Thoughts from the Range at a PGA Tour Stop

As many would guess, I love visiting the range of a PGA Tour stop. I love to see what - and how - the guys are working on. Players are often loose and open to conversation. They'll say hi to their friends, try out different gear, and mess around with their swing(s).

As I stood there on Tuesday at The Memorial, occasionally snapping some photos, a few thoughts dawned on me. One of the first was that I wish I could wrap the experience up in a package. I'd want to record the swings, the way the strikes sound to human ears (not to microphones), the divots, the ball flight, the target, the processes and routines the players go through.

If I could, I'd then share this experience with anyone who thinks they're a pretty good ballstriker. With anyone who thinks they're not far off from hitting shots like a Tour player. With anyone who thinks that putting is more important than driving or iron play.

Here are a few of my observations from the range.

All 5 Simple Keys®

It probably goes without saying, but whether the player is Will McGirt with his weird elbow lifty move, Justin Rose with what many would call a great swing, Jeff Overton with his pronounced dive down at the ball during the downswing, or Carl Pettersson, or anyone else… they all have all five keys. Most of the time, that is… and when they're missing a Key, it's almost always #5, and sometimes #4. Keys #1-3 are almost always in place.

Divots

They barely take them. With an AoA that approaches only -5° or -6° with even the short irons, it's virtually impossible to take much turf. @david_wedzik and I have been using the term "Tour Thin" for awhile now (trademark pending! :D) to describe the "thinness" of PGA Tour level divots. You likely either take big divots or no divot at all. Hash tag "you're doing it wrong." :)

Consistency

The target greens on the range at the Memorial are about the size of a small practice putting green at many courses. Maybe the size of three or four cars parked very close to one another. And yet I watched pros repeatedly striping even 3-woods at these greens, seldom missing by even one yard left or right. Pros are incredibly consistent at not only horizontal dispersion, but distance, trajectory, spin, ball speed, everything.

Equipment

The consistency above lets them notice small differences in equipment. Bounce a bit less on this 7-iron over that one? They'll feel the difference in the turf interaction. Ball launches a bit higher off this hybrid? They'll notice. Shaft kicks differently? They can tell.

Training Aids

PGA Tour pros are just like you and I: they seem to love their training aids. Even if they don't seem to know what they're good for, or how to use them, they use and seem to love their training aids. From the simple elevated string lines or tee gates on the putting green to elastic stretchy bands that you step on and grip with your club to do I-don't-know-what on the backswing (or maybe it was the downswing?), they use training aids all the time. In that sense, they're just like you and I - they seem to think their next great round is just one simple little thing away.

Stupidity

As the Stupid Monkey thread ( ) attests, Tour players are not that bright… about the golf swing. They are simply very, very good at making a golf ball go high, far, and relatively straight. They can tell you in very good detail how their swing feels, but whether it's what they're actually doing, what it causes or fixes, etc.… forget it.

And let me be abundantly clear: this is, at the PGA Tour level, pretty much how it should be. How it needs to be for these guys to succeed. Ignorance is bliss, and the last thing they need to be thinking about on Sunday is whether their right elbow is pitchy enough with the driver.

And, of course, there are exceptions. The exceptions are often the students who have been working with someone either recently or for a long time. They know "more" about their golf swing, but they're almost all working to the point of stupidity - they want to just go out there and hit the ball, maybe keeping one thing in mind. They don't want to know or be thinking about their left wrist conditions at the top of the backswing.

We All Suck

I suck. You suck. We all suck. Seriously, there's nothing more humbling than watching PGA Tour players hit just about every club in their bag perfectly. Now, yes, it's the range, but I'm sorry - even your best range session is not going to sniff the range sessions these guys put in.

Thanks Erik.

I've never been to a tournament but may go to The Deutsche Bank in Norton, MA this September.  I will definitely check out the range if I go.

A couple of years ago I worked as a volunteer on the range for the AT&T; (now Quicken Loans) tournament at Congressional CC.  While I had no interaction with the players, I did have to wander the range to pick up un-used balls and the little color-coded bags, so I was pretty close to the guys while they were warming up and/or practicing.  The sounds of contact were amazing, and the ball flights were, as Erik says, amazingly consistent.  When they hit driver, it reminded me of the old Star Wars effect as the starship goes into hyperdrive, or whatever it was, when the stars blur.  It was like the ball was somehow accelerating, like it kept finding more gears to go faster.  I don't know if that image makes sense to anyone, it was simply mind-boggling.

We also worked around the short-game area, which was equally amazing.  A guy comes out of the clubhouse, picks up a stray ball about 40 yards away, and hits his first shot, a low two-bouncer that spun to a stop about 2 feet from the hole.

I've played with a few good players, club pros, other guys who've been +2 or +3 handicaps​, and they're not even in the same universe as the touring pros.

Scratch is closer to a 10 handicap than a Tour pro, if that's what you mean, IMO. Yes.

Watching the pros at the practice range - well, to me, it's like God rolling on the floor and laughing at me, tears dripping from his eyes and he manages to stop and say to me you think you can even come remotely close, 1/1000th to this? Goes on to laugh even further as thunder cracks.

They are human missile launchers and make it look as simple as apple pie.