Smart Practice - Make every shot count

We all live busy lives, and the time that most of us have available to practice our golf is limited, so it is vitally important that this time is used wisely. Unfortunately, the majority of golfers that I see come through our driving range are not doing this. Almost every player that I see on the range is doing nothing more than performing a warm up routine. Hitting a few wedges, then some mid irons, before having a crack with the driver, is not effective golf practice! Although practicing in this way is better than not practicing at all, it has very little effect on improving your golf game. Golf is a sport made up of several different disciplines, and your golf handicap is only the average of your ability at each of these separate disciplines. For example, if you have a 10 handicap, it is very unlikely than any of the disciplines within your game are of a 10 handicap level. You may find that your driving is of a 5 handicap level, your mid iron approaches 8, but your putting on a relative scale is poor and at an 18 handicap. It is the combination of these separate disciplines, that determines what you awarded as a playing handicap, some disciplines have more effect on your scores & some less. The only way you can assess your game correctly, is to start recording statistics, all the top players do it, and this lets them know what to work on when they practice. You cannot guess this information, although many players I speak with seem adamant that they know what the weak areas of their games are, yet they still turn up and go through the same “warm up routine” as practice. Once you have recorded your statistics for a few rounds, it is then possible to evaluate these stats, and identify the weak areas, which are very often not what you thought they would be. Practice plans can then be developed around your weaknesses, with targets being set and each practice session should be recorded, so that you can track improvement. Put simply, to improve your golf, you must work on the weak areas of your game that have the largest effect on score, and every golf ball you ever hit, must have the same amount of focus put on it.