Practice Like a Pro. How do you do this?

[HogansSecrets]

How many balls do pros hit daily when intensly practicing?

How do the pros practice? what are they working on when practicing?

[ND Fan]

Practicing like a pro has many meanings.

There is Vijay who hits balls until he's blue in the face and then there are guys that rarely do anything but warm up and some short game work.

Range time is a good thing but using the range effectively means hitting shots with a purpose.  Aim at something specific, very specific.  Change up clubs regularly and learn to hit them all.  Spend the most time on the clubs you have the most trouble with.

For most amateurs practicing like a pro isn't a good idea.  They're not good enough to practice like a pro.

Practice lack a hack who wants to break 80 most of time.

[Gerald]

I practice a lot ....... it is true you need to practice with a purpose, the purpose doesn't always have to be a target to aim for, it can also be to practice a certain ballflight, a better take away, a better hip turn etc.

I recently changed my chipping style, worked on it with a pro and now I am practicing at least 150-300 balls a day, but not just hitting them in a row, do it with a purpose, clean contact, from different spots, lies, etc..... main goal is to develop feel and in the end improve 10% in my scrambling.

It is also a great drill to pick out a target and hit 10 ball within 5 yds of the target or even closer AND keep scores........ until you reach 8 or 9 out if ten ....... it is way better to go through preshot routines while practicing, hitting 10 balls in 15 minutes, than hitting ball after ball and maybe 30 or 40 in the same 15 minutes.

I see soooooooo many people with a bucket of balls at the range starting with 5 balls 7i, 5 balls 5i, 10 balls hybrid, 5 balls wood, 15 balls Driver and the few leftovers with the wedges ....... don't ask their hc ...... mostly 18 - 24 and they will never improve ..... they don't practice .... they just hit some balls.

[Keep It Simple]

One of the most helpful golf related experiences I had was watching the pro's practice in person.  I noticed 70-80 % of their time is spent hitting golf balls at 60%-70% effort level (in other words, nice and easy).  Clearly different from watching them turn up the heat during competition.  But their easy going swings are still producing more distance than an average golfers best all-out swing.

The rest of us try and swing easy but when the ball doesn't go anywhere we turn it up to full blast.  The pro's are showing us that an easy swing CAN be powerful and that solid contact is crucial.  At full effort it becomes difficult to make controlled adjustments to our swings.

At the range I like to remember what I saw watching the pro's practice.  I spend most of my time taking nice easy relaxed swings.  If I am not getting the desired distance, I keep the same effort level and make small adjustments to my timing, weight shift etc. until contact with the ball is flush and I am hitting the ball as far as I can without changing my effort level.  Then I ramp it up for a few swings to see how far I can hit the ball before calling it a day.

[pughdog]

How do the pros practice? what are they working on when practicing?

As already said, all Pros practice differently. Often it will depend on how comfortable I am with my swing. If I'm hitting the ball nicely and pretty straight through the bag it may be a bit of target practice, working through the bag hitting shots to various targets on the range. By shots I mean literally going through the whole routine, as if on the course, picking the target, lining up, stepping into the ball and hitting it just like its a shot on the golf course. The thing that my amateur friends can never believe is how long it takes me to get through a bucket of balls when I'm practicing this way. They'll be clipping off the last few whilst I've hardly hit any. I know its a corny old phrase about quality over quantity but in this case it can be true. If I'm working on something gi my swing then the type of practice can change, I become less interested in the short term result of the shot and spend more time making changes and changing the feel of the swing. I use video to confirm that changes are actually happening and can spend as long as it takes to see some change in the desired area. The result of the shot then becomes far outweighed by the movements of my body and maybe clarity of strike / ball flight etc. These are two very different types of practice. I wouldn't dream of doing the latter the morning of a tournament, its for when I'm on the range purely to make a few changes or experiment. Directly before a game its always about seeing some shots fly towards targets and dialing in some distances on wedges. A whole other topic aside is how the short game is practiced and the type of practice done there. I certainly spend as much time if not more on my short game as I do beating balls ;-)