Effective Practice Efficient Preparation

Effective practice efficient preparation, is that how we make this game easy ?

I decided to pop out for a quick 9 twilight holes this week but when I turned up at the course I went and hit some balls on the range which I don't normally do.

The first thing I noticed was that the tee areas were in a different place therefore marking all the target markets wrong, thankfully I had a Nikon 350g Laser range finder in the bag so was able to take a accurate reading of the marker distance.  I was then know that the 100 yard marker, where my 9 iron shots were hitting, was actually 125 yards.

Because I was playing a short 9 hole par 30 course I decided to focus my practice and warm up on mid irons and chip shots.

50 balls complete I had warmed up nicely and hit the course, armed with the new round recorders, and started par par  something I don't think I've ever done!

I also started to make some notes as I played each hole which seem to really help get me in the zone.  

Having not had the opportunity to practice any putting I missed judged the first green and was way short on the long grass but by recording by putt distance on the visual shot tracker it gave me a great mental note when coming up to the 2nd green.

I then dropped a shot on the 3rd hole but this was completely down to me not judging the conditions and not taking an extra club with the strong head wind.  Making that not I didn't do that again!

By the time I'd finished the round I was 2 over!  Now admittedly it was a short course, not quite a par 3, and I played on my own so do you play different ?  but nonetheless I found the pre practice really really useful and the on course focus made me play differently.

It might be overkill and take some of the fun out of the game but ultimately are we all not striving to play better golf and if we don't doesn't it just lose part of the enjoyment anyway ?

I'm definitely going to do this again but over a full 18 holes and see how I go.  

You can also see from my analysis that I have a tendency to short putt on the right and pretty much all my approach shots and chips are under clubbed.

The first 2 images are my on course notes and the 2 additional visual shot tracker's image are just tests of recording x or the hole number.

To see my round visit: http://www.golfshake.com/round/view/1163454/

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