Which helps the most practice or play?

I have been playing for 12 months and golf has become my obsession. When i first started i shot between 106 to 127. Over the months i now am shooting in the 90's consistently. Now winter is slowly creeping in i want to break 90 regulary next season. So i thought which will help me get there faster? Practice or play? When i say play i mean 36 holes a week or more. And when i use the word practice i mean 3 to 5 times a week. Thanks http://www.golfshake.com/scripts/ckeditor362/plugins/smiley/images/regular_smile.gif" title="smiley" width="20" />

If you are spending time practicing it will depend on the quality of the practice.  There is little point in bashing the ball at the range with no purpose to it. 

Ask yourself, What exactly do I need to work on?  Go with a purpose in mind.  It could be hitting a certain distance with a wedge or getting up down on the practice green 8 time out of 10.

Just make sure you don't go an practice a poor techinique! 

As Chris says, there's no point spending an hour down the range grooving a bad swing.

Get a lesson & explain what your goals are & then focus your practice on this.

Agree with the above. Although to be honest I don't practice. In the summer I play 5 times a week minimun, never really worrying about my score, mainly trying out new ideas. One day I'll play only an 8 iiron when within 50yards of the green, the next day it'll be a 9 iron. This way I get to try different approaches with different lies each time.

On the putting green I tend to try and get within 2 foot of the flag, distance and feel being more important than putting the ball in the hole, that can wait til on the course...

During the summer when the weather is nice and the days are long I would suggest playing.

One of the things I do is to play three balls from 100 yard in.  Obviously, I only do this if there is nobody behind me!

Another thing, if you play a bad shot from around the green, fining the hole then go back to where you were and play the shot again, try and work out what you did wrong on the first shot.  It might be you were using the wrong club, or you had the ball in the wrong position in your stance.

As the winter moves in and you don't get enough daylight to play then practice.  If you are having problems with a certain part of your game, get a lesson and find out what you should be doing!

Russ