There are so many different ways to practice your golf game and golf swing. But what is the best way to make your golf practice count? Do you spend countless hours at the driving range with no real results? We’re here to help with our advice for how to practice your golf swing the right way and stop wasting time!
As a golfer almost my entire life, one thing that sticks out to me that I think is the most important thing to any golfer of any level would be PRACTICE! Golf is such a personal sport so you find yourself on your own the majority of the time when practicing. For the average golfer, you’re not usually with a bunch of people or coaches like the pros but this advice for how to practice your golf swing the right way is for the golfer of any level.
That’s why we’re going to talk about GOOD PRACTICE vs. BAD PRACTICE.
Let’s talk about bad practice first…
Bad practice can happen with any level of golf player – the average golfer, the recreational golfer, college players, good players, etc – this happens with all abilities. One thing that I see a lot of is something I call “bad practice”.
When you play golf, you know what you’re confident in and what you’re good at – weather it’s your short game, your putting, your long iron game, your mid irons, whatever it might be. I see a lot of players relate to those things and go straight to working on areas that they’re confident in and already pretty good at when they’re practicing on their own time.
Start practicing the area of your game that you’re least confident in!
When you go to practice, to me, you should be fighting that urge and start with working on things that you’re least confident with. It’s easy for us to all go towards the things that we’re most confident in.
For example, you’re a great ball striker… you should go work on your golf swing, absolutely, but majority of the time you should be working on somewhere else in the game where you know that you struggle or lose strokes.
In this instance, you might be a good ball striker and hit a lot of greens but you might have 38 – 40 putts. If you have this many putts and are still hitting the ball well and have 2 hours to practice…. what part of your golf game should you be practicing? You should definitely be on the putting green!
If you’re that person that heads to work on the best part of your game the majority of the time and only leaves a few minutes for those not so good parts – this would be considered bad practice. It might be time to change it up and pick up some of our tips to practice your golf swing with good practice.
So, what do we mean by good practice??
When we talk about good golf practice, or useful practice, this is going to be working on the areas that you feel you lose the most strokes on the golf course.
You might hit the ball alright, you might putt alright, but you might say “oh the bunkers… I haven’t gotten up and down out of a bunker” or “I miss greens and I don’t get up and down”.
You’ve got to figure out where it is that you’re losing the most strokes on the golf course. Practice your golf swing with these types of strokes!
This is something that we can definitely figure out with coaching or having an instructor out on the course with you. They can help determine where you’re shooting the best and the worst in your game.
It’s also something that you can figure out on your own when you’re playing! Pay attention to how many fairways you hit, how many greens you hit, how many putts you have on each green on each hole. If you missed a green, did you get up and down? Keep track of these things so that you can understand what to practice on your golf game first when you go to the driving range.
This is so you can know “what am I going to work on today”. Yes, we’re all guilty of just grabbing a bucket of balls at the driving range, going through our clubs and hitting all of the golf balls within a certain period of time. When you get into that, you’re just going through the motions of it.
People tend to just hit golf balls with no targets, hitting it aimlessly out into the range, ball after ball, no swing thought, and not working on anything.
We love inspirational golf quotes, so here’s one for you!
There are a lot of us who don’t take lessons or use an instructor, which is why you want to make sure you’re practicing your golf swing the right way with good practice.
Obviously the number 1 way to really dive into practicing your golf game would be to have an instructor. Even taking one lesson will help you find something that you can work on.
Create a swing thought for yourself.
An instructor can definitely help lead you into the process of creating a swing thought for each type of swing in your golf game. That way, when you do go practice on your own, this will benefit your ball striking, your chipping, or your putting.
All in all, stay committed to focusing on what needs to be worked on in your golf game. Practice that first!
You won’t be doing yourself any good by just ripping through every club every time you go to the range.
So, develop a routine while you practice. Learn different drills. Learn different things you can do on your own (for example, using alignment sticks to practice your golf swing) that are going to help incorporate new moves or new swing thoughts and benefit your golf game. Throwing 3 balls on the putting green and hitting a bunch of putts without a goal is probably not going to help.
There’s a lot that goes into good golf practice vs. bad golf practice. Whether it involves instruction or focus or figuring out where you struggle and where you are confident. Bottom line, separate the two and use your time wisely.
Don’t ignore your overall fitness!
Using exercise to improve your golf swing is one of the things that gets forgotten about the most. It’s also one of the most important aspects of your game! Don’t forget about keeping your body in shape and staying healthy. This is another way to practice your golf game in a positive way – even though it may not be at the driving range or on the course!
