We all have to practice golf regardless of experience levels.

But how do you discover what to practice, how to practice, how much to practice and when to practice? I wish I was able to answer this question conclusively but I believe there isn’t a one way suits all practice regime. There are however some do’s and don’ts that should be used as guidelines to get the most out of your practice sessions.

A majority of players think that practice is beating golf balls. Wrong, that’s just hitting balls. There must be a purpose for improvement. All too often you’ll see people at the range and the first club they pick out of the bag is the driver. There is no pre-shot routine no warm up, no practice swings they then proceed straight ahead and hit the ball and maybe, just maybe 1 in 5 shots is hit correctly so they continue but never really improve.

Firstly you learn to play golf by feel, not mechanics alone. Too much detail is confusing. You cannot think your way through a golf swing. You feel your way! I’m not saying you don’t need tuition from a Golf Pro and you don’t need to know the mechanics of the swing, but knowing the specifics of the golf swing is only the start. You can’t practice thinking about the varying positions all the various body parts should in at a particular point in the swing and then expect to improve. You have to work on one thing at a time until you’re comfortable with it then move on to the next small thing that needs improvement.

Secondly, short practice sessions regularly are better than one long period. Practice with good repetition, will teach your muscles to learn to feel – creating your own internal dialog from within that you, and only you, can describe to yourself. Feel it, don’t think it.

Ultimately, start out with a plan, and take your time because as the saying goes “You must learn to crawl before you can walk.”

Alignment:

Lay down a spare club or as in my case a broken club, and align it to a target, don’t just stand up to the ball and hit it anywhere. Always pick out a specific target to aim for.

Verify your fundamentals:

Grip, aim, alignment, posture, ball positioning, plane angle etc. An excellent book that explains these exceptionally well is Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf – Ben Hogan

Pre-Shot Routine:

Go through your pre-shot routine each and every time before you hit the ball. This helps you focus and get in to the right mind-set before each shot. This enables you to make it streamline and identical every time, then when you’re on the course it’ll be second nature.

Practices with a 7 or 8 iron:

These clubs are easier to ingrain the correct feeling of the swing. Do this even if it’s the driver you’re having trouble with, once you feel comfortable with your fundamentals then by all means hit a few drives. I’d suggest not to practice with it though and don’t become too focused on results with the Driver. Test it out to see if your fundamentals have improved, and when you hit a few good shots congratulate yourself, but defiantly don’t berate yourself when you hit a few bad shots. Move back to the 7 or 8 iron and grove your swing some more.

Warm up with the Sand Wedge:

This is the heaviest club in the bag. Start hitting chip shots, move on to short pitch shots and then on to full shots before moving on to your preferred practice iron. This gets your body and mind in to focus at the start of your practice session and ensures you’re warmed up. Just have fun with it and don’t bother about results.

Practice one thing:

It’s imperative that you have a clear goal in mind for your practice session and always aim to practice one thing. This is one of the most difficult things to do; I fall in to this trap almost every time I go the range.

Prior to getting to the range I had decided to practice one area of my swing, yesterday for example was not to swing the club to fast in the downswing. I managed to do this for about 10 minutes before I then found that my focus had changed. I was now concentrating on my left arm in the backswing and ensuring I wasn’t bending it and making sure my hands where high at the point of starting the downswing. This was a direct result of swinging slower and made me become more aware of what I was feeling during this movement. Realising this changed my focus and purpose of the session so I then continued to practice this part of my swing only for the rest of the session. Thereby at least the rest of the session was focused on one area of the swing.

Take a rest:

Do not go to the range and get the biggest bucket available and solidly keep hitting balls until there all gone. Take a break every 30 minutes, remember when you’re on the course you’re not hitting 90 balls in 1 one hour, so why do you try and do the same at the range? Two things will deteriorate if you don’t take a break. Firstly your concentration and focus on what you’re trying to practice will wane. Secondly you’ll become fatigued and with that your fundamentals will be the first part of your mechanics to go wrong, once there gone, no improvement can be expected.

Record what you’ve learnt:

After each practice session record (in whatever format you prefer) how your practice session went, what you felt, what you thought was good and what you think you need to put more effort in to next time. Do not get hung up on poor practice sessions and don’t become overly negative with yourself. You have to be realistic with yourself and can’t expect to improve one area of your game in one practice session; improvement takes time and a lot of patience.

Golf has the tendency to be good to you on occasion and make you think you’ve cracked it. You’ll have one practice session when you can’t do anything wrong and go home elated. Next time you’re at the range everything falls apart and you can’t hit the ball at all become disheartened once again. That’s golf and we all have to accept this and don’t be harsh on ourselves and just move forward and look forward to the next session.

I record my session progress throughout the actual session itself. However I have recently started to realise this is becoming detrimental to my progress. I have now become result orientated rather than focussed on the particular mechanic I set out to improve. Therefore from this point on I only intend to record my session when the session is over and not during it and apply more focus on what I’ve preached above and put in to practice.