Practice Idea?

[iacas]

What do y'all think of this as an idea for golf practice tonight?



Station 1: Putting / Chipping (30 mins)
Station 2: Irons / Bucket (30 mins)

Team 1: Six kids in alternating order (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11)
Team 2: Five kids (2, 4, 6, 8, 10)

Team 1 should begin at the practice green. Team 2 should begin at the range.


Putting: Pick an opponent and play nine holes of match play with sudden death overtime. Winner chooses the hole and starting location, decide initial honors with coin or tee flip. Winners advance while losers practice and each win nets one point.

Chipping: Same rules as above, but each hole is decided simply by whomever is closest. Choose different initial opponents.

Irons: Choose an order and then play a game of HORSE. The winner earns three points, second and third win 2, fourth wins 1. If one person says “stop a 5-iron on the red green” then the person following must do it. If he does, the next person must. The person following the person who cannot execute the shot chooses the next shot. If everyone executes the shot, the person who chose the shot gets the letter and chooses the next one.

Bucket: Match play, so go up against a partner. Each person chips ten balls at a bucket. The winner is the person with the most balls in the bucket. One point per win, and losers should practice chipping to the second target.

The winner from each team receives a sleeve of balls and is eligible to compete in the final challenge, to be determined by the coaches at the end of practice.

What I plan for the finale is to hit to a red flag green (100 yards away), 10 balls, winner is the most to stop 10 balls on the green.

What do you think? Good practice? How would you change it?

[Rickins]

Sounds like a fine practice session to me, Erik.

With the iron practice, I might suggest that each "challenge" be original in some respect. Other than that, it sounds real good.

Rick

[iacas]

The practice is over now and it was a lot of fun. HORSE was shortened to GOLF because it was taking too long. Eventually I had to say "if you don't successfully do the shot that you choose, you get a letter." That kept them from choosing stupid things like "ball must land, on the fly, in this bunker with an 8-iron" and then not doing it.

The bigger kids used their length to get some of the smaller kids some letters, and the smaller kids didn't think quickly enough to use some creativity to their advantage. But it was fun.

[Rickins]

Might be more trouble than it's worth but I thought that another twist on HORSE might be for you to "pre-set" shots for the teams to make.

Without knowing what you have at your disposal for practice facilities, it's hard to come up with anything concrete but, for example, a low, punch from beneath a tree. Perhaps a fairway bunker shot. A sidehill lie from a berm. A pitch back up from the backside of a green to a tight pin...which shouldn't have had to be made in the first place if that stinking 5-iron would have bit...but I digress.

Anyway, just thinking that you could set up shots with different degrees of difficulty and let the players get however creative they want to be.

Rick

[NCGolfer]

I really like the HORSE or GOLF idea. I think over time you'll see some very creative things come out of it and it will expose the weaknesses of golfers. Another idea would be to have the team play mini-matches (three holes or so) with just a few clubs.

I'm sure over time you will see what works and what is fun...hopefully both are the same.

[Rickins]

I like Dave's mini-match idea. I've never tried this but it might be interesting to play a shortish par-five, for example, with no more club than a player can comfortably hit 150-160 yards.

The concept has been around as long as I've played the game- which I won't go into right now - that moderately short, accurate iron play would serve the average golfer as well, if not better, than banging away with a driver off nearly every tee and then salvaging whatever can be had from there.

Might also serve to accustom the players to actually selecting landing areas on the fairway rather than trying to "Hail Mary" each shot looking for the maximum yardage. A little lesson in course management, if you will.

Food for thought. Thanks, Dave.

Rick