By David C Parkin

Have you ever gone to the driving range to hit a few balls without any special purpose to it? Worked up a sweat and then go home happy. Does this help improve your golf game? Well, it may improve your health a little and perhaps improve your swing a bit if you are doing the correct swing mechanics during the practice but you are not getting the maximum out of the time on the range.

A lot of us fall into this habit when we go to the practice range. How can you improve this and to actually practice with purpose? There are two parts to this process.

Firstly you need to know which part of your golf game needs improving. If it is your driver that needs improving, then you should spend most of your time in the range practicing your driver. It could be that your putting stroke needs to be improved further then put in a substantial time to practice your putting strokes. Be it your chipping or short iron shots, before going to practice, spend a few minutes to plan out your practice objective for that session. It would even be better if you have kept statistics of your game such as fairway hit, greens in regulation or number of putts per hole to know what aspect of your game needs improvement.

Secondly, you should try to simulate the pressure of playing in a real game when you are practicing in the range. For example, a lot of players can routinely make 3 feet putts in the practice range but when on the course especially when playing in a tournament, a 3 feet gimme putt suddenly becomes much more difficult to make. This is because the mental aspect of the game becomes more pronounced. When you are in the practice range, you know that missing that putt makes is not important so there is no pressure and you are able to putt in your normal mode. However in a game and especially in a tournament, that putt could mean winning the hole or the tournament, the pressure on your mind suddenly becomes high and it affects your swing. The key to playing well in a game is how to create such pressure in your practice environment so that you can train your mind and body in pressured situations.

To re-create such conditions, you can make out a game for yourself in the practice range. An example for putting could be to have 25 balls putted from the same spot 3 feet from the hole. If you can hole all the putts consecutively, then move the 25 balls to 4 feet away from the hole and repeat. Continue this routine to 5 feet and 6 feet, progressing only if you have successfully holed all of them continuously. If you failed on one, then you have to start the whole routine back at 3 feet. Now this greatly increase the pressure on you to make the putts and to concentrate on each and every one of the putts otherwise you could be spending the whole day repeating the routine over and over again. This routine can also be ported over to your iron or wood shots. For example, you can mentally mark out an area on the practice range where you would hit a 7 iron shot to. If all your 25 balls land within that area, you have successfully completed your routine. If one of the shot goes out of the area, you need to restart your 25 shots routine again until successful.

Another method to inject some fun and pressure into your practice routine is if you have a partner or partners practicing together with you. Create a mini competition among yourselves and perhaps even a friendly wager of drinks after your practice session. You can create similar situations like who has holed the most 3 feet putts out of 50 balls or who has hit the 100 yards marker on the practice range to within a 10 yards radius the most out of 25 balls. You can think of many ways to create such games on the practice range. This not only breaks the monotonous routine of the practice range but will also increase the focus of your mind in the practice shot.

Therefore next time before you head out to the practice range, have a plan on what you intend to improve on your game and also increase the pressure on your practice session so as to not only train your technical aspect of your game but also the mental aspect as well.

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