How to be Effect on the Driving Range

As you can imagine, I spend a lot of time at the driving range during golf season. I spend a lot of time watching other players so I can try to learn things about the golf swing. I observe different tendencies and the results they produce. One thing that surprises me is how many people practice without purpose. It’s sad because the people I’m talking about obviously are dedicated enough to put the time in. But the return on their investment is not being maximized.

Without a doubt, there are lots of people who hit the driving range every once in a while to get into a groove or even just to have a little fun. These aren’t the people I’m talking about. But I do see a lot of the same people there repeatedly over the course of a season. In many cases, these people are engaging in the “Rake ‘n Beat”. They hit one ball and rake another one over with their club and hit it and do it over and over until they’re out of balls. It’s as if their practice session is just a trip from A to B.

Maybe you’re one of the people I’m talking about. When you practice, do you use the same pre-shot routine that you’d use on the course? Do you hit each shot with a purpose? Do you watch each shot to completion and learn from it? If not, then you’re probably not maximizing your practice time. It’s much better to hit fewer balls, but hit each one with a purpose, than it is to rake ‘n beat as many balls as you can.

You might be wondering what “hitting with a purpose” means. I suggest the following guidelines as a start:

§  Go through the same pre-shot routine on the range that you’d do on the course. That means for every ball. It’s hard to build that discipline and in fact, that’s one area of my own practice that needs work.

§  Before hitting a shot, always have at least a specific target in mind. Aim at a tree or house or light pole in the distance. But always hit at a target. When you’re playing a round, every single shot will be directed at a specific target, not just thrown down range (it should, anyway!)

§  Before making a shot, imagine what you want the ball flight to do. Are you trying to hit a draw? Fade? Straight? If you don’t have a plan (before you execute the shot) for what you want that shot to do, then you can’t judge the effectiveness of your swing.

§  Observe the wind that day. How is it affecting your distance and direction? Are you making subconscious wind adjustments that will translate to poor directional control later on the course? Windy conditions can be used to your advantage at the range. You’re bound to play a round in the wind eventually, so spend some time practicing in it to learn how to make proper adjustments.

§  Try and get a feel for your club distances. Depending on your range, it might be difficult to get hard numbers to take to the course because the balls they use on the range may be made to fly shorter distances or may be beat up some. But your distances should at least be consistent. For example, if you’re seeing swings of 10+ yards on pitching wedge shots, then you have a problem with consistent ball striking and should be working on that.

Sometimes practice gets monotonous and it’s hard to stay focused. One technique I like to use is playing my regular course in my imagination. I’ll start with a ball and imagine I’m on the first tee. At my course, the ideal shot is a 250 yard fade off the tee, so I’ll get my 3-wood out and play that exact shot. From there, whatever happened, I’ll play the next shot as if I had gotten that same result on the course. If I slice right, then I know I’m punching back out of the trees and going from there so I’ll execute that shot. If I hit it perfect, then it’s a 2 iron down to the bottom of the hill and I’ll execute that shot instead. I continue this until I get through 18 “holes”.

If you don’t normally practice with purpose, then give it a try over your next few practice sessions. I think you’ll start noticing a difference.