Practice routines that produce results

Every time I go the range at my club or any other, I am always curious as to what most golfers are trying to accomplish.  I observe them just beating one ball after another without any real purpose.

They all say the same thing when they get out on the course “Can’t figure it out, I hit the ball so good on the range”.  They miss the fact that when hitting one ball after another they got into a rhythm, they were on a perfectly flat lie and most aren’t really hitting to a target.

Hitting balls in a machine gun like fashion without a plan or purpose is really just warming up.  I get the best results on the range when I practice at playing.

Here’s what I mean:

After I’m warmed up, if I’m not there to work on a specific shot, I set up holes on the range to try and make my practice like playing.  I visualize some targets like a fairway and I hit my driver, then I will hit an iron like I’m trying to hit a green and I’m very specific at a target, then I may hit a chip and so on.  I will play many different types of visualized holes, par 5’s, par 4’s and par’3s.  This is how you play and practicing this way will prepare you much better for your rounds.

If you have a difficult time with certain holes where you play a lot, set it up visually on the range and practice playing it.  Try and fine some different lies that you may encounter on the course instead of a perfect flat lie.  Maybe bare lies, uphill, downhill etc.

Work on a specific shot that you want to get better at like a punch shot, which I think is one of the most valuable shots any golfer especially an average golfer should master.  Or perhaps you want to learn to hit higher shots for your shot approach shots into greens, whatever it is, practice it.

Practicing with a purpose and a plan and making it more like playing will improve you game so much more than just hitting one ball after another just to see how far they go.

I would love to hear everybody’s successful practice routine that pays them the most dividends.

I like that idea a lot and used to use it myself.

Like you I am completely blown away by golfers that can pound through two or three buckets of balls like its nothing. My personal strategy at the range is to treat each swing as though it was a swing on the course. Not so much playing an imaginary hole, but I will pick a target, run through my entire pre-shot routine and then play the shot. I go through a line of divots (grass range) and then move on to another club. It'll take me at least an hour to get through a large bucket of balls.

I use a very similar routine in practicing putting as well: http://thesandtrap.com/forum/newestpost/43452

Exactly!.  In golf you never hit the same shot twice...so why would you practice that

If you are LEARNING how to draw a driver for instance, sure hit a few in a row, but if you are Practicing a draw for a driver,  hit one or two, then change it up, weather it is the target that is changed, the shot shape or the club.

But yeah, why practice repetition on the range when you never do this on the course...kind of illogical

That's true too. I like that, "mindful repetition."

Today I actually broke my normal range routine because I wanted to focus on posture rather then swing mechanics. So it was only necessary for me to repeat my address position instead of going through my entire routine. That being said I was still focused on taking my time with each shot. Treating them with the necessary attention.

I really like the OPs idea, and I actually read someone recommend that here fairly recently and have started implementing that sometimes in my practice.  At the very least I've been making an effort to switch clubs more frequently, sometimes doing things like hitting maybe 3-4 shots with a club instead of refusing to switch until I'd hit 3 excellent balls in a row.

But I definitely still feel Erik's point too.  The other posters here are all very accomplished, low handicap players, and I could easily imagine that if I had a swing ingrained that I was very successful with it might be most valuable to spend the time at the range essentially coming as close as possible to playing a practice round, but doing it in an hour instead of 3-4.  But I'm not at that point of comfort yet with my swing, and especially when working on a specific mechanical issue (including changes to posture, grip, etc., as well as actual swing mechanics), I still feel I need to mindfully hit 10-12 shots with each club in a row, not literally rapid fire but in a way that a scratch player might think of as bordering on machine-gun, concentrating just on trying drill in some new piece of the swing so that it's more automatic.

I can't claim I've done it in a very deliberate way, but I have gotten very good with the punch shot just out of necessity, as accuracy off the tee is only a strength of mine on my very very best days, and I've spent many rounds practicing escaping from the trees to a spot where I have some reasonable chance of saving par from.  In fact, though my distance control isn't perfect, the punch is the only shot which I can reliably control the shape of.  I've had many birdie putts after driving into the trees and hitting a punch slice or punch hook runner up onto the green.

For me, my approach to range time this year has been completely different than in the past. Before, I would definitely use targets but that was about it. Oh, it's 140 so I'm going to hit my 9i for 30 balls. Then move to next target and repeat. Now, I have specific things I work on and am ingraining - mainly tempo and balance, as well as different shots inside 100 yards. I work on swing plane stuff at home in my living room, where I've got a mirror and sometimes my camera. But on the range - and obviously the course - the last thing I want to worry about is plane. To me, tempo, balance, and shot type is more important and are the easiest for me to fix during a round. Messing about with swing plane in a round leads to disasters for me.