Make A Better Fist Of Your Practice Sessions (Video) - by Pete Styles
Make A Better Fist Of Your Practice Sessions (Video) - by Pete Styles

I really enjoy seeing golfers practice on the driving range. I think it's a great place to be to hone your skills and your techniques. But my one fear is people don’t treat the driving range enough like they would do on the golf course. They're just aiming out there into the great big expanse of the field and smashing balls everywhere and they think they are playing like Rory Mcilroy, and then on the golf course and realize well the golf course is not narrower than the driving range, all those shots that sprayed off one way or another they are no longer good enough on the golf course. So it's quite important that when you're on the range you replicate the feeling of being on the golf course and you replicate a series of targets that would look the same size, the same depth, the same width as being on a golf course.

And here is a great tip, if you take your fist, full arms length and then make a fist out of it and shut one eye, the distance between the end of one knuckle and the end of the other side of your fist is about the size of a relatively narrow fairway. So I can look at my driving range here and I can see two 200 boards after the distance and I can put my fist out like this and work out that the gap between the two 200 boards is about the same width as my fist and therefore will be same width as a narrow fairway. I now have a brilliant corridor to aim down so I can stand here in my practice session hitting out into those two 200 markers trying to keep the ball between them. And as long as I'm quite strict to myself I can tell myself that every time the ball misses to one side or another that’s going to be a problem, that’s going to miss the fairway on the golf course. Now to take this to a next level if you play the same golf course on a regular basis you could actually go around your golf course checking each fairway is a fist wide and if each fairway is a little bit wider than that maybe give yourself that leeway when you go and practice. But if that particularly difficult hold, the hold where you will never hit the fairway you might put your fist out and realize well actually that's quite narrow. It's only three knuckles wide, its here, here and here. The little finger knuckle, that’s chopped off by a tree. So when I go and practice on the driving range I'm going to give myself the same target, I'm going to put my hand out, one, two, three knuckles there where that signpost is or that tree is or that bunker is, that’s now chopped off on that fairway, that’s where I'm going to have to practice hitting my ball straighter. So I stress practicing on the driving range is fantastic, it can never be a bad thing. But making sure that you're practicing into the right sized target, the right sized corridor and using the fist drill to check how wide the fairway is on the course and then transpose it onto the driving range and I think you'll find that one fist is a relatively narrow fairway. 2015-04-01

I really enjoy seeing golfers practice on the driving range. I think it's a great place to be to hone your skills and your techniques. But my one fear is people don’t treat the driving range enough like they would do on the golf course. They're just aiming out there into the great big expanse of the field and smashing balls everywhere and they think they are playing like Rory Mcilroy, and then on the golf course and realize well the golf course is not narrower than the driving range, all those shots that sprayed off one way or another they are no longer good enough on the golf course. So it's quite important that when you're on the range you replicate the feeling of being on the golf course and you replicate a series of targets that would look the same size, the same depth, the same width as being on a golf course.

And here is a great tip, if you take your fist, full arms length and then make a fist out of it and shut one eye, the distance between the end of one knuckle and the end of the other side of your fist is about the size of a relatively narrow fairway. So I can look at my driving range here and I can see two 200 boards after the distance and I can put my fist out like this and work out that the gap between the two 200 boards is about the same width as my fist and therefore will be same width as a narrow fairway. I now have a brilliant corridor to aim down so I can stand here in my practice session hitting out into those two 200 markers trying to keep the ball between them.

And as long as I'm quite strict to myself I can tell myself that every time the ball misses to one side or another that’s going to be a problem, that’s going to miss the fairway on the golf course. Now to take this to a next level if you play the same golf course on a regular basis you could actually go around your golf course checking each fairway is a fist wide and if each fairway is a little bit wider than that maybe give yourself that leeway when you go and practice. But if that particularly difficult hold, the hold where you will never hit the fairway you might put your fist out and realize well actually that's quite narrow. It's only three knuckles wide, its here, here and here. The little finger knuckle, that’s chopped off by a tree.

So when I go and practice on the driving range I'm going to give myself the same target, I'm going to put my hand out, one, two, three knuckles there where that signpost is or that tree is or that bunker is, that’s now chopped off on that fairway, that’s where I'm going to have to practice hitting my ball straighter. So I stress practicing on the driving range is fantastic, it can never be a bad thing. But making sure that you're practicing into the right sized target, the right sized corridor and using the fist drill to check how wide the fairway is on the course and then transpose it onto the driving range and I think you'll find that one fist is a relatively narrow fairway.