How's this for a practice schedule?

[nickolasjt]

one of my friends forwarded this to me... sounds like a plan.  I was wondering what you guys thought?  I will be working 20 hours a week as well as taking two summer classes.  Is this achievable and still maintain somewhat of a social life?

in order for us to continue to improve our team, it happens in
the off season. I think as a team we can say this year was successful
but not everything we wanted. Our goals should be to average In the
high 290's. To do so we need to continue our workout schedule thru the
summer and build strength. Plus 1,800 balls a week and 54 holes  is
strongly recommend for improvement. A minimum of 10 hours of short
game practice a week.
1. 100 draw drivers
2.100 straight drivers
3.100 fade drivers
4.100 5 irons
5.100 7 irons
6.100 20 yards pitch shot
7.100 30 yards
8.100 40 yards
9.100 50 yards
10.100 60 yards
11.100 70 yards
12.100 80 yards
13.100 90 yards
14.100 100 yards
15.100 110 yards
16.100 120 yards
17.100 flop shots
18. 100 trouble shots

Play some tournaments like your state open, state amateur, your city
tournament, and club championship. These suggestion could not only
make us conference champion but a spot in the field in the NCAA
NATIONALS. I believe this team could be a top 150 team in the country.
It's up to you wether you want it. Hard work is a start, preparations
is the key to success, and mental toughness to over come obstacles
that we face on the course. Be comfortable being good. Walk tall and
bring your best everyday.

I believe in you, I will work harder at becoming a better coach for
you, and make your college career something to talk about for years to
come.

[birlyshirly]

500 balls a week on full swing? The same as you'll spend hitting wedges between 30 and 70 yards?

I think you could find a better measure of intensity than balls hit, but even so, I think the relative balance is too heavily on the wedges. Where's putting?

[David in FL]

At an average of 1 minute per swing, that's 30 hours, without putting or playing any golf......and not so much as a bathroom break.

Seems a little heavy on quantity, and light on quality.

[LuciusWooding]

Too many drivers, Way too many flop shots, way too many set distances. Pitching and chipping need to be intuitive and I don't believe in using yardages for shots that are under 30 yards or so. Also, no putting and the workouts will be pretty unnecessary if you're pounding 1800 balls per week. I also wonder why there's no mention of long irons, hybrids, fairway woods, or short irons. It seems like bomb and gouge to me, which is OK but you can expect to get caught with your pants down on courses that don't let you hit driver.

Believe me, I've hit 4 digits a few times over the course of a week, you get used to it but it really can be damaging if you're not hitting the ball well. I believe it's better for confidence and consistency if you can pick up where you left off from the first ball, which is why I like to try to hit the first target perfectly without any warmup. You'll have to do this for the opening tee shot, and again 17 more times, so it's worth practicing how to go into competitive, focused mode. It also will tell you if your setup is off before you start compensating.

I'd say it's also mindless ball counting. Personally I'm all for hitting an absurd number of balls, but I prefer to work on whatever I feel like or think I need at the time. If you suck at hitting driver, don't hit 300 drivers a week; try to find a strategy that goes around this weakness. If you absolutely must hit driver, it's important to pick your spots carefully. I like to avoid hitting lots of drivers, but I work more on my 5i-3w instead. Though I have lost the distance advantage of hitting driver, I can still do it on a hole I can afford it, and my long approaches are saving me the strokes I'm losing by not using driver. Someone who is great at hitting driver might have a 5 iron into a par 5, but if he sucks with his long irons you're better off hitting a couple hybrids if you've practiced with them to the point of proficiency.

I'd also say Coach should focus more on the local tourneys, not just a suggestion to play in them. Also I don't see golf as a team sport. I understand in college you play on teams and the coaches use the situation to foster competition and teamwork, but you need to be able to drive yourself, especially in big moments, but also things like practicing and playing rounds. The only way to make the team better is to make yourself better.

Seriously though, what the hell do you need to hit 100 flop shots a week for? Does Coach think you guys will need that shot (ie, you'll miss lots of greens in bad spots), or what?

I think if you have the dedication to follow that schedule, you'll no doubt improve. However it's far from the ideal plan IMO.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by David in FL

At an average of 1 minute per swing, that's 30 hours, without putting or playing any golf......and not so much as a bathroom break.

Seems a little heavy on quantity, and light on quality.

Originally Posted by LuciusWooding

I'd say it's also mindless ball counting. Personally I'm all for hitting an absurd number of balls, but I prefer to work on whatever I feel like or think I need at the time.

Yes, I tend to agree with these sentiments.  I think you'd be better off taking those 1,800 balls and converting it to time.  For example, figure out how much time you were going to practice a week.  For arguments sake, lets say that since you are going to be working 20 hours a week and are going to be playing 2 or 3 rounds a week, then let's confine the practice time to the other part of the week that would be work if you had a full time job.  20 hours.  If you actually hit those 1800 balls, that would be 40 seconds a ball.  Thats a bit ridiculous.  Instead just say that 5% (5.6% to be exact) of your practice time should go to each of those segments.  That would be just over an hour on each.  But instead of 100 balls, you should just focus on each shot you hit and what you are working on.  You'll probably find that you only hit 30-40 balls in that hour, or perhaps even 20, but they will all be productive.

That is my opinion of how you should slightly tweak your coach's regimen.  If I was the one putting together the plan, I'd change a couple of things;  First off, I don't believe you should worry about all 3 types of drives, but whichever one is your shot shape.  So, that cuts out 2 hours right there.  I also don't think you need to spend so much time on every 10 yard increment in your short game and pitch shots, although I generally like the idea.  They are all basically the same shot, different distances, so I'd just lump them all together into maybe 2 hours.  Take the flop shots and trouble shots and put those together in 1/2 hour and that leaves:

driver: 1 hour

full swing irons: 2 hours

pitch shots up to full wedges: 2 hours

trouble/flop:  1/2 hour

Since you have 20 hours total, I'd bump everything up and also throw in the fairway woods/hybrids, lump chipping into the trouble/flop time, and add the putting to come up with something like:

Driver: 4 hours

fairway wood/hybrids: 3 hours

full swing irons:  6 hours

pitch/wedges:  3 hours

trouble/flop/chip: 2 hours

putting:  2 hours

And, of course, if there is a particular part of your game that is a weakness, tweak it further in favor of that.

Originally Posted by LuciusWooding

If you suck at hitting driver, don't hit 300 drivers a week; try to find a strategy that goes around this weakness. If you absolutely must hit driver, it's important to pick your spots carefully. I like to avoid hitting lots of drivers, but I work more on my 5i-3w instead. Though I have lost the distance advantage of hitting driver, I can still do it on a hole I can afford it, and my long approaches are saving me the strokes I'm losing by not using driver. Someone who is great at hitting driver might have a 5 iron into a par 5, but if he sucks with his long irons you're better off hitting a couple hybrids if you've practiced with them to the point of proficiency.

I don't quite follow this one.  It sounds like you are saying that if you suck at something, DON'T practice it, but rather just accept that you suck at it and figure out how to compensate?

That makes sense on the course, but in practice, shouldn't he be spending time on his weaknesses?

[Dave2512]

Seems monotonous and inefficient. For me a full swing is a full swing doesn't matter what club, the exception being driver. I rarely just beat balls and I know the distances, moving from a 8i to a 9i to hit another 100 balls would be inefficient cardio for me. It takes me 50-60 minutes to work through a small bucket and I usually leave balls behind, I take 1-2 clubs at the most. I suppose different strokes for different folks but I spend as much time on partial swing stuff and working through specific drills as much as hitting balls, probably more. I have a net and mat in my basement. I hit 6-8 balls each morning and that takes a 1/2 hour by the time I add some wall drills, practice swings during 2 ball drills and a half dozen putts. All about the drills for me. People that see me on the range probably think I have some odd affliction.

[Golfingdad]

Ideally, I think you should just read these:

http://thesandtrap.com/t/54840/simple-specific-slow-short-and-success-the-five-s-s-of-great-practice/0_30

http://thesandtrap.com/t/58816/65-25-10-practice-ratios-where-to-devote-your-practice-time/0_30

[anthony]

Originally Posted by LuciusWooding Pitching and chipping need to be intuitive and I don't believe in using yardages for shots that are under 30

I agree and I don't agree with that. It should be intuitive, but it's nice to have a starting point. For me, I know that a pitch with my 61 where the club goes back to 9:00 is 15 yds. If I have 20 yds, I'll take it to 10:00 and so on.

[LuciusWooding]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

I don't quite follow this one.  It sounds like you are saying that if you suck at something, DON'T practice it, but rather just accept that you suck at it and figure out how to compensate?

That makes sense on the course, but in practice, shouldn't he be spending time on his weaknesses?

I guess I found the practice schedule to be driver centric, which I don't agree with. The driver is a specialist club, and it shouldn't be relied upon that much. I guess coach thinks being a good driver will make the team have an edge at that level though. I find it also takes a lot of practice to maintain a high level of driving, time that's better spent on more transferable skills. You can still practice your driving, but have less need to rely on it before you're ready.

[minitour]

An hour or two in the gym 3-5 days a week. 2-3 rounds a week plus warming up. After the round, 60 minutes on the range plus 60-90 in the short game area. Another 2-3 days a week, I'd spend 4-5 hours working on 7:30, 9:00, and 10:30 swings with the wedges and figuring out what yardages that gives you. Work with the driver. Some short irons and long irons but wedges and drivers for sure. Also part of that practice should be in the short game area. If you can drive it, wedge it, and putt it, you can play this game. Don't over-do it. Like working out, you need time to recover. A day off drinking some beers watching TV (not golf- get your mind off of it) is good for ya.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by LuciusWooding

I guess I found the practice schedule to be driver centric, which I don't agree with. The driver is a specialist club, and it shouldn't be relied upon that much. I guess coach thinks being a good driver will make the team have an edge at that level though. I find it also takes a lot of practice to maintain a high level of driving, time that's better spent on more transferable skills. You can still practice your driving, but have less need to rely on it before you're ready.

The driver is VERY important. No other club is hit 14 times with the potential to positive and negatively affect your scoring anywhere near as much as the driver.

[LuciusWooding]

Originally Posted by iacas

The driver is VERY important. No other club is hit 14 times with the potential to positive and negatively affect your scoring anywhere near as much as the driver.

No one hits 14 drivers though, unless they're a total idiot or Jamie Sadlowski. Tiger Woods, #1 in the world, often goes entire tournaments hitting fewer than 14 drivers, like last week when he won. He is the best player in the world at the moment, practices a ton and has many years of major championship level tournament experience and played ferociously since he was a child. If he can't hit the driver without risk, no one can. It's a very high maintenance club, and is being practiced 50% more than the entire iron set, hybrids, and fairway woods combined. I consider that to be completely bonkers, the same sort of logic behind 100 flop shots. It's an important club, but not more important than about 10 of your others combined. It also means there's less than a third of practice time spent on full shots, with over half of that being solely driver. Not an ideal practice ratio, even if you place a high value on driving.

Plus I'd have a huge problem with hitting so many balls off a tee. Any instructor telling me to hit 60% of my full shots off a 4" tee would result in skepticism. It really messes with your ability to hit off the deck when you hit so many and lets you get away with murder sometimes, only to show reality when it's removed. Also, hitting 300 drives at a range without trackman, a fairway to target, or meaningful feedback of any kind is a waste of time. You'd have to be brutally honest with yourself whether your ball's flying how you want it to, making sure you really focus and designate targets. Even then it wouldn't be much more than reps.

Maybe the coach is prepping them for a bunch of short par 4s? Hit driver and a partial wedge on every hole, with the 5 and 7 iron for par 3s. That's the only reason I can think of omitting all he does and overdoing what he includes.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by LuciusWooding

No one hits 14 drivers though, unless they're a total idiot or Jamie Sadlowski. Tiger Woods, #1 in the world, often goes entire tournaments hitting fewer than 14 drivers, like last week when he won.

Comparing yourself to Tiger Woods? Tiger could hit 7-irons off every tee and beat you. A lot of players hit 14 drivers a round. And the point remains whether you hit 10 or 14 that no other club has the potential to more dramatically affect your score. It's a different concept, too - and a slightly different swing. The ball is in the air, for starters.

Tiger IS the best player in the world. The average golfer is not. They hit driver more and don't have the length and speed and control to regularly leave themselves long irons into greens.

Originally Posted by LuciusWooding

If he can't hit the driver without risk, no one can. It's a very high maintenance club, and is being practiced 50% more than the entire iron set, hybrids, and fairway woods combined.

Was the driver practice too much in the above? Yes. That doesn't change my general point - the driver should be practiced with specifically. And of course I mean practiced - that's not the same as guys just smashing balls for stress relief or fun or something.

You seem to have based my comment too much on the OP. It's too much, but I'm cautioning against going the other way too far and downplaying the driver too much. That's all.

[Second Chance]

I think there is a lot of advice here, but I wanted to provide my schedule and work based on a full time job, but also the dream of making the tour...possibly winning a major.

SPRING/SUMMER

0430-0500  Wake up, walk dog, shower

0500-0545 Travel to driving range, chipping area

0545-0730 Range Session ( 1-2 Swing drills TOPS!--no more than 100 balls, 65% wedges/25% Driving clubs/10% Long irons)

Additional free time given to working on chipping mechanics or chipping feel drills...

0730-0800 Travel to work

0800-1600 Work

1600-1645 Travel to golf course

1700=1930 Play 9-18 holes depending on traffic

1930-2000 Putting Drills

NOTE: I hit the gym 1-2 times a week during work, I'm active duty air force and get time to PT 3 hours a week during work hours.

I've been doing this for 9 months and I'm down to a solid 1-2 handicap (from a 12 where I started). I play up to 2 city/state/U.S. qualifiers, tournaments, etc. every month...my goal is a + handicap by the end of the summer.

My winter schedule is very different, but I think you get the idea.

Hope this helps!

-J