Make the Most of Practice on Mats, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Make the Most of Practice on Mats, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

When you're down at the driving range utilizing your precious time to improve at the game, it's really important you get the most out of every practice session. Now, hitting off a driving range mat, some people dislike it, but maybe, driving range mats comforts on bad press because actually done correctly, you can replicate the feeling that you're playing off turf as long as you're looking out for a couple of key things.

So when you set up to the golf ball, try and make sure the mat is pointing in the direction you want to practice aiming. Hitting across a mat can be a little bit off putting, and makes you deliberately trying to practice your alignment. But if you're aiming in the right direction, you've got it pointing at the flag. Check that you're addressing up to the golf ball in the right position, laying the club down in the center there to check your ball position. Then, as you're hitting golf balls, listening for the strike, is as important as anything because you won’t to be able to see necessarily whether you hit the ball fat or thin, but you'll be able to listen for it and feel for it, you won't get feedback like you would do on a golf course if you hit the ball fat, and often people hit the ball heavy on the driving range mat, the club would speed into the back of the ball, the ball flies in the air, and they tell themselves, that they've had a great shot. But in reality, when they get on the golf course at the weekend, they'd find they're hitting it fat just like they practiced, yet the ground swallows up the club. The divot pops up and the ball only goes half distance. So you’re going to care for the listing for good, clean contact on the mat and that you're not leaning back and hitting back into the wrong position. So let's make sure that we're striking the ball cleanly when we're hitting on the turf, on the mat, sorry.

If you're struggling with your short irons, and you feel hitting down on your short irons onto a range mat isn't good for you and you're getting vibrations and pain through your arms, just lay off the wedge work. Don't do too many sort of pounding down sort of strikes, because pounding down on the golf ball with the wedge is the right thing to do and if it's painful and uncomfortable to do that on a range mat, you'll change your technique, you'll differ your technique and that's not what we want. So save those sort of big gouging divots with the wedges and going to do that either on a softer mat or actually on the grass for real on the golf course on the practice ground.

But if you're playing on a sweet thing sort of angle maybe with your mid to long irons hybrid clubs fairway woods, that perfect on a range mat because you don't really want to be taking big chunks of turf with those clubs anyway. So the range mat will encourage you to swing at the right level at.

The other thing that I often see people get wrong, is that tee peg height, whether you've got an option to move the tee peg height at any given driving range. It's difficult sometimes you don't get the options to do that. you get the set height tee. If that's the case, only play the club that's suitable for that height. Don't lift your 3 woods swing up for a high tee peg or try and drop your driver swing down for a low tee peg. If necessary, take your golf balls and go and move to a different mat on one that has the appropriate size tee peg for you.

So practicing on the driving range is a great thing to be doing but it doesn't come without it pit floors on each floors. Make sure you got a good mat, try and get a nice soft one, lined up in the right direction, listen for the contact and make sure the tee peg is at suitable height for you. Don't do much pitching wedge work particularly if you're a very aggressive digging steep swing or if you've got bad joints and tennis elbow or golfers elbow, something like that, avoid too much work on the driving range. But hopefully, if you can follow those guidelines, you can get the most our of your practice session on the range.

 2012-08-06

When you're down at the driving range utilizing your precious time to improve at the game, it's really important you get the most out of every practice session. Now, hitting off a driving range mat, some people dislike it, but maybe, driving range mats comforts on bad press because actually done correctly, you can replicate the feeling that you're playing off turf as long as you're looking out for a couple of key things.

So when you set up to the golf ball, try and make sure the mat is pointing in the direction you want to practice aiming. Hitting across a mat can be a little bit off putting, and makes you deliberately trying to practice your alignment. But if you're aiming in the right direction, you've got it pointing at the flag. Check that you're addressing up to the golf ball in the right position, laying the club down in the center there to check your ball position. Then, as you're hitting golf balls, listening for the strike, is as important as anything because you won’t to be able to see necessarily whether you hit the ball fat or thin, but you'll be able to listen for it and feel for it, you won't get feedback like you would do on a golf course if you hit the ball fat, and often people hit the ball heavy on the driving range mat, the club would speed into the back of the ball, the ball flies in the air, and they tell themselves, that they've had a great shot. But in reality, when they get on the golf course at the weekend, they'd find they're hitting it fat just like they practiced, yet the ground swallows up the club. The divot pops up and the ball only goes half distance. So you’re going to care for the listing for good, clean contact on the mat and that you're not leaning back and hitting back into the wrong position. So let's make sure that we're striking the ball cleanly when we're hitting on the turf, on the mat, sorry.

If you're struggling with your short irons, and you feel hitting down on your short irons onto a range mat isn't good for you and you're getting vibrations and pain through your arms, just lay off the wedge work. Don't do too many sort of pounding down sort of strikes, because pounding down on the golf ball with the wedge is the right thing to do and if it's painful and uncomfortable to do that on a range mat, you'll change your technique, you'll differ your technique and that's not what we want. So save those sort of big gouging divots with the wedges and going to do that either on a softer mat or actually on the grass for real on the golf course on the practice ground.

But if you're playing on a sweet thing sort of angle maybe with your mid to long irons hybrid clubs fairway woods, that perfect on a range mat because you don't really want to be taking big chunks of turf with those clubs anyway. So the range mat will encourage you to swing at the right level at.

The other thing that I often see people get wrong, is that tee peg height, whether you've got an option to move the tee peg height at any given driving range. It's difficult sometimes you don't get the options to do that. you get the set height tee. If that's the case, only play the club that's suitable for that height. Don't lift your 3 woods swing up for a high tee peg or try and drop your driver swing down for a low tee peg. If necessary, take your golf balls and go and move to a different mat on one that has the appropriate size tee peg for you.

So practicing on the driving range is a great thing to be doing but it doesn't come without it pit floors on each floors. Make sure you got a good mat, try and get a nice soft one, lined up in the right direction, listen for the contact and make sure the tee peg is at suitable height for you. Don't do much pitching wedge work particularly if you're a very aggressive digging steep swing or if you've got bad joints and tennis elbow or golfers elbow, something like that, avoid too much work on the driving range. But hopefully, if you can follow those guidelines, you can get the most our of your practice session on the range.