How To Practice Like The Pros

Tour players know to play great golf they need a quiet mind and they strive to keep things simple. They take this same philosophy to the practice range when working on their game. They've identified their strengths and weakness and have a plan before hitting a single shot. Often times, amateur's do the exact opposite! They make their practice complex by continuously changing swing thoughts and working on every tip they've heard from a friend or the Golf Channel. Here's some proven methods to improve your practice.

Golden Rules

1) Balance practicing Technique, Impact Skills and Playing Skills: Only work on 1 or 2 technical aspects of your swing at a time. It's counter productive trying to make too many swing changes at once because you won't get enough repetitions of the proper movement to ingrain it. Instead change your focus to improving your Impact skills. This includes having control of the Bottom of the Swing, Center Contact, and Starting line. The next step is to add Playing Skills such as Rhythm, Balance, Routine and being Tension Free. All these skills are required to play solid golf- not just technique!

2) When practicing technique, feel and exaggerate the new movement before each shot: If you get a chance to go to the PGA Tour event definitely check out the driving range. You'll notice that the pros take their time between shots and always make a practice swing before they hit the ball. They want to really feel the new motions that they're trying to incorporate into their swing. It's basically double the repetitions and practice. Don't be that golfer that hits balls fast without thought.

3) Only practice as long as you can stay focused: Golf is a fickle game and you'll have good days and bad days. If you find that you're struggling hitting the ball, just step back for a minute, take a deep breath, and recommit to your practice. It's always good to hit 5-8 balls at a time then take a short break.

4) Use feedback other than ball flight: There is always a difference between "feel" and "real". Sometimes you'll think that you're making the correct movement, only to see on video that it's the exact same swing. Here's a couple ideas to help you incorporate feedback into your practice.

• • Spray foot powder on your clubface to see the impact point on the club
  • Video yourself with a smartphone and analyze your swing with popular apps like V1 Golf or Ubersense
  • Use a training aid like a headcover or alignment rod on the ground
  • Use a mirror to see the reflection of your swing

5) Set a goal for specific skills: Examples would be hitting 7 out of 10 on the center of the face, 8 out of 10 swings finishing balanced, hitting the green 6 out 10 times from 150 yards, etc. This helps set benchmarks and measure your strengths and weaknesses.

6) Practice in an environment that's similar to the golf course: Every other sport such as football, tennis or basketball is practiced on the court or field of competition. Only golf is practiced away from where you're actually playing. If possible, go to the course at a slow time, and hit multiple shots from various positions to get used to playing golf, not golf swing.

7) Have fun with the process: There's no way around it: golf is hard. But, it's a journey that's very rewarding and never ends. Enjoying the process of learning golf is mandatory for improvement. If you don't like practicing chances are you're not going to get better.

For help structuring a personalized practice plan, click here to schedule a lesson at MY CHICAGO GOLF.

Setting Winter Golf Goals

As the golf season approaches the winter months, now is the perfect time to reflect on your past season. Did you make progress with your game? What areas of your game still need improvement? Give yourself an honest assessment and write down a specific, realistic and measurable goal for the off season.

To reach your goal we need to start with a plan. Answer the following four questions in order to kick start your focus and motivation.

 1) What do I want to accomplish with my golf game? Make sure it is specific, realistic, measurable and has a deadline. Example: I want to break 90 by the end of next season.

2) What's currently happening with my game? Be honest and objective. What have you tried to improve and what were the results? Think about current obstacles holding you back. Is your goal still realistic? Example: I'm currently shooting in the high 90's/low 100's. I play once a week, but rarely practice. My driver constantly slices to the right, and my short game could be better. I found some tips online that helped for a little while, but the slice came back. I'm busy and don't have much time to practice.

3) What are some options to accomplish my golfing goal? Really brainstorm and be creative. If you could do anything to make progress what might it be? Ask others you trust for their opinion. Example: I could start taking lessons and practicing. There are drills I can work on at home, and I know I can squeeze in at least one hour a week to hit balls. I could also use my cell phone to video my swing and analyze when practicing. My basement has carpet, so I can practice putting.

4) What actions do I need to take? Which of the above options can I do? How and when will I go about it? Which options interest me the most and seem fun? Example: I'm going to schedule a lesson for every Tuesday at 6pm and practice Saturday mornings. I'm going to do drills in front of a mirror for ten minutes before bed twice a week, and practice putting 6 footers in the basement once per weekend. There is also a golf dome in the suburbs I can visit once a month to work on short game. If I get into a good routine I should have improved by spring. 

I'd encourage you to share your goals with me or a friend in order to have some accountability, but more importantly this exercise is to help get you energized about improvement.

How to Practice Productively

There is nothing more frustrating than dedicating hours of your valuable time to hit countless golf balls at the range only to play horrible on the actual course. This scenario is very common and makes a golfer question whether than can actually get better or not. The truth is that golfers DO get better when they know HOW to practice correctly. Quality definitely outweighs quantity when it comes to golf practice. Here are the basics for making your next practice session effective.

1) Go To The Range With A Plan

Start by asking yourself what you want to accomplish from your practice session. It often helps to assess your current golf game and find the weakness that is preventing you from playing your best. Commit that practice session to focusing purely on that weakness. Many golfers often hit their favorite club over and over because they have confidence with it. Check the ego at the door and practice that part of the game that makes your feel uncomfortable.

2) Split Practice Time

Now that you've identified the weakness in your game that you want to work on, you need to split practice between technique, games and simulated play.

Technique- has to deal with the mechanics of the swing. Hopefully you've had a lesson and understand what needs to fixed. Focus on changing elements of the swing through exaggeration, drills and slow motion movement. Where the ball goes does not matter when working on technique. Focus on body and club movement rather than ball flight. Also use feedback such as mirrors, video or training aids. DO NOT make the mistake of spending your whole practice session with a technique mindset.

Games- playing specific games on the range makes a player target oriented and introduces pressure to the scenario. Examples are: how many balls can you hit out of 10 on the green from 100 yards?, how many solid shots can you hit in a row while keeping balance? Can you curve a ball to the left with one shot, then to the right with the next one? Can you hit it high, medium or low with the same club? Etc… Once you've played these games a benchmark has been set, then you try to beat it. Have fun and get creative with games. The mindset with games should be about executing shots, rather than making a technically sound swing.
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Simulated Play- Time to bring the course to the range! Playing good golf is about putting quality shots together with different clubs. Play a pretend 9 holes on the range by choosing random targets and hitting .

Hole # 1: Hit driver, 7 iron, pitch shot, chip shot. Hole #2: Hit 4 iron, chip shot Hole #3: Hit driver, 3 wood, pitching wedge….Make this experience as realistic as possible. Use the same pre-shot routine you would on the course, take a longer time between shots, hit from clean and poor lies, etc. Be aware if your tempo, tension or balance changes as your playing.

3) Keep Track of Progress

After an effective practice session it's important to take notes about the session. It can be as simple as writing down the swing thoughts you had when you were hitting the ball well, or keeping scores for the games you played on the range. You will eventually have a journal of your practice accomplishments and will see measurable progress.

This should give you a better idea of how to spend your time practicing and provide basic structure. I'd also recommend consulting with a PGA Professional to provide a custom practice plan for your goals. They will provide clarity with the technique portion of practice, as well as give you several ideas for games. When done correctly practice becomes fun due to variety and and the internal competition with yourself to get better. You'll be practicing all parts of your game and be a well rounded golfer when it's time to play on the course.