The Golf Aim Game (Video) - by Pete Styles
The Golf Aim Game (Video) - by Pete Styles

Sometimes when you practice on the driving range, it's really important that you keep that practice interesting. There is nothing worse than coming to the range just getting bored, pounding out golf balls. So here is a great game to focus on one of the simplest aspects of your address position, but to keep it interesting, I am going to call it the Aim Game. What I am simply going to do is pick out five different targets out on the driving range and aim at them. We are not actually going to hit a golf ball at them at all. We are just going to set up, take our aim, and then measure the margin of error. Now the ideal here would be to get the margin of error down as low as possible. But here is the sort of a guideline for you. I want you to get it down to less than 5% of the distance. So if we are aiming for a 100-yard shot, a 100-yard target, you need to be aiming less than 5 yards away from that, and if you can get it down to 4, 3, 2 or 1% margin of error that would be great. And if we are aiming for a 200-yard away target, we need to get that down less than 5%; again that would give you a 10-yard wide window. Well we can find if you are hitting the golf ball within that 5% or less, you'd actually be quite successful in terms of the shots you are hitting. So I've got a 100-yard board out in front of me on the driving range here. So I am just going to take my setup, I am going to take really careful aim, I am going to aim my whole body exactly at the target and then as soon as I feel comfortable, I am going to take my golf club and lay it down across the front of my toes and just make sure your toes are that still and the club is laid down that even across your toe line. But don’t judge it from here, because it’s quite difficult to still see where this is aiming at. What I am actually going to do, let me step back, stand behind it and if I need to crouch down to have a good look, almost like I am lining up a putt, and I can see that's just a yard to the right of my intended target, a yard or two. So I am within the sort of 1, 2% margin of error. Then I will pick the club up, I would aim for something slightly different. It’s quite important that I don’t aim for things that are in line with the bay or the mat. And actually sometimes the bay or the mat could cause me some alignment issues. It could be conflicting information. I've got a white line down the middle of my mat here, if I am aiming across that, it can feel a bit awkward. So if you are doing this out on the grass and there is no square edges, that's probably an even better test. So now let’s pick something out over here, there is a flag over in the distance, so probably 150. So 150 yards away there, aim at that, little shuffle around, get myself corrected, drop the club down, again feet is still, club's lined up, step back. And again, that's pretty good, that's just a yard to the right again, so within my 1% to 2% margin, just slightly right of target. Now what you might find is you might find a tendency to always aim offline. So you might be always to the right side of the left side. If you now know that, you can start to do something about correcting it. So we are going to do that five times at the start of every practice session and every ball needs to be less than 5% margin of error over the distance that you’ve chosen. Now if you can do that at start of every practice session five times, brilliant. If you start to get it wrong, then repeat the exercise again and maybe repeat the exercise at the end of your practice session, because no point having a practice session aiming in the wrong direction. So that's called the Aim Game. It’s a great way of starting your practice session. Pick five targets, aim at them, get your margin of error less than 5% of the total distance. 2015-07-02

Sometimes when you practice on the driving range, it's really important that you keep that practice interesting. There is nothing worse than coming to the range just getting bored, pounding out golf balls. So here is a great game to focus on one of the simplest aspects of your address position, but to keep it interesting, I am going to call it the Aim Game. What I am simply going to do is pick out five different targets out on the driving range and aim at them. We are not actually going to hit a golf ball at them at all. We are just going to set up, take our aim, and then measure the margin of error. Now the ideal here would be to get the margin of error down as low as possible. But here is the sort of a guideline for you.

I want you to get it down to less than 5% of the distance. So if we are aiming for a 100-yard shot, a 100-yard target, you need to be aiming less than 5 yards away from that, and if you can get it down to 4, 3, 2 or 1% margin of error that would be great. And if we are aiming for a 200-yard away target, we need to get that down less than 5%; again that would give you a 10-yard wide window.

Well we can find if you are hitting the golf ball within that 5% or less, you'd actually be quite successful in terms of the shots you are hitting. So I've got a 100-yard board out in front of me on the driving range here. So I am just going to take my setup, I am going to take really careful aim, I am going to aim my whole body exactly at the target and then as soon as I feel comfortable, I am going to take my golf club and lay it down across the front of my toes and just make sure your toes are that still and the club is laid down that even across your toe line. But don’t judge it from here, because it’s quite difficult to still see where this is aiming at. What I am actually going to do, let me step back, stand behind it and if I need to crouch down to have a good look, almost like I am lining up a putt, and I can see that's just a yard to the right of my intended target, a yard or two. So I am within the sort of 1, 2% margin of error.

Then I will pick the club up, I would aim for something slightly different. It’s quite important that I don’t aim for things that are in line with the bay or the mat. And actually sometimes the bay or the mat could cause me some alignment issues. It could be conflicting information. I've got a white line down the middle of my mat here, if I am aiming across that, it can feel a bit awkward. So if you are doing this out on the grass and there is no square edges, that's probably an even better test.

So now let’s pick something out over here, there is a flag over in the distance, so probably 150. So 150 yards away there, aim at that, little shuffle around, get myself corrected, drop the club down, again feet is still, club's lined up, step back. And again, that's pretty good, that's just a yard to the right again, so within my 1% to 2% margin, just slightly right of target.

Now what you might find is you might find a tendency to always aim offline. So you might be always to the right side of the left side. If you now know that, you can start to do something about correcting it. So we are going to do that five times at the start of every practice session and every ball needs to be less than 5% margin of error over the distance that you’ve chosen.

Now if you can do that at start of every practice session five times, brilliant. If you start to get it wrong, then repeat the exercise again and maybe repeat the exercise at the end of your practice session, because no point having a practice session aiming in the wrong direction. So that's called the Aim Game. It’s a great way of starting your practice session. Pick five targets, aim at them, get your margin of error less than 5% of the total distance.