Are you being productive when you practice?

Practice: Repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency.

In order to improve our games through practice we must learn “how to practice”. Most people just go to the range and bang ball after ball with no real purpose to their practice session while hoping for improvement to their game. This is not a good recipe for success or improvement. If you went to a piano and banged on the keys for an hour, do you think you have improved your skills? NO! You must have some kind of game plan and purpose when practicing to improve skill level.

We have all heard stories of the Tour Professionals hitting balls for hours at a time when they practice. The only part of the story that we never hear about is how they practice during those hours of practice on the range. You might find it interesting to know they have a practice plan for each day that is broken down into multiple mini practice sessions for all aspect of their game. This allows them to break down their entire game into small practice sessions each day they practice. These practice sessions involve ten to fifteen minute work outs on different parts of there game so they can maintain focus and productivity with each session.

The research has proven the average person has about a 15 minute window of focus in one area at a time; after the 15 minute window passes, performance levels and focus tend to nose dive.

If we are going to learn anything from this it would be the power of practicing different parts of our game in smaller time increments.

Put together a practice plan for the week. Make sure to implement the full swing and short game into each practice session. Break it down into to what ever categories you like and try to spend a maximum of 15 minutes on each category. Try to be specific with your practice plan. For example: I am going to hit twenty putts from twenty five feet and see how many I can two putt, or I am going to hit 15 balls from a tee with a seven Iron and see how many I get airborne. Use your imagination for practice try and make it fun!!

The Lesson Tee……
By Director of Instruction, Andy Scott School of Golf

Until next time……..see you on the lesson tee.