65/20/15 Practice Ratios: Where to Devote Your Practice Time

[billchao]

42 minutes ago, RFKFREAK said:

(Although, to be fair, I'm not sure how to quantify how bad it is other than anecdotal situations I remember).

I think the primary goal at your level is to make sure you only chip/pitch once. Make sure you get on the green, even if you have to aim away from the flag. I still do this if aiming at the hole is a risky proposition that can end up worse than just being 25' away on the fat part of the green.

I believe LSW says that high handicap players should look to be within their handicap in feet from the hole or something along those lines.

[RFKFREAK]

1 minute ago, billchao said:

I think the primary goal at your level is to make sure you only chip/pitch once. Make sure you get on the green, even if you have to aim away from the flag. I still do this if aiming at the hole is a risky proposition that can end up worse than just being 25' away on the fat part of the green.

I believe LSW says that high handicap players should look to be within their handicap in feet from the hole or something along those lines.

Yeah, I'm noticing a lot of the time I'll be around the green, I'll chip on and leaving it a far from the pin and leaving myself a lot of almost certain 2 putts and potential 3 putts.

For example, on a recent round I counted 14 times where I was around the green, and on average I chipped the ball 18.8 yards and left myself a 20.6 foot putt, averaging 2 putts each time and 3 putting three times.  I feel that if I'm chipping from off the green from that distance, I shouldn't be leaving myself such long putts.

[zwon13]

Nice read, This was something I was looking for. Question, If you had a hour and a half to practice a day would you (A) focus on one per day or (B) break that time into all three per day?

[iacas]

1 hour ago, zwon13 said:

Nice read, This was something I was looking for. Question, If you had a hour and a half to practice a day would you (A) focus on one per day or (B) break that time into all three per day?

90 minutes doing any one thing is too much. I recommend mixing things up, with no more than about 30 minutes doing any one thing.

You could do 60 minutes on the full swing if it's 20 minutes hitting wedges, 20 minutes hitting mid-irons, and 20 minutes working on your driving, and then spend 30 minutes divided among the short game and putting, for example.

[zwon13]

8 minutes ago, iacas said:

90 minutes doing any one thing is too much. I recommend mixing things up, with no more than about 30 minutes doing any one thing.

You could do 60 minutes on the full swing if it's 20 minutes hitting wedges, 20 minutes hitting mid-irons, and 20 minutes working on your driving, and then spend 30 minutes divided among the short game and putting, for example.

Thanks, I'm looking to take things serious this year and come up with a weekly/daily practice routine.

[iacas]

13 minutes ago, zwon13 said:

Thanks, I'm looking to take things serious this year and come up with a weekly/daily practice routine.

Look into evolvr.com, too.

[zwon13]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Look into evolvr.com, too.

Awesome. Thanks I didnt know about that site.

[boogielicious]

7 hours ago, zwon13 said:

Awesome. Thanks I didnt know about that site.

A lot of us here use it. It is very good.

[Caveman59]

On ‎6‎/‎8‎/‎2012 at 5:24 PM, iacas said:

I've been working off a theory for awhile now, and I've talked with a lot of people about it. I've charted how much time the average PGA Tour player spends doing things, I've talked with coaches and instructors at all levels. I've talked with good and in some cases great players.

 

Nothing yet has dissuaded me from thinking what I'm about to tell you. If anything, it's firmed up my belief. I'm still leaving the door open to the possibility that what I'm about to say still needs to be tweaked, but I think at worst it's pretty close.

 

What am I talking about? Try this on for size:

 

Unless you have a glaring weakness or a facet of your game which far outshines the others, you should spend 65% of your time practicing the full swing, 20% of your time practicing the short game, and 15% of your time practicing putting.

 

By "full swing" I mean every shot that uses full swing mechanics. This includes all shots over about 100 yards as well as some of the 1/2 and 3/4 that employ full-swing mechanics. By "short game" I mean everything else inside of about 100 yards that isn't putting. And by putting I mean putting. Duh.

 

Now, people who have argued against me on this will talk about how "60% of your shots are from within 100 yards of the green." That's great and all, but if you remove short putts from the equation the number drops significantly. Still, the number is around 40% for "short game + putting" and 40% for the full swing, so why have I said 65/20/15?

 

Because working back from the putting green to the tee, putting is simple. It's a relatively easy motion that does not take a lot of time to master. The mechanics are simpler, the requirements simpler, and the ceiling is more severe. If you're making half of your six footers (on bumpier, slower greens than those seen on the PGA Tour), that's all you need to play golf on the PGA Tour, so time spent practicing 20 footers ( which are made about 14% on the PGA Tour , so you should expect to make about one in ten) is time better spent doing something else.

 

Moving back farther from the green, a good bit more time can be spent trying not to leave yourself a 20-footer for par , and working on the short game. I say you should practice your short game 2.5 times as much as your putting. Learn a few basic shots - a pitch, a chip, a bunker shot (which is just a variation of the pitch for many), and maybe a specialty shot or three (a bladed wedge from the fringe, a high flop, and a low checking shot). Variations of those will cover virtually every other shot you can imagine, and if you practice a few shots here and there from some odd lies, you'll do just fine.

 

Of course, you'll do even better if you're not having to use your short game for very much - better still to hit the green in regulation. There's a reason they say "two things don't last very long: dogs who chase cars and golfers who putt for pars." That takes us out to full swing range, and statistics show that the long game - driving the ball in play and hitting greens (particularly from longer distances) is absolutely crucial to playing good golf. There's a reason there's a formula out there that approximates your score by taking 95 - (2 x GIR). Hitting greens is the single biggest correlation to scoring well, and the only way to hit greens is to have a full swing that works - twice on average. The full swing is also orders of magnitude more complex and difficult to master than a putting stroke or a pitching motion.

 

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Now, before everyone gets bent out of shape, note that I'm talking about time spent practicing each of these things, so the numbers aren't quite as slanted as you might think just by looking at "65/20/15." For example, because putting is so simple and because the balls are typically within 20 feet of you, you can hit perhaps four putts per minute. On the short game, because you have to round up some golf balls from farther distances, and take a few more practice strokes to feel the ground, you have to clean your club, etc. you can hit perhaps two balls per minute. On the driving range, I'll often hit balls as slowly as one every four to five minutes, but let's say you're not quite as deliberate or don't use quite as many practice motions as I do, and call it 0.75 balls per minute.

 

Multiplying the balls per minute by the time spent, we get numbers that look like this:

Putting: 15 minutes * 3 balls/minute = 45 balls

Short Game: 20 minutes * 2 balls/minute = 40 balls

Full Swing: 65 minutes * 0.75 balls/minute = 48.75 balls

 

So really, this works out to spending almost an equal amount of time on each of the three sections of the game, with slightly less spent on putting (and, really, this still makes sense because the putting stroke is relatively simple ).

 

Note, too, that I'm talking about good practice. I'm not talking about whacking some balls on the green towards some holes and calling it "practice." I'm talking about working on the skills of putting (starting the ball on-line, controlling the distance the ball rolls, and reading greens properly). I'm talking about working on the skills of a good short game with drills - landing balls on targets, taking the same club and varying the height of some shots, one-handed pitching drills, etc. I'm talking about working on drills with the full swing, deliberate, good practice, and not just stepping up and smacking ball after ball during the full swing 65% of your practice time.

 

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Now, when I talk about this someone will invariably say something like "I practice my short game religiously and my full swing stinks and I still shoot 82 most days!" They'll remember the one round they made everything or chipped close or in a few times and how it "saved" a bad round. To the first guy, consider how good he'd be if he could marry that short game with a long game that didn't lean on it so much. To the second guy, you remember that round because it's an anomaly, and because you hit the ball badly enough that you needed miracle short game shots just to shoot around your typical score!

 

The stats and studies don't lie. I get that a six-foot putt that you miss counts the same as a drive you put into the right rough. But the odds state very plainly that a six-foot putt is not nearly as damaging to your score as a miss green, and a missed green is not nearly as damaging to your score as a missed tee shot.

 

Them's the facts. I haven't shared them with you here, but they're out there, and I encourage you to look them up. Boiled down, they back my theory of the best way to divvy up your practice time:

• Spend 15% of your practice time working on putting skills.
• Spend 20% of your practice time working on short game skills.
• Spend 65% of your practice time working on the full swing skills.

 

What's nifty is that you can do a surprising amount of all of this work at home, in your back yard, on your living room carpet, or with a mirror or wiffle balls.

 

And when you practice, make it dedicated, good practice . Don't just aimlessly whack balls, whether you're on the putting green, the short game area, or on the practice range with a driver in your hands.

 

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2014-04-08: Renamed 65/20/15 (it was 65/25/10). Changes outlined in post #471 .

Looks to be a good ration on practice.  I'll try this and see how well it works.

[DrMJG]

The @iacas ratio, when I applied it to my game when I am ale to have a day of practice, has made a significant improvement in my game.  Now, I am not 110% slavish to it.  I don't quite measure it with watch and/or calculator, the end results have shown me where my strengths and weakness do, indeed, lie.  When I add up my minutes/week on what I practice, it is clear.  For example, I have come to understand that the better I got with my hybrids, my total came took leaps and bounds.  I also learned that by making my tee shots focus on aim as well as distance, I needed fewer long second shots. Same for the rest of my game.

It is that routine which is close to the ratio of shots I actually play that has allowed me to focus on the game as a whole.  For example, I don't spend a ton of time on shots from bunkers.  But getting my shots to stay more in line, I don't often hit bunkers and with the practice I do on my overall game, I don't fear them.

Now, I will bring  evolvr.com into my game.

[Vespidae]

I decided to reply to this topic after reading all 35 pages.

I found LSW after listening to Chasing Scratch podcast. I’ve seen hundreds of practice routines and none I’m happy with.

so ... when I play, I track FIR, GIR, u/D, and Putts. I have targets for each based on my handicap and goal. I’m also 59.

since starting 65/20/15 practice, my handicap has dropped from 24 to 18. I won my flight at my most recent tournament. A first for me.

My range has different bucket sizes. I always choose the smallest to focus.

Mu practice is ...

• 10 chips at 15 yds
• 10 30 yd pitches
• 10 50 yd pitches
• 10 sand shots from 20 yds

I then move to the long game:

• 8 wedges 
• 12 mid irons
• 12 driver
• 6 3 or 5 W
• 5 trouble shots

Total: 40 balls hit

I putt for an hr every weekend.

It works for me. 90 minutes.

I’m interested in any input.

 

[boogielicious]

56 minutes ago, Vespidae said:

I decided to reply to this topic after reading all 35 pages.

I found LSW after listening to Chasing Scratch podcast. I’ve seen hundreds of practice routines and none I’m happy with.

so ... when I play, I track FIR, GIR, u/D, and Putts. I have targets for each based on my handicap and goal. I’m also 59.

since starting 65/20/15 practice, my handicap has dropped from 24 to 18. I won my flight at my most recent tournament. A first for me.

My range has different bucket sizes. I always choose the smallest to focus.

Mu practice is ...

• 10 chips at 15 yds
• 10 30 yd pitches
• 10 50 yd pitches
• 10 sand shots from 20 yds

I then move to the long game:

• 8 wedges 
• 12 mid irons
• 12 driver
• 6 3 or 5 W
• 5 trouble shots

Total: 40 balls hit

I putt for an hr every weekend.

It works for me. 90 minutes.

I’m interested in any input.

 

The ratios are for the general population. If you have a specific weakness, then concentration on that may help. If you routine is working, stick with it. 

For me, I spend virtually no time practicing putting. I only do it before rounds to get the speed down. My putting is not a weakness, but driver and tee shots and long shots are. So I spend more time on that and leave putting out.

[amished]

I don't remember the last time that I worked on putting.  I'm sure I have improvement to make there, but I don't feel like my first putt doesn't leave me in a good position to make the second putt too often.  At my handicap, I have more nGIR than GIR so working on my chipping and pitching has allowed me to get close enough to putt in without much work.  Maybe if my long game got better and I was left with more mid-long putts I'd worry about it.

Unfortunately, my course doesn't have a driving range so I don't get to spend as much time working on my long game as I really need to.

[boogielicious]

20 hours ago, amished said:

I don't remember the last time that I worked on putting.  I'm sure I have improvement to make there, but I don't feel like my first putt doesn't leave me in a good position to make the second putt too often.  At my handicap, I have more nGIR than GIR so working on my chipping and pitching has allowed me to get close enough to putt in without much work.  Maybe if my long game got better and I was left with more mid-long putts I'd worry about it.

Unfortunately, my course doesn't have a driving range so I don't get to spend as much time working on my long game as I really need to.

If you have a net, you can work on your long game hitting into that and filming it. Almost all of my full swing practice is hitting into my net. I do go to the range on occasion to see ball flight.

[Shindig]

7 hours ago, boogielicious said:

If you have a net, you can work on your long game hitting into that and filming it. Almost all of my full swing practice is hitting into my net. I do go to the range on occasion to see ball flight.

It's true, this has helped quite a bit.  I am going to finish the write-up of my home practice room in the next week or so.

 

On 8/16/2019 at 5:38 AM, Vespidae said:

since starting 65/20/15 practice, my handicap has dropped from 24 to 18. I won my flight at my most recent tournament. A first for me.

It's amazing how much it helps, isn't it?  The number of times I am told by a higher handicap player in my club that I should practice my short game or putting more is amazing.  Somehow the low handicaps don't tell me that.  Of course, my short game and putting are generally bad for my handicap, and I probably should over weigh them just a little bit, but majority long game has helped me quite a bit.

[Vespidae]

3 hours ago, Shindig said:

It's amazing how much it helps, isn't it?  The number of times I am told by a higher handicap player in my club that I should practice my short game or putting more is amazing. 

Honestly? It’s a different game. And I feel like I have a path to improve. Consistently.

[dennyjones]

1 hour ago, Vespidae said:

And I feel like I have a path to improve

If you want a path to improve, upload a swing video and purchase Lowest Score Wins.   It's an eye opener.

[Vespidae]

51 minutes ago, dennyjones said:

If you want a path to improve, upload a swing video and purchase Lowest Score Wins.   It's an eye opener.

I already did and noted that in my original post. It has completely changed how I practice.