Successful day practicing!

[MJP]

I haven't spent 4 hours practicing in quite a while...especially that much on the short game. Usually its 2 hours tops on the short game, 1 hr on the long. Today I spent 3 1/2 hours on the short game. About 15 minutes warm up putting and 15 minutes of lag putting. The rest were me practicing getting up and down. I am going to incorporate this into all of my practice sessions, so long as the chipping green isn't busy. Spent 20 minutes or so hitting 20 balls with the driver. Hitting nice draws today!!

Here was my up and down test for today. I'm going to start doing this more often, but I throw balls (14 I had today) into random spots at certain yardages from the hole, then try to get up and down. All 14 balls are in a half circle around the green at least 10 feet apart. Chip and putt out unless its within 3 feet, which is a gimme par. Next time I will record more information (such as how many up and downs that had putts of less than 3 feet).

5-10y chips from a tight lie (fringe): Finished even par with 13/14 up and downs, 1 chip in birdie and 1 missed putt for bogey (terrible chip to leave me 10 feet).
10y pitches from the rough: Finished even par with 11/14 up and down, 3 chip ins for birdie (all in a row which was really weird), and 3 missed putts for bogey).
20y pitches from the rough/tight lies (sometimes would pitch off dead ground to simulate pitching from the fairway but most were in the rough): Finished 1 over with 13/14 up and down. Only about 3 or 4were tap ins, I sunk a lot of putts here.
30y pitches from the rough/tight lies (75% from rough) 9/14 up and down, 5 bogeys. A few were within 5 feet from this distance. Most between 7-12 feet.


Assuming a terrible ball striking day of zero greens in regulation, this drill is designed to improve scrambling dramatically.

Place 18 balls in a half circle around the green. 4 sets. 4 different yardages. 5-10y tight lie, 10y rough, 20y rough/tight lie, 30y rough/tight lie (most at my practice facility will be from the rough). The end total will be 72 balls. Chips/pitches within 3 feet are gimmes. The rest will be putt out. Keep track of gimmes out of 18 as well as the average putt length for those that are not gimmes.

Should look like this for example:

20y from pin: 5 over par with 1 chip in birdie and 6 missed putts for bogey. 12/18 up and down. 6/18 to gimme range. Average non gimme putt, 7 feet. Even though it was 12/18 up and down, the chip in essentially makes it 13/18 up and down. So the scrambling percentages would be somewhere just over 70%.

edit: Also forgot to add, I was 15/18 at 2 putting from an average of 50 feet. Some 30 some 70 some 50.

[James_Black]

Nice work.

I was playing with my friend who's a 10 handicap.
I hit a lot of GIR, but when I miss I have problems getting up and down.
He misses a lot of greens but he gets up and down nearly every time.

Just show's how important the short game is

[MJP]

Indeed. I've been working really hard lately and I've improved a lot of 4-7 footers for par as well. I think short game is something anyone can get good at they just need to put some work into to develop feel.

Plus, practicing like it's the real deal helps a lot.