What Are The Keys To Good Golf Practice? (Video) - by Natalie Adams
What Are The Keys To Good Golf Practice? (Video) - by Natalie Adams

What are the five keys to good golf practice? The main thing you want to do with really effective golf practice is to make sure you simulate in the conditions you actually have to play in. And I think that’s one of the biggest problems for most golfers, is they don’t practice how they have to play. So first of all make sure you only have one golf ball, and what I would suggest you do and a great tip for you is, with your range basket or your other practice balls is leave then a good three or four steps away from you.

One ball at a time and that’s the sort of condition that you play in, you only have one go at the shot. You don’t have another 70 or 50 or how other many balls you’ve got; you don’t have those available to re-hit the shot. So just play one ball at a time wherever possible. The second thing you want to do when you play in -- when you’re practicing that you do in play is once you’ve hit your golf ball, you’ve now got to give yourself walking time. So what you don’t want to do when you’re practicing is have the basket of balls really close to you; turn it on its side and just be hitting a ball and then raking another one out and hitting that straight away -- raking another one out and hitting that straight away. When you’ve hit your golf shot look at how far it’s gone, even if it’s a miss hit or you’re not happy with it. And you now need to give yourself the time you would have on the golf course to walk to that ball before you hit the next shot. So you’re learning to hit the shots on demand when you need to, rather than building up a rhythm that allows you to hit big golf shots on the course but then you are doing something completely different on the course. You are hitting good shots in practice but something completely different on the course. So give yourself walking time. Then next thing you’ve got to do with your practice is to swap and change clubs and swap and change the target and the distance to the target. Again if you’ve just hit a golf shot you’re going to now need to walk to that golf shot if you’re on the course and the distance left to the flag will have changed. The position you're now in will have changed. So between each shot make sure you change the target that you are hitting to, change the direction of it, change the distance to it -- change the golf club. Actually practice playing holes in your mind, so start off playing a driver, think to yourself what that would have left you into the green or what the next shot would be. Now play that club, change the target, re-aim, now try another club, what would that have left into the green -- I’ll change to my pitching wedge really makes the clubs look like you have to on the course. You don’t hit 57 irons or 50 drives one after the other on the golf course. Also you want to try to simulate the pressure you feel on the golf course. So here’s a great tip for helping you to do that. Take five balls and hit them at a target, you can decide how far away from the target you’ll accept the shot to be correct and just give yourself a point for doing that, and see how many points you can score out of five goes or even 10 goes. The next time you go to play your challenge is now to score more points, so each of those balls will really start to matter to you. That’s going to start to create the pressure you feel on the golf course, and when you’ve got that last ball to beat the best score you’ve ever done and set a new record, it’s really going to be close to how you’d feel on the golf course when you are trying to shoot your best scores ever. The other thing I would say as well is if you can just play the ball as it lies. If your playing off the turf just throw the ball in the air and just let the ball lie as it does, don’t give yourself a good lie and at times if you’re on the practice ma just take the tee out and just let the ball nestle into the tee hole because that will give you a slightly tougher lie to play from and it will recreate the conditions you get on the golf course. If you follow those five tips you’ll find that you really improve in your practice, you’ll become much more effective and you’ll see that your scores improve a lot when you’re out on the golf course. 2014-05-19

What are the five keys to good golf practice? The main thing you want to do with really effective golf practice is to make sure you simulate in the conditions you actually have to play in. And I think that’s one of the biggest problems for most golfers, is they don’t practice how they have to play. So first of all make sure you only have one golf ball, and what I would suggest you do and a great tip for you is, with your range basket or your other practice balls is leave then a good three or four steps away from you.

One ball at a time and that’s the sort of condition that you play in, you only have one go at the shot. You don’t have another 70 or 50 or how other many balls you’ve got; you don’t have those available to re-hit the shot. So just play one ball at a time wherever possible. The second thing you want to do when you play in — when you’re practicing that you do in play is once you’ve hit your golf ball, you’ve now got to give yourself walking time. So what you don’t want to do when you’re practicing is have the basket of balls really close to you; turn it on its side and just be hitting a ball and then raking another one out and hitting that straight away — raking another one out and hitting that straight away.

When you’ve hit your golf shot look at how far it’s gone, even if it’s a miss hit or you’re not happy with it. And you now need to give yourself the time you would have on the golf course to walk to that ball before you hit the next shot. So you’re learning to hit the shots on demand when you need to, rather than building up a rhythm that allows you to hit big golf shots on the course but then you are doing something completely different on the course. You are hitting good shots in practice but something completely different on the course. So give yourself walking time.

Then next thing you’ve got to do with your practice is to swap and change clubs and swap and change the target and the distance to the target. Again if you’ve just hit a golf shot you’re going to now need to walk to that golf shot if you’re on the course and the distance left to the flag will have changed. The position you're now in will have changed. So between each shot make sure you change the target that you are hitting to, change the direction of it, change the distance to it — change the golf club. Actually practice playing holes in your mind, so start off playing a driver, think to yourself what that would have left you into the green or what the next shot would be. Now play that club, change the target, re-aim, now try another club, what would that have left into the green — I’ll change to my pitching wedge really makes the clubs look like you have to on the course. You don’t hit 57 irons or 50 drives one after the other on the golf course.

Also you want to try to simulate the pressure you feel on the golf course. So here’s a great tip for helping you to do that. Take five balls and hit them at a target, you can decide how far away from the target you’ll accept the shot to be correct and just give yourself a point for doing that, and see how many points you can score out of five goes or even 10 goes. The next time you go to play your challenge is now to score more points, so each of those balls will really start to matter to you. That’s going to start to create the pressure you feel on the golf course, and when you’ve got that last ball to beat the best score you’ve ever done and set a new record, it’s really going to be close to how you’d feel on the golf course when you are trying to shoot your best scores ever.
The other thing I would say as well is if you can just play the ball as it lies. If your playing off the turf just throw the ball in the air and just let the ball lie as it does, don’t give yourself a good lie and at times if you’re on the practice ma just take the tee out and just let the ball nestle into the tee hole because that will give you a slightly tougher lie to play from and it will recreate the conditions you get on the golf course. If you follow those five tips you’ll find that you really improve in your practice, you’ll become much more effective and you’ll see that your scores improve a lot when you’re out on the golf course.