A Game Of Recovery
When you head to the practice tee, what is your intention? Are you there just to “warm up”, and get ready for your approaching tee time? Are you heading to the range to practice, make improvement? Depending on which question you are answering, you should have a different mental approach to what you’ll be doing on the practice tee.
If you are headed to the driving range just prior to a round of golf, you need to focus on a couple of things. First, you should use the time there to properly stretch your body, warm up the muscles to help avoid injury on the course. Let’s face it, the golf swing is not a natural motion, and for some, it might look like your falling out of a tree. You should NEVER stand on the first tee without having made at least a few simple swings to warm up the body. The last thing you need to do is stand over the ball, flail away, and try to swing the club upwards of 100 mph. You are just asking for a disaster. Injury is just around the corner for you. I hope you have the number of a good chiropractor.
The second thing you should focus on if you are headed to the range prior to a round is pay attention to how you are just hitting the ball. I would never tell one of my students to go to the range before a round of golf and try and “work” or “fix” something. If you are hitting balls and the majority of them are pulls, then just plan on playing for a pull during that days round and go fix the problem another time. Just take you have to the course and live with it…at least for that day.
Now if you are intending on truly practicing while you are at the driving range, what is it that you’re going to practice? Most golfers that I see, do the same thing each and every time they go to the range, they make full swings with different clubs in their bag. Seldom do I see someone working with drills, practice aids, or even alignment rods (although I’m starting to see these getting used more) unless they are taking a golf lesson. Why wouldn’t you use the same drills if the instructor were not there?
What I find interesting about this way of practice is that I don’t always view it as being productive. Let me explain this. When you are on the driving range, you are practicing in ideal conditions. The ground is flat, the grass is usually great, there are no obstacles to avoid, no water hazards, bunkers, trees. And even if there was, if you hit a poor shot, there is a whole bag of balls waiting there for you to just keep swinging away.
Golf is very much a game of recovery. You don’t hit every fairway, you don’t hit every green, and you definitely won’t make every putt. I encourage my students to not only spend time on the driving range, short game area, and putting green working with drills and grooving their swing, but actually practicing on the course. Take a casual round, by yourself, and practice while you play. You don’t keep score, and can occasionally hit the same shot several times. There is no other way to create “real world” conditions for your practice session. Learning to play from the rough, the trees, and fairway bunkers, hitting the shot you need when you need it.
This isn’t anything new, but is very often overlooked. You may intend on practicing when on the course, but invariably you end up focusing on the score that you’re shooting. That’s not practice, that’s playing. When you forget the score, then you are able to improve.