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

[David in FL]

On 6/8/2017 at 4:48 PM, iacas said:

Disappointing that he'd put that out there in THIS day and age. I meant it a bit when I said "my work here is not done." I'm trying to make better information available. A lot of it I do free here.

I commented right after you. Silliness....

[Antneye]

On 6/9/2012 at 6:19 AM, iacas said:

 

I agree with all of that except the bit about the 50-125 yard shots. I think you can map those out pretty easily (I tape the yardages for my swing lengths to the underside of my shaft, just below the grip). "Set it and forget it." Revisit them occasionally but otherwise, even PGA Tour pros aren't sticking those things as close as you'd (general you, not you specifically) think.

 

The driver is critically important, you bet. A drive that goes OB or behind a tree or into a pond is one or two shots absolutely lost.

 

But then I'd say you absolutely need to improve your GIR numbers, so that typically works out to practicing a lot with the driver (so you have a chance to hit the GIR and aren't behind a tree or in the water) and then your mid-irons (or whatever clubs you typically have to hit on approach to the greens).

This is interesting to me and is pretty much what I have been doing.  My practice has been almost entirely Driver and 7i since it is my critical area for improvement (The full swing).  I have forsaken working on the rest of my game for now because none of it really matters if I end up with 6 shots in the woods off the tee each round.

Once I feel I have stabilized my full swing, I totally agree with the prescribed percentages. 

[uitar9]

Spent a little time charting FIR, GIR and what number my approach shot was.

Discovered, like IACAS is mentioning, my better short game is offsetting my inability to make GIR, often 10-15 yards short.

I believe the good news is I don't need huge distance gains. But I have to spend more time on the longer shafts including becoming a little more aggressive. My swing mirrors my laid back attitude.

[Shindig]

6 hours ago, uitar9 said:

Discovered, like IACAS is mentioning, my better short game is offsetting my inability to make GIR, often 10-15 yards short.

If you're consistently 10-15 yards short, is it because of a poor strike or being misinformed about the distance (either of the club or to the target)?

[lastings]

this thread is going in a very heavy putt-practice vs. no putt-practice direction.   but, I think we all need to step back and re-read the first post.  

It doesn't say don't practice putting, don't practice short game.   It just suggests to spend 65% of your time on full swing and the rest on those two.   It also says, follow those percentages unless you have a glaring weakness.   It is simply not saying that there is no value to short game practice, but there are certain posts here that are suggesting that it does.  

To that extent...   for basically this entire summer I have worked on 95% full swing and 5% other.   well, guess what?  over my last 4 rounds I have hit 78.6% of fairways and 44% of greens.   with those numbers, there is no reason that I should not be breaking 80.   but, do you see a "broke 80" medal in my awards?   nope..  so there is clearly a glaring weakness.  which I am now going to adjust my practice times to address.  maybe all the way to 50% short game, 50% full swing.  which is exactly what this thread is suggesting.   

but, the basic point here is that practicing full swing 95% of the time, pretty much for a year has changed my scores from consistently low 90's to consistently low 80's.  I mean, we're talking about shaving 8-10 strokes on a regular basis.   now I am going to spend a bunch of time on short game to shave off 3-4 more.  keep it straight off the tee, shave a bunch.   deadly on the greens, shave a few.  

 

 

 

[lastings]

--To add to the above..  looking at my stats -  I get a GIR 42.4% of the time that I hit the fairway.   I get a GIR 11.1% of the time that I miss the fairway.   

If I wanna make pars, putting it in the fairway appears to be a massive differentiator between doing so and not doing so. 

 

[iacas]

[AndrewPI]

Having spent some time away from the game and this forum, it was good to spend some time reading through this thread. I used to shoot around the 90 mark with the odd lower round and looking back I definitely see a correlation between my scores and finding the fairway\green.

My most recent round was a messy 103 and after reading the many posts I went back through my round and worked out around 20 extra shots due to bad tee shots and iron approaches. The only really bad short shot I can think of was when I was short-sided with a bunker to hit over and ended up on the other side of the green. However that can be attributed to a poor approach beforehand.

So from that I know what my glaring weakness is and will be working hard over the winter to correct it. Daily drills at home to work on it with range session thrown in.

[Shindig]

On 11/20/2017 at 2:37 PM, AndrewPI said:

Having spent some time away from the game and this forum, it was good to spend some time reading through this thread. I used to shoot around the 90 mark with the odd lower round and looking back I definitely see a correlation between my scores and finding the fairway\green.

My most recent round was a messy 103 and after reading the many posts I went back through my round and worked out around 20 extra shots due to bad tee shots and iron approaches. The only really bad short shot I can think of was when I was short-sided with a bunker to hit over and ended up on the other side of the green. However that can be attributed to a poor approach beforehand.

So from that I know what my glaring weakness is and will be working hard over the winter to correct it. Daily drills at home to work on it with range session thrown in.

Welcome back then!    This thread has helped me twice get my head back on straight when returning to golf from a stoppage.  I hope it works wonders for you too.

By the way, I'm not even convinced that your shot from the bunker was a bad one.  The issue at our level isn't "would a shot with this result make SportsCenter if I were in a pro event?" but rather "did I raise or lower my expected strokes remaining from this spot?"

So, if you were short sided in the bunker and holed out, hey, great shot.  But if you were short sided and blasted out to the green and two-putted, there's a pretty decent chances you saved yourself some strokes right there with the bunker shot -- because it's probably an expected value over 3 for an average someone of your skill level to get down from there.

[AndrewPI]

9 hours ago, Shindig said:

Welcome back then!    This thread has helped me twice get my head back on straight when returning to golf from a stoppage.  I hope it works wonders for you too.

By the way, I'm not even convinced that your shot from the bunker was a bad one.  The issue at our level isn't "would a shot with this result make SportsCenter if I were in a pro event?" but rather "did I raise or lower my expected strokes remaining from this spot?"

So, if you were short sided in the bunker and holed out, hey, great shot.  But if you were short sided and blasted out to the green and two-putted, there's a pretty decent chances you saved yourself some strokes right there with the bunker shot -- because it's probably an expected value over 3 for an average someone of your skill level to get down from there.

Reading the thread certainly has made me think about what I need to work on and has also opened up some interesting discussions with some golfing friends. 

 

Regarding the shot in my previous round, it was a shot over a bunker rather than from it. Would have probably rather been in it to be honest. With a bit more thought I would have played to a wider part of the green to give myself a two putt chance. But the damage was already done on this hole before I got anywhere near the green. 

[RFKFREAK]

Bumping this thread because I'm coming back after a two year layoff and figure my glaring weakness continues to be my full swing so probably makes sense to dedicate more than 65% of my practice to it. 

[HJJ003]

Looking back at my last few months of practice I have essentially been practicing 60/20/20. 

[Shindig]

4 hours ago, RFKFREAK said:

Bumping this thread because I'm coming back after a two year layoff and figure my glaring weakness continues to be my full swing so probably makes sense to dedicate more than 65% of my practice to it. 

Welcome back.

Yeah, especially when coming back from being gone, that short game can come back to at least something respectable (compared to before) much more quickly than the long game.  My first round back from a five month stop I didn't have anything worse than bogey until hole 17.  I didn't hit many greens, I didn't even miss in great places, but I got the ball up onto the green and had a par putt inside of 30' for 16 holes in a row.

[DrMJG]

Close to 65-20-15 on most rounds at the DR

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by DrMJG

[RFKFREAK]

On 7/30/2018 at 8:25 PM, Shindig said:

Welcome back.

Yeah, especially when coming back from being gone, that short game can come back to at least something respectable (compared to before) much more quickly than the long game.  My first round back from a five month stop I didn't have anything worse than bogey until hole 17.  I didn't hit many greens, I didn't even miss in great places, but I got the ball up onto the green and had a par putt inside of 30' for 16 holes in a row.

My short game has been atrocious.  Haha.

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

[HJJ003]

26 minutes ago, RFKFREAK said:

My short game has been atrocious.  Haha.

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

Doesn't GG give you strokes lost to short game? Should be a pretty good way to put a number on things. 

[RFKFREAK]

3 minutes ago, HJJ003 said:

Doesn't GG give you strokes lost to short game? Should be a pretty good way to put a number on things. 

Well, depending no which method you use, according to the Strokes Gained page, I'm losing 8.05 strokes to a scratch golfer and according to the Insights page it has me at 10.67 vs.a scratch golfer.  I know it says I suck which, at a 29 HC that GG has me at, I already know, but I find it curious that the figures are different. 

Either way, I can conclude that I leave myself much further from the hole than I probably should but considering the variety of short game shots, it doesn't tell -me much more than that.

[HJJ003]

4 minutes ago, RFKFREAK said:

Well, depending no which method you use, according to the Strokes Gained page, I'm losing 8.05 strokes to a scratch golfer and according to the Insights page it has me at 10.67 vs.a scratch golfer.  I know it says I suck which, at a 29 HC that GG has me at, I already know, but I find it curious that the figures are different. 

Either way, I can conclude that I leave myself much further from the hole than I probably should but considering the variety of short game shots, it doesn't tell -me much more than that.

Yeah thats strange that the numbers are different. Might want to double check that they are pulling from the same sample of rounds. Just a thought. I am struggling with my short game as well right now, and a lot of that has to do with taking on unrealistic targets...might want to think about your shot zones for your short game shots as well as your full swing shots. I know I am having to re-evaluate mine lol.