Professional golfers practice harder that most fans think. It’s what makes them so good. They practice so hard because the know that no matter how much physical talent they have they know that practice is the best way of improving their games. So they develop programs designed to abolish their weaknesses. Then, they build their schedules around their golf practice sessions.
Most weekend golfers can’t build their schedules around their golf practice sessions. They have too much to do. If they want to improve their games, they must squeeze practice in between going to work, shopping for food, painting the house, cutting the lawn, going to church, chauffeuring their kids, and so on. To whittle down their golf handicaps, they need to find productive, efficient ways of mastering the four basic swings.
Mastering Four Basic Swings
Golf requires you to learn four basic swings a power swing, a target swing, a finesse swing, and a putting swing. Your power swing gets you off the tee. Your target swing helps you hit greens. Your finesse swing gets you close to the pin when you miss with your target swing. And your putting swing sinks putts. Unfortunately, weekend golfers don’t always devote sufficient time to mastering the different swing types.
Weekend golfers focus most of their practice time on their power swings. If they take individual golf lessons or attend golf instruction sessions in a group, it’s to improve their power swings. Their reasoning: if they hit the ball farther, they won’t need their target swings or their finesses swings as much. That’s the hard way of cutting a golf handicap. Since owners of ranges want to accommodate their customers’ needs, they build facilities designed primarily to help weekend players improve their power swings.
Remedying The Problem
If you’re serious about chopping strokes off your golf handicap, you must do four things when it comes to practicing. First, find a facility that lets you practice as many of the four swings as possible at its location. That’s not easy. You may have to drive a little farther than normally and set aside a little more time for each practice session, but it’s well worth the effort. This type of facility lets you practice all your swings in one session. If you can’t find one that lets you practice all four swings, find one that let’s you work on at least three.
Second, divide your practice sessions (whatever time you may have) into four equal segments. Then, practice them in this order. Focus first on your finesse swing, then on your putting, then on your power swing, and finally on your approach swing. If you don’t have enough time to do that, divide the sessions in half. In the first session, focus on your finesse swing and then your putting swing. The next practice session, divide the session in half and focus on your power swing and your approach swing. Keep rotating sessions. And try to practice regularly.
Structure Practice Sessions
Third, plan your practice sessions. Keeping accurate statistics when you play tells you what areas of your game need the most practice. If you’re stats tell you that your lag putting is costing you strokes, build in drills designed to improve your lag putting. If your stats tell you that your short chipping is costing you strokes, build in exercises designed to improve your chipping. Structure your practice sessions as much as possible. It saves time and lets you get more done.
Fourth, create goals and/or objectives for your practice sessions. Think of objectives as being milestones on the way to larger goals, such as cutting two strokes from you golf handicap. For example, the star drill requires you to make a certain number of putts before moving to the next station. Set an objective of moving two stations in one session, then three, and then completely around the hole. The larger goal is improving your short putting.
Structuring and planning helps you get the most from individual practice sessions. Dividing the practice sessions up into segments given the time you have enables you to master the four different swings you’ll need to lower your golf handicap and raise your game to a new level. Taking golf lessons, reading golf tips, and/or attending golf instruction sessions for groups also helps you master each type of swing while conducting productive, efficient practice sessions makes you a better more complete player.
