Beginner Golf Range: Why is it Necessary Use a Golf Range? (Video) - by Pete Styles
Beginner Golf Range: Why is it Necessary Use a Golf Range? (Video) - by Pete Styles

When people start playing golf, naturally the first thing you want to do is buy your set of proper golf clubs, rush out onto the golf course and try and play your first round of golf. And most people who have experienced this, come back in off the golf course, broken and beaten because golf is far harder than it actually looks on the TV. When you watch the good players on the TV, you think, it can’t be too difficult, the ball doesn’t move, I’m not moving, no one’s going to come and tackle me and take the ball off me, so I’ll go on the golf course. And after a 150 shots, plenty of lost golf balls, going through the rough and the trees and into the water, people come back in off the golf course, broken and beaten and they go, “how do I play golf properly.” This is where you start, you start on the driving range.

Driving range is absolutely the best place to learn the game and fundamentals, because golf is a very technical skill, we’ve got lots of different movements that we need to make to try and get the golf ball to go in a straight line and go up in the air. And actually playing round the golf course is a very time consuming way of getting your practice. In a full round of golf, you’ll only have 18 tee shots, that might take you four hours. You might only take 30 or 40 putts. That might take you four hours. You’ve got an awful lot of walking in between shots waiting for other people, looking for golf balls and actually when you’re learning to play golf, and time is a precious commodity for most people, standing here on a mat, hitting a golf ball, analyzing the ball and then hitting another golf ball is absolutely the fastest way to learn.

Also, when you’re standing on a range mat, it’s quite a controlled, closed, almost a clinical environment where nothing else changes. So if you’ve hit a bad shot, clearly that must be something to do with you. Therefore if you’ve hit a good shot, again, that’s something to do with you. So you get much better and much faster feedback over whether you’re doing the right things or whether you’re improving properly. So when you come to the driving range, you get your basket of golf balls, ball on the tee-peg to start with, couple of little practice swings to loosen up and then every shot you hit is a shot that you can learn from and the shot that you can check. Did I do the right thing, did I do something indifferent?

If I’ve done something that was wrong, I’ve got another ball to go ahead and put it right, I don’t have to traipse down the fairway thinking about what I did wrong and then find I’m under a tree. Well, now I can’t practice the thing that I know I’ve done wrong. And it might be another 10 minutes until I get the same shot with the same sort of lie conditions. So it’s much easier, much simpler, much more of a closed environment, to learn to play golf on a driving range. When you’re comfortable and you’re hitting the ball nicely then take those skills out on to the golf course and then test yourself and hopefully your scores will improve much faster if you do the hard work and the practice on the driving range.

2012-07-30

When people start playing golf, naturally the first thing you want to do is buy your set of proper golf clubs, rush out onto the golf course and try and play your first round of golf. And most people who have experienced this, come back in off the golf course, broken and beaten because golf is far harder than it actually looks on the TV. When you watch the good players on the TV, you think, it can’t be too difficult, the ball doesn’t move, I’m not moving, no one’s going to come and tackle me and take the ball off me, so I’ll go on the golf course. And after a 150 shots, plenty of lost golf balls, going through the rough and the trees and into the water, people come back in off the golf course, broken and beaten and they go, “how do I play golf properly.” This is where you start, you start on the driving range.

Driving range is absolutely the best place to learn the game and fundamentals, because golf is a very technical skill, we’ve got lots of different movements that we need to make to try and get the golf ball to go in a straight line and go up in the air. And actually playing round the golf course is a very time consuming way of getting your practice. In a full round of golf, you’ll only have 18 tee shots, that might take you four hours. You might only take 30 or 40 putts. That might take you four hours. You’ve got an awful lot of walking in between shots waiting for other people, looking for golf balls and actually when you’re learning to play golf, and time is a precious commodity for most people, standing here on a mat, hitting a golf ball, analyzing the ball and then hitting another golf ball is absolutely the fastest way to learn.

Also, when you’re standing on a range mat, it’s quite a controlled, closed, almost a clinical environment where nothing else changes. So if you’ve hit a bad shot, clearly that must be something to do with you. Therefore if you’ve hit a good shot, again, that’s something to do with you. So you get much better and much faster feedback over whether you’re doing the right things or whether you’re improving properly. So when you come to the driving range, you get your basket of golf balls, ball on the tee-peg to start with, couple of little practice swings to loosen up and then every shot you hit is a shot that you can learn from and the shot that you can check. Did I do the right thing, did I do something indifferent?

If I’ve done something that was wrong, I’ve got another ball to go ahead and put it right, I don’t have to traipse down the fairway thinking about what I did wrong and then find I’m under a tree. Well, now I can’t practice the thing that I know I’ve done wrong. And it might be another 10 minutes until I get the same shot with the same sort of lie conditions. So it’s much easier, much simpler, much more of a closed environment, to learn to play golf on a driving range. When you’re comfortable and you’re hitting the ball nicely then take those skills out on to the golf course and then test yourself and hopefully your scores will improve much faster if you do the hard work and the practice on the driving range.