Using The Practice Range To Improve Your Ball Flight (Video) - by Pete Styles
Using The Practice Range To Improve Your Ball Flight (Video) - by Pete Styles

When I’m giving lessons or watching golf as out on the practice range, I’ve seen awful lot of golfers spending 90-95 percent nearly 100 percent of their time just hitting perfect straight or trying to hit perfect straight golf shots. And you might say, well, there’s nothing wrong with that, we’ll all be trying to hit perfect straight golf shots all of the time. But yeah, there’s occasions when we want to work the ball on the golf course, and if you want to be able to work the ball successfully on the golf course surely that’s going to need practicing on the driving range beforehand. So what I often set my clients a little task of doing is deliberately trying to hit the ball higher and lower, right to left, left to right, show me how you can work the ball in your practice routine.

Now the great thing with this is it really gives you a much better awareness of your golf swing and how not only the good shots produced but also if you are hitting bad shots, how are they produced, what makes the ball curve left to right unintentionally? Because if you can do it intentionally you’ll be able to stop it unintentionally. Likewise if you’re fading the ball and I can teach you to draw the ball surely bring in some of those draw characteristics into your normal swing is going to help you improve. So deliberately trying to work the ball on the range is a great way of practicing rather than just coming to the range or going to the golf course and just whacking balls for fun. Now one of the considerations on the driving range is that sometimes the balls aren’t exactly the same as the golf balls you might use when you go and plan the course; the balls might be a little bit harder, they have a more hard wearing cover. So you might feel the ball doesn’t exactly curve in the same fashion as it would do out in the golf course. So spend a little bit of time practicing the shots and practicing the swings on the range, then take a few of your own golf balls out into the golf course and just check that the characteristics of the ball flight are the same as they are on the range out on the golf course with a different golf ball. So the key element here is, don’t spend all the time on the range just trying to hit perfect straight shots. Imagine real life on call situations trying to hit a few shots low, trying to hit a few shots high, trying to draw a few, trying to fade a few. By practicing those skills I’m sure your skills on the golf course will improve, you’ll be able to work the ball next time you’re playing. 2016-08-24

When I’m giving lessons or watching golf as out on the practice range, I’ve seen awful lot of golfers spending 90-95 percent nearly 100 percent of their time just hitting perfect straight or trying to hit perfect straight golf shots. And you might say, well, there’s nothing wrong with that, we’ll all be trying to hit perfect straight golf shots all of the time. But yeah, there’s occasions when we want to work the ball on the golf course, and if you want to be able to work the ball successfully on the golf course surely that’s going to need practicing on the driving range beforehand. So what I often set my clients a little task of doing is deliberately trying to hit the ball higher and lower, right to left, left to right, show me how you can work the ball in your practice routine.

Now the great thing with this is it really gives you a much better awareness of your golf swing and how not only the good shots produced but also if you are hitting bad shots, how are they produced, what makes the ball curve left to right unintentionally? Because if you can do it intentionally you’ll be able to stop it unintentionally. Likewise if you’re fading the ball and I can teach you to draw the ball surely bring in some of those draw characteristics into your normal swing is going to help you improve. So deliberately trying to work the ball on the range is a great way of practicing rather than just coming to the range or going to the golf course and just whacking balls for fun.

Now one of the considerations on the driving range is that sometimes the balls aren’t exactly the same as the golf balls you might use when you go and plan the course; the balls might be a little bit harder, they have a more hard wearing cover. So you might feel the ball doesn’t exactly curve in the same fashion as it would do out in the golf course. So spend a little bit of time practicing the shots and practicing the swings on the range, then take a few of your own golf balls out into the golf course and just check that the characteristics of the ball flight are the same as they are on the range out on the golf course with a different golf ball.

So the key element here is, don’t spend all the time on the range just trying to hit perfect straight shots. Imagine real life on call situations trying to hit a few shots low, trying to hit a few shots high, trying to draw a few, trying to fade a few. By practicing those skills I’m sure your skills on the golf course will improve, you’ll be able to work the ball next time you’re playing.