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How and How Often Do You Practice?

Daily on the irons in the yard. Start off slowly working on swing path, club face control and weight shift. Partial wedges 2 or 3 days per week at 80 yards and in. Driver maybe one night per week at an open field. This year, I'm only getting to the course one day a week and a lot of time that's just for 9 holes.

I've given up on any substantial improvement but I find practicing to be somewhat relaxing.
 
Range , once to twice a week. And short game practice 3 times a week


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I’ll probably go to the range 3 times to every 1 round. At the range I have a fairly normal routine of working through about half of the clubs from different distances. After that, then move over to do chips, the over to putt.
 
Oh boy, in my youth, shag bag at a State Park empty field daily, followed by 18 or 36, mixing in a lot of time spent on and around putting and chipping greens.

Fast forward 20 years in the AF and playing maybe 5 to 10 times a year, a few times none at all for a couple years, I've retired from the AF and now play on average twice a week. Practice consists mainly of warming up on the range with some putting and chipping.

Generally try to focus on whatever I'm struggling with. Can occasionally sneak an hour here or there to spend time on a certain phase of the game if needed. My body just can't take the grinding it out on the range anymore.
 
JMB3;n8884959 said:
How about you guys?
Click to expand...

Never got around to responding to this thread but now seems like a good time.


I practice at least once a week, but aim for more. Most of the time I’m practicing at the range because I simply don’t have time to play 9 or 18. I may only have 45 minutes. If I have 2 or more hours, you’ll definitely find me on the course rather than the range. I like what you said about the putting and short game area as I’m the same way. Try to throw balls down, create random lies and you have to get up and down rather than aimlessly hitting 50 balls from one spot.

On the range, I’m a little different. I try to warm up and get loose by hitting every other club (ex: 54, P, 8, 6, 4, Hybrid, Driver) until I’m ready to start. Then I pretend to play a course I know really well. You get one shot and attempt to create the next shot as you would find it on the course. Puts more pressure to play just like I would on the course.

Oh and congrats again!
 
First, congrats to JMB3. I imagine you now have some extra incentive for practice. :clapp:

When I'm in a golf mode I like to practice daily. Range. Practice green. Practice rounds. Carpet putting. Anything I can squeeze in. I like to practice. But I also want to play more and put my game to the scoring test in as many situations as I can. I love playing rounds that matter, to me. I am a goal oriented person and do best when I am pursuing some visualized end point. The end of warm-enough and snow-free-enough days here will be about building a baseline and momentum for next year. Next season I will join a league, try to get into some pro-ams, enter course and state tournaments, and explore how I play under pressure. I will also have handicap, personal best, and course diversification goals but will save those for another time. As such I want to keep my practice time a little more edgy with plenty of distractions. And some of that only takes little changes. I hit better on the right side of the range. So left side it is. And so on. I want to increase consistency and resilience. That will help golf be a more fun and sustainable activity for me.
 
I'm lucky to have a backyard putting green so I hit that for putting and chipping practice a few days per week for an hour or more.

Have only hit the range once this season and that was the first time since '17. So, not really too keen on that. ;)
 
I've given up on swing coaches. I have three different swings. The one I use depends upon what's aching on a particular day. Right hip, means right leg back. Sciatica means open stance. All good? I can take a square stance until something starts aching. It's committed to memory now how to quickly adapt to which swing to pull out. Now that my clubs are back, I've hit the range and overdid. I took a lesson on driver and bunker shots two weeks ago but I forgot what it was about so I watched a video on how to hit out of bunkers by this expert who really makes it simple.



And of course it worked perfectly! Who needs to pay big bucks on lessons when you can get quality instruction on Youtube from children who get to the point and don't ramble for 20 minutes?

I've also made a goal to hit my last 15 balls out of the practice bunker every session. I want to feel confident when I land in a bunker on the golf course. Like it's just another shot.

And I have Cobra Connect on my irons. The golf shop gave me four arccos sensors for my new Callaway Epic Flash hybrids - and I have an extra for my chipper. The additional Connect grips are on the way: one for my Driver and one for my lob wedge and 64 wedge and a putter sensor. That leaves three spare grips.
 
When I'm in game improvement mode, I go to the range a lot. Like right now, I haven't played in 15 years, so I'm searching for a swing that will work, Been known in the past to hit 5000-7000 balls in a weekend on the range. I won't do that now, because my body won't take that abuse anymore. But I do aim at specific range flags and keep track of how close I'm consistently getting the ball on line and in proximity of the target. I also would work on fairway sand traps, bunker shots, chipping, pitching, flop shots and lastly, putting.

When I'm playing well (for me, that use to be 6-8 hdcp), Before the 1st tee, I'd get about 10 range balls and hit 4 wedges, three 7 irons and 3 Drivers just to see what I had going on. After the round, if I had an issue, I would go to the range and work on whatever needed attention.

The Ethan Chung pot bunker YT video in the InTheRough post above made me chuckle. A lot of truth about instruction videos generally being 20 minutes of talk with little substance, which I also find annoying.
 
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Three factors have allowed me to increase my practice time massively, and I’ve seen the dividends pay off. I’m retired now for one. I’ve joined a local club for two, and the biggest factor is I have a very understanding wife (what time are you going to the golf course today?)

On average, five days a week is 50-100 balls on the driving range. 8 iron to warm up this somewhat older body (64). Then hybrid, or fw, followed by driver and cool down with wedge. 10 minutes on the practice green. Maximum time is an hour, usually closer to 30-40 minutes.

Then it’s 18 holes. If I get tagged by the morning guys, it’s gold tees @ 5700 yards. If solo, I vary the tee boxes depending on what I want to focus on. I’ll play black, blue, white or gold. Tee with driver, 3W, hybrid. Again depending on my focus.

Home by 11 and the rest of the day is ( her time). I’m not stupid. Lol. When I joined the club four months ago I was shooting upper 80s from the whites. Now quite consistently upper 70s. To low 80s. Last two rounds 75-76.

On course practice has done far more for me as to improving than banging balls on the range. Really hard to practice those trouble shots on the range. Like yesterday, behind a big tree blocking the green. Aim left, big fade back to the green to 12’. Damn, I can do that. :).


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Well, I hit about 100 balls 4 times a week. I play once or twice. Usually hit 50 yard shots all the way up to driver. But I am trying to groove new swing thoughts and that's better done on the range right now.
 
I barely practice during golf season unless its on course. In the off season I usually hit the range when possible but I'm not a fan of the range. I just don't have a good place to practice around here and honestly I find it boring I'd rather play. Probably why I'll never get any better haha
 
I do the pitching/chipping green 10 minutes, 20-30 hits on the range and 15 minutes on the putting green prior to play. I play 2-3 times a week, 10 months a year. At least, I'm not getting worse.
 
I practice what's ailing me, barring putting because I don't think one can get better at putting via practice, too many variables can thwart any practice a player does.

So if I have a bad round driving, I practice driving, if my irons are poor, I get working on them, if I needed my hybrids often and they failed me that's what I work on.

I only have so much time to practice so it has to be surgical like that.
 
MrDC;n8898105 said:
I practice what's ailing me, barring putting because I don't think one can get better at putting via practice, too many variables can thwart any practice a player does.
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My teaching-pro buddy told me years ago there are two kinds of putting stroke. The ones with lots of moving parts and the ones where the putter, hands and arms just simply move back and through. He said the simple strokes (which mine is and yours probably is) are more likely to get worse instead of better if you try to grind over your putting and practice a lot. But some of the complicated ones do require a lot of practice to keep everything in sync.

I think the one thing that can be practiced is getting set up correctly over the ball. So once in a while I'll get out the old Eyeline putting mirror and make sure I've got my ball position correctly positioned (for me its directly under my dominant eye). But that takes like 5 minutes to do 6-8 reps of setting up and rolling a putt. Then I'm good for another few months.
 
Almost never. I'll hit some balls on the range a few times a year if I haven't played a round in awhile. Also will get a lesson a few times a year and will try and fit in a practice time soon after that. But mostly it's on course play.
 
My practice comes 15 minutes prior to the round.
 
I practice on average three times a week with each about a 90-minute session. I divide my practice time into thirds: full swing, chipping and pitching, and putting. In addition, I study the game. I am very fortunate to live in a place that provides year-around golf and am at a stage of life where I can invest this time. It also helps that I love to practice.
 
I generally have a solid short game, especially for my handicap. But my mid-range pitching has been pretty atrocious this year. The last couple of weeks I've focused on that area. Each time I got a bucket of 75 balls, hitting 50, and then taking the last 25 over to the short game practice area, which allows pitches up to 50 yards. I hit 25 from 50, collected the balls, hit 25 from 30, collected the balls, and then hit chips from 10 yards. Oddly, each time, I've been pretty good from 50 yards, but 30 yards was a STRUGGLE. Until this last session. I got in a great groove, playing around with trajectories by moving ball position and changing the length of my swing, keeping my backswing consistent.
 
Until I was injured I 'practiced' a few times a week. Try to go to the range in between rounds, and putt and chip a little more often than that when I have a quick 30 minutes. Have mostly played since getting back out there though. Missed the end of the summer and want to play as much as I can now. And am not near 100%, so I'm trying not to overdo it.

At the range I work on alignment a lot. I work on the weakest parts of my game (high fades usually, intermediate wedges, knock down irons, etc.) Next session will involve some 3w off the deck work because I've been struggling with it suddenly. I work on controlling my tempo. It's pretty quick. And I work on weird lies. I'm the only guy I ever see trying to give himself a crap lie at the range, or hitting off the side of the hill where the hitting area is located. I especially do that with chipping. I tend to carry six balls when practicing around the green. I practice chipping from downhill lies to shortsided pins, into steep banks, etc. And I put 4 of the 6 balls in some kind of settled/nestled/bare/extra thick spot each time. My lies around the green when I miss are rarely perfect, so I don't see much point in practicing from them.

And I quit before I'm tired or bored. Less per session is more for me. I call it quits after a certain amount of balls no matter how it's going, rest on it, and get after it again later.
 
From the looks of this thread i need to practice more. My work/life schedule doesn't allow me to play as often as I would like , so more times than not I play a round with little to zero warm up before hand.

I played golf in high school, and college and was grinding every day to get better. Now i need to make sure to keep the game fun or I get super frustrated. Turns out 50 pounds and 15 years later I can not play to the same level I did before.

However i do enjoy going to the range or putting green and practicing for an hour or so, it is a nice way to clear the mind.

I need to make more time for practicing .
 
I have a net and launch monitor set up in the garage, so I try to hit or do drills for 10 to 20 minutes almost every night.
 
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