How to practice?

Hi Guys,

I have just been asked about my practice regime off season and on. I have to say that 2009 has been my worst season results wise since 2000. I had a new baby, new teaching job and no money so every hour was spent trying to drum up new lessons and I fitted them in whenever I could.

As I approached the playing season I was finding it difficult to find time for myself to practice and when I eventually started in earnest I struggled. The whole year has been spent searching for my golf swing, I putted poorly and sometimes my short game was off. There was moments of brilliance but I struggled to maintain it for more than 2 or 3 rounds.

This year my good scores were around 4 under but my bad ones were in the high 70,s and that doesn't pay the bills. In 2007/8 my bad scores were still under par and I sometimes won events playing badly, the difference was I put in the work through the winter.

Anyway enough about the sob story let me get to the point. I personally am not going to have another year like that, I play golf to win tournaments not just make up the numbers.

All of my swing work is done in the off season, I will start seeing my coach ( Russell Covey, Bath GC ) in the next few weeks, sit down with him and set myself some goals for next year. I hate it when I tinker with my swing in the golf season as I never get any consistency.

I am not one to hit too many balls in a session because I start to tinker, I will maybe hit 100 - 150 including warm up shots working on swing mechanics. I am very much a tempo guy as opposed to a hitter, so if I get in my groove early I will maybe not hit so many balls. This usually takes 1.5 hrs.

I will then spend another 1 - 2 hours chipping and pitching. I like to mix it up a lot so I ususlly take 12 balls with me and just throw them, I will then chip to 1 or 2 different flags and only count the ones that are within 6 foot of the hole.

My putting practice is done in my garage at home just working on stroke mechanics, I can go out there whenever, I don't practice outside in winter as the greens are not good enough and the more you see the ball miss the lower your confidence will be. Even when I play in the winter we tend to give ourselves putts inside a putter length because we wouldn't normally miss them.

I then go and play either 9 or 18 depending on what i'm working on. And I do this 3 or 4 times per week through the winter.

I also need to get back in the gym and especially back to my Yoga classes, I have struggled with little injuries this year and it's all because of poor flexibility.

By the time the golfing season comes I am usually itching to go. I have a set pre game routine that includes 20 mins stretching in the changing room, then down to the range - 20 pitches with a SW gradually getting longer, 10 7 irons, 10 4 irons working on tempo, 2 or 3 shots with a Driver or until I hit one straightish, few pitches to finish. Then up to putting green, start from 2 ft to see the ball going in, then pace putting to the fringes from varying positions just to get a feel for the greens. All of this will take about 1 hour.

When I am not in a tournament I will work on anything that I feel is a weakness, whether that be slight swing adjustments, the mental game, bunkers. However I will always continue with my short game practice.

I still putt in the garage but on the greens I will tend to putt a straight 4 - 6 footer in between a couple of clubs. The longer putts is done with 1 ball working on pre shot routine.(see my site for free tips)

For me this is a full time job, I need my scores to average 2-3 under par to make a decent living and to do this that is how much work I put in.

You must decide how much time you can devote to practice and structure that time effectively. get yourself a good coach now and feel happy about their methods. If you have limited time work on your chipping and pitching. Putt at home while watching TV. Stretch lots to prevent injuries and increase distance.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask.

Steve

Practising has never been one of my strong points. I found that I would rather just go out and play.

Practice is only of benefit if what you are practicing is correct. One only has to visit a range to see so much wasted effort reproducing a poor swing.

Jonny, we will never know the answer to that one.

Not all clubs had a practice area anyway and if they did it meant using ones own balls and having to go and collect then afterwards. Not an enticing thought to me.

I most certainly would have had no interest in undergoing Steves punishing schedule.

I feel that golf in those early days was played with a lot more flair and imagination, which is not easy to practice.

In my opinion a scratch amateur in my day was a much better player than the scratch players of today. One reason being the handicap system was a lot tougher for the low man in those days as any handicap movement was in whole shots, not 0.1 for a poor round.

A scratch amateur could not shoot high seventies and still maintain scratch.

I might add that to win a 36 or 72 hole amateur tournament would require an under par score.

Not all good amateurs have managed the transition to the Pro ranks but I don't think a player can expect to do well if he cannot win as an amateur.

 Thanks Steve, an interesting read and a very good template for us all to try.

You must of practiced really hard at "snooker" to win that lovely trophy though John, I bet Samuel would laugh at that.

Jonny it wasn't quite like that, to get from 1 to scratch required five consecutive rounds in Open competition away from ones own course. Now once a player is 0.5 he still needs five rounds to get to scratch. yet will only go up 0.1 for every round over the SSS.

Of course it is difficult to get to scratch, one has to have a natural abiity in my opinion. You will find out how tough it is to knock one shot off your handicap the lower you get.

I just felt that when I was a decent player I never had really bad off days. I peaked when I was 30/31 years of age and at that time I found it difficult to go over 70, such was the level of consistency that I had acquired. In fact I can remember working very hard driving my truck to the Middle East for six months solid, coming back and shooting 68 in the club championship after six months of not picking a club up. This means that I played the game almost from memory.

I know you see me now, having played with me and quite rightly say to yourself, how on earth did this guy play to that standard. It is a confidence in ones own ability, coupled with the flair and imagination that I introduced to my game, as so many other older players of that era did. Now it is very much a mechanical swing game, played, in the most part to courses that are manicured for the pro, greens are receptive to any kind of shot and true, fast greens which enable good scores,

Dave, if Samuel had read that comment he would have turned over in his grave.

Most of the older guys, just needed a warm-up. The swing was there and off they went. Today the young guys don't feel happy if the swing doesn't feel right. To us older guys, it is the score that counted and not how it was achieved.

In the 70's, we were playing courses of under 7000yds so it was easier to score well without hitting the ball well. The winner each week was the guy who holed most putts. You could make a good living, and not be a good putter, you just hit fairways and greens. Today, with longer courses, you need to be a good putter to make money. Just look at guys who are dropping down the Money Lists and it is usually the putting thats the reason behind it.

TheLyth 

Steve,

I found that a great help with my putting came from hours of competitive putting. At Roundhay GC in Leeds, each night a group of us would get together and have a 72 hole Putting Tournament, with "cuts" and leaders out last, etc. It was like a real tournament and got us mentally prepared too. It has ment that I could putt with anything and didn't need long shafts, claw grips, and R about L etc.

I watch the guys on Tour and cringe at the way some of them approach some putts.

TheLyth

Every putt is a straight putt either aimed at the hole or to the break in the borrow.

The reason you are pulling the shorter ones is because your wrists are breaking down during the swing when they should be firm throughout. Swing with the shoulders and not the hands is the key.

Myself, I don't hold with the need to have the eyes directly above the ball (Will now get a slating from Dave L) and I also don't believe that the stance should be dead square.

Putting is a game on its own and I tend to stand open, rather like Nicklaus (Who was not a bad putter).

I am fortunate in that I have always had a feel for distance so quickly get the pace of the greens in most cases.

Paul what make/type putter do you use and what kind of path are you trying do?

John, not a hard and fast rule eyes over the ball, a couple of inches inside not a major problem but never over the outsibe of the ball.

I don't know what Steve thinks about this but attitude and mentallity are a big thing with regard to Putting. The number of higher Hcp'ers that I have seen try to lag a putt and leave it half way. I personally think that if you try and hole every putt the results are better than lagging some and having a go at others.

People watch Pro Golf on the box and then take that as normal and if they take more than 30 Putts in a round they think they are losing out. Most Tour Pro's hole everything inside 6ft but that is on perfect greens where the Hole has been cut on the flat. They would also miss as many as us on the greens we play. Putting on "True Greens" is a joy that most on here have not come across.

I keep a check on a Stat which is the total length of Putts that I hole in a round. I aim for a figure under 30ft if I total over 30 Putts. This gives me a good view of how I am putting. I sometimes also keep a record of the total length of Putts in a round.

Christopher says he takes 36 putts most round and wants to hole more to get better scores, but what he doesn't say is how far off the hole are these putts from. Knock it to an average of 30ft and take 36 putts is OK, but if you knock it to an average of 15ft for those 36 putts, your putting does need to improve.

TheLyth

Over the years there have been many weird and wonderful actions that make this modern theory just pie in the sky.

Search out Bobby Locke and you will witness everything in his putting stroke is the opposite of what is being taught today, yet he was recognised as one of the worlds best putters throughout history.

Players of that era played with feel, something that is frowned upon today.

The modern mechanical way being taught currently only produces robots.

Christopher,

A little off topic but something I have been told. Like me, you also wear glasses and the Lens are sorted from us looking straight ahead and not to our left or right. It may be a simple fact that as we look through the side of the lens our vision is distorted. Ever tried putting without glasses?

TheLyth

The art of Putting and the ability to read the borrows is something that can take years to master.

There is more Break on faster greens - Nap on greens with longer grass - Different types of Grass react differently - and what time of day it is. All these can effect a Putt.

TheLyth

According to the golf channel tiger woods averages 28.5 putts per round and that's an average Ross Fisher and Adam Scott take over 30 on average so if people are taking 34-35 on a bad day is it really that bad?

These guys have probably put the ball alot closer than me, had a caddie help them pick the line and had the privelege of being able to take a read from 15 different angles without the 4 ball behind losing the plot. Also add to that he's putting on a snooker table and I'm putting over 4 pitch marks and a slug it's not as bad as it seems.

I think sometimes we all beat our selves up over our putting but some times it's not as bad as it seems I know Fisher and Scott are 2 of the worst putters on tour but Id like to see any of us beat them in a putting competition. I don't think many of us would stand a chance and these guys only average 30 puts per round.

And just in case I didn't say it enough in the post above it's not as bad as it seems.

I'm going to have to start reading these things before I post them.

If you played on the same putting surfaces as the Pro's then you would find that your putting is not as bad as you think it is, Chris.

If you plonked yourself in the middle of a Snooker table, even with the small pockets you would not miss a putt, why? because the surface is perfectly true.

One has to blame the greens because no matter how good a stroke one puts on the ball, if the greens are not true, then holing them is a lottery.

I spent a whole week in the Western counties EGU final at Royal North Devon and did not miss one putt under six foot all week. That is a testament, not to my skill, but the trueness and quality of the putting surface.

This was highly competitive golf against the other five western counties. I represented Somerset.

 John, that may well be the case but you were probably 'in the zone' that week. For a putt to go in, the line and pace is of course the key and for me, the better (dare I say faster) the green brings the inherent  problem of under or over cooking it which I find is only resolved by confidence and trust in your putting action. I can putt as good or as bad whether it's a sheep track or Muirfield (however at Muirfield I thought I putted well but I'm sure I was over 40 putts.