practice schedule

[MichaelG]

Every July I visit my dad and get to go to the practice range any time I want to with my range pass (unlimited range balls for a month). I want to dedicate as much time as I can to my game so I can improve for my senior year of my golf team. I made a schedule to go off of on what to practice for the day and was wondering if any changes should be made on it.

1 bucket= about 90 balls

all clubs = working from my 60* wedge to my driver with each club in between (6-7 each)

Monday: 2 buckets Driver/ fairway wood/ hybrid. 1 bucket all clubs. 30 minutes putting and chipping each

Tuesday: 2 buckets Irons 4-9. 1 bucket all clubs. 30 minutes putting and chipping each

Wednesday: 2 buckets wedges pw/ aw/ 54*/ 60*. 1 bucket all clubs. 30 minutes putting and chipping each

Thursday: 2 buckets all clubs. 1 hour putting and chipping each

Friday: 1 small bucket (about 20) warm up. 18 holes. 10-15 minutes putting and chipping each

Saturday: day off

Sunday: 18 holes

I'm might have enough money for at most 3 45-minute lessons.

Also I'm going to try to jog 2 miles a day and do other small exercises each day.

Any helps is appreciated! Thank you!

[bjornarneson]

Great that you get to practice this much! Take advantage of the time!

To my eye, hitting 270+ balls per session seems like a lot. Even if you were spending 30 seconds per shot (which really isn't enough to practice your pre-shot routine or do much of anything besides drag another ball toward you and hit at the same target over and over), you're still spending 2-3 hours at the range and not nearly that much working on your short game.

What if you spent an hour each day practicing your putting, another 30-60 minutes practicing chipping/pitching inside of 30 yards and hit a total of 90 balls per day (including your pre-shot routine)? I read somewhere that better golfers prioritize *quality* over *quantity* with their range sessions. Make each shot count, and pay particular attention to those within 30 yards.

My two cents...

[skillzwhogolfs]

They always say "putt for dough" which pretty much means the better putting/short game you have the lower your scores will be. I know its not as fun as hitting golf balls with a full swing but if you don't practice short game as much it will be tough to get up and down when you need to.

[MichaelG]

So would changing 2 buckets to 1 bucket and upping the 30 minutes to an hour for chipping/putting and on Thursday do 1 & 1/2 hours each be better?

[skillzwhogolfs]

I would say that seems like a better idea 180 golf balls straight will wear you out and at the end probably wont even be having a good swing. Also the first couple days I would just see on what part of your game needs the most work. If your driving or irons are flying off course every other swing then I would take a little more time focusing on that the last couple days, but if your doing ok with your full swing and are 3 putting a lot work on putting and getting up and down more often.

Also when you practice try to learn your set up and swing path, etc., don't just swing and hope for the best. You may not be doing this but just good to point out.

[MichaelG]

Alright thanks. I know most of my weaknesses and will apply those the most

[skillzwhogolfs]

yeah good luck, Glad you are doing this also, i wish i did something like this when i played in high school. play well

[mosnas]

Originally Posted by skillzwhogolfs

They always say "putt for dough" which pretty much means the better putting/short game you have the lower your scores will be. I know its not as fun as hitting golf balls with a full swing but if you don't practice short game as much it will be tough to get up and down when you need to.

It depends where you are weak at.  Having a good short game doesn't mean anything if you can't get the ball to the green.

[Adam Young]

I would say that it's not so much the fact that you are practising - it is what you are practising that counts. Just hitting balls may only provide a short term betterment as your co-ordination gets better, but you should be really 'working' on something if you want to improve.

My personal practice philosophy is built around developing college players and young professionals - its what i do for a living. for them, they have a lot of time to practice, sometimes 8 hours a day. I split it as follows

• warm up - full body movements and stretches for injury prevention. Simple swings gradually building up from a SW to adriver over the course of 20-30 balls. No technique focus, no thinking, just rhythm and strike
• Technique  - working on something technical that will  improve the ball flight they wish to acheive. This is done wihtout a ball, or with a whiffle ball. more camera work and mirror work to focus fully on the move. As they get better at producing the new move without a ball, we can gradually implement a ball. But very little hitting is done in this stage.
• experimentation - this is vital to your skills (after all, golf is predominantly a skill game). players will focus on experiemnting with varying extremes of clubface (open and closed) path (left and right) ball positions, angle of attacks, strikes (picking or munching), and loft variations. This si the bigegst difference between a great pro and a rubbadub pro. Tiger woods can hit every shot in the world, he doesnt know this by fluke, he has practised it.
• calibration - now is the time to dial in a standard shot - a straighter one if you will. Work on hitting you best shot, using your knowledge form the experimentation stages. If the ball curves too far right, get the clubface more closed etc. This is where most of the golfers spend their time, but it is useless without the knowledge from experimentation.
• Routine work - now is the time for less thinking about technique, more focus on the result. Play a game, as above, and work on perfecting your routine. The sole gola of this is to get a REPEATABLE result - doesnt have to be perfect. If your repeatable result is a 20 yard draw - play wiht it. If you dont like it, go through stages 2-4 again.

I would repeat this every day, spending maybe half hour in each section. If you havent got that time, spend one day working on experimenting, next day working on technique, next day calibrating it all, and then the last day working on routine. But be specific. dont work on them all at once or you will spin your wheels.

Hope that helps