leave the bag at the middle of the practice facility and just grab a new club and put the previous one back in on my way by.

So how did Scoring Practice work for me? The reason I came up with this idea was that every time I got to the fourth hole at a local course, it would typically be the first 7 iron of the round (or week). Routinely, I would pull this shot into the hazard left, top it into the stream in front of the tee and get a big score. It occurred to me that my 7-iron practice of hitting 30 in a row was completely different than having one chance on the par-3 fourth.

Shown above is an imaginary round played using Scoring Practice for the same course. Identical results! I knew I was on to something. I did scoring practice for this course two more days in a row, and then on the third day I actually played the first few holes late in the afternoon. I hit a decent 7 iron on the third hole! Why does this work? From this Golf Digest article, apparently there’s science behind the idea of “random” practice. Although this isn’t exactly random, it does focus your brain on changing shots at the same pace as on the golf course.

What are the other benefits I found from Scoring Practice? Very interesting things started to happen while practicing. All of a sudden, I was facing “real” situations, like a 10-foot birdie putt at the range with only one chance to make it. I was facing what felt like a real 4-foot, par-saving putt, and trying to recover from a poor bump and run. I realized I was actually practicing scoring situations, practicing my pre-shot routine, practicing reading putts, practicing alignment, and actually making a difference in my game!