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Is bad practice better than no practice?

jdtox

jdtox

Lord Tox
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Was just thinking about this, about how many people (myself included on occasion) who go to the range and bang balls. Is banging balls without working on anything specific actually doing you any good? Or is it just further ingraining bad habits? I have to believe its better than showing up on the course right?
 
To me bad practice is very harmful as it really kills my confidence!!! If I'm certain that I'm working on a good change for my swing / putting then it isn't so bad but otherwise...it's a disaster!!
 
I think we need to divide this out. To me, any range time is better than no range time (e.g. swinging to keep a feel or keep loose or just get outside) but I see that as different from practice (e.g. working on something new or trying to actively improve). Bad practice is worse than no practice.
 
If you decide that any range time is dictated by the rule of "Practice with purpose." Then it is good. Sometimes when I'm there, it feels a bit off, just not good, so I'll just hit my sand wedge at a spot for the remaining balls. It is the easiest club for me to hit, and usually is the least worst-behaving one.
 
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Molten said:
I think we need to divide this out. To me, any range time is better than no range time (e.g. swinging to keep a feel or keep loose or just get outside) but I see that as different from practice (e.g. working on something new or trying to actively improve). Bad practice is worse than no practice.
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Thats a fair point. I have been practicing a ton trying to work through a bunch of bad habits that have crept in but nothing seems to be working. Hence the bad practice part of the equation, even though I think I'm working on fixing a problem I'm really just making it worse.
 
Bad practice reinforces bad habits. Not sure why anyone would want to do that.
 
Just banging balls seems like a waste of time to me.
I'd rather go out and play 9 holes than to just hit a bucket with nothing in mind.
If I go to the range to practice, I'm trying to hit different spots on the face and practice different situations that I might encounter on the course.

I will say that it feels good to just to hit some shots for the sake of hitting. I usually will go out with a goal in mind for a range session.
 
i definitely think some practice is better than no practice. if nothing else, it helps with timing.

practicing with a purpose is no different than bad practice, if your purpose is not the right purpose. meaning, if you are self-diagnosing, who's to say your diagnosis is accurate?

personally, i like to go to the range with a couple clubs, and work on specific shots. i like to work on two shots per club, so i don't get too bored. maybe a high draw and a low punch. or straight, and a power fade. i'm not saying i'm successful all the time, but at least i can get a feel for the shot and try to learn from the handful of somewhat good ones i hit in the session.
 
To me, even bad practice tells me something. Not that I typically go to the range with the sole intent of banging balls. There are times when I am searching for a specific feeling that it will appear to someone watching that I am just banging them.
 
For me at least, even on a bad practice night I'm always learning something. So when I don't rotate my hips the ball goes here... when I get too quick in my takeaway this happens etc. So even on a bad practice night I think you can learn something about your game your swing etc. So for me yes bad practice is better than no practice....
 
My thought is it is worse than no practice. I spent years doing the wrong things and I guessing it is harder to rewrite those patterns than if I had not ingrained the garbage. Right now I am trying to focus on certain things for fewer shots while seeing my instructor periodically to make sure I am on the right track, but it is different for everyone.
 
If what I'm trying to accomplish in practice just isn't happening, I'll either shift my focus to something completely different or quit the practice session entirely. I'll also quit sometimes when things are going unusually great rather than tweak things and muck up the good feelings and progress. My range saves any balls I didn't hit which makes the quit early decision easier.
 
I suppose if a person just flails at the ball without any thought of improving contact, or hitting targets, or getting more consistent with a particular club that person is probably better off not practicing, but I don't think that's the case for most.

We see Pros banging balls at the range all the time, one after the other, they're obviously not working on any major swing thoughts, they're just trying to hit yards/targets, nothing wrong with that.
 
That's not practice. That's banging balls.

If you enjoy it, go for it. Just don't have any illusions that it will improve your golf game.

I used to take lessons and go practice at a combined driving range, Par 3 course and short-game practice facility. There was a guy would show up on his lunch hour two or three times a week. He get out of the car, buy a large basket of balls, pull out his driver and (with no warmup, no practice swings) hit like 75 in 20 minutes flat. He'd be halfway back to his car while the last ball was still in the air ;-)

Every swing was some sort of high slice or half-topped pull. He'd probably catch 2-3 reasonably clean contacts out of a large basket. I think he could have done that 365 days a year for the rest of his natural life and never improved anything. It's just how he liked to spend lunch hour.
 
cardio golf?

Et Tu Brute? said:
That's not practice. That's banging balls.

If you enjoy it, go for it. Just don't have any illusions that it will improve your golf game.

I used to take lessons and go practice at a combined driving range, Par 3 course and short-game practice facility. There was a guy would show up on his lunch hour two or three times a week. He get out of the car, buy a large basket of balls, pull out his driver and (with no warmup, no practice swings) hit like 75 in 20 minutes flat. He'd be halfway back to his car while the last ball was still in the air ;-)

Every swing was some sort of high slice or half-topped pull. He'd probably catch 2-3 reasonably clean contacts out of a large basket. I think he could have done that 365 days a year for the rest of his natural life and never improved anything. It's just how he liked to spend lunch hour.
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jim54 said:
cardio golf?
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I always imagined the dude must have had a really stressful job and just wanted to go bash the heck out of something as many times as possible on his lunch hour. He might have been picturing his boss's face on every beat-up range ball.
 
I would prefer no practice to bad practice. We don't have a range so have to go elsewhere is I want to practice. Usually we get to first tee, take two junk balls and hit into the junk and start the round.
 
Et Tu Brute? said:
I always imagined the dude must have had a really stressful job and just wanted to go bash the heck out of something as many times as possible on his lunch hour. He might have been picturing his boss's face on every beat-up range ball.
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Could be, there is pleasure in punishing the little white orb. I can't do it, one session like that and the back would be toast.

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I don't take the time to practice anything but wedges around the green and it shows in my normal game.

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I would normally side with bad practice being worse because of instilling bad habits but I'm reading a book called Atomic Habits which claims a bad workout is better than no workout at all because of the rate of decline when you stop altogether. So I'm in the confused camp.. Lol

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During the darkest days of my 40+ years of golfing, I hit range balls as often as I could. I also arrived at tournaments before the sun came up to make sure I had a spot on the range for as long as possible. All I did was ingrain bad habits which perpetuated the dark days...

Now my range time is to practice hitting particular shots, and/or to warm up and work on timing.
 
I think there are some kinds of practice that can be fun, not require a lot of thought or effort but still actually improve your game by just hitting shots instead of doing swing drills and such. One that comes to mind is hitting wedge shots to target flags at various distances (if you're lucky enough to find a range that lets you do that). It's hard not to benefit from focusing on hitting a 75-yard shot at a target, then a 93-yard shot at a different flag, then a 63-yarder on the next ball, etc.

But I guess that isn't qualified as "bad practice". Just easy and fun!
 
I say keep it simple. Sure pick a target because on the course you play to a target.
 
Molten said:
I think we need to divide this out. To me, any range time is better than no range time (e.g. swinging to keep a feel or keep loose or just get outside) but I see that as different from practice (e.g. working on something new or trying to actively improve). Bad practice is worse than no practice.
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I'm in the camp that range time is bad unless it's to warm up for a round. Range time, to me, builds a false sense of confidence that most can't carry over to the course day to day.
 
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