Instruction
What to practice when you have little time to practice
At age 47, I cautiously suspect I finally have time to practice. Our children are mostly self-dependent, edging toward independence. I even struck a deal with a club 10 minutes away to let me play and practice, in exchange for some marketing/promotional advice.
Now that I have all the time I never had to hone my game, I look back at those child-rearing years and miss them tremendously. If I could go back and change one thing, given the wisdom I have today, it would be to practice important elements of the game with just a wee bit of time available.
Sagacious wag that I am, I am also generous and have decided to share this wisdom gleaned from years of futile ball-striking, wretched putting and spastic chipping. I put my money where my mouth is, mind you. When I have the following amounts of time at my disposal, this is what I practice.
1. 10 Minutes: Ultra-long putts
Have you ever putted to those mini-holes that some courses have on practice greens? After, the regular hole appears much larger, right? This is the opposite, yet the same.
After banging some 80-, 90- and 100-foot putts, the 30- and 40-footers don’t seem quite as three-puttable anymore. Hit about 15 ultra-long putts and you will come to know your stroke. After all, it will never be any lengthier.
An alternative to this is to hit putts from 10 different distances, dropping 10 feet each time. Start with 100 feet, and then go to 90, 80 and so on until you finish with a 10-foot putt, which will feel like a tap-in.
2. Five minutes: Hands-ahead chip shots
If you haven’t played much golf recently, there’s a good chance that you’re going to struggle with your chipping. One of the most common reasons for bad chipping that I see is that golfers let their forward wrist break down before impact, which can cause the the chili-dip, the chunk and the skull — all nightmares for your score.
That’s why I’ll sometimes start a short warm-up session by swinging a wedge with my forward arm (for me, it’s the left one). After a few air swings, I’ll advance to actually striking the grass and ground with the club to feel the resistance. Finally, I’ll put the back hand on the club and start hitting chip shots.
My focus is on keeping my hands in front of the club through impact. I’ll carry that thought out onto the course for half and full shots, too. It’s a great swing thought to use when you only have space for one.
3. 10 Minutes: Sand shots
It is imperative that golfers reconnect from time to time with the shot where club and ball never meet. At a golf camp in high school, I stood out only because I won a greenside bunker contest. I’m no Gary Player, but I’ve saved a few birdies in scrambles by blasting orbs to within a few feet on short par 4s and 5s. I simply have a feel for it.
However, not practicing something you have a feel for leads to something you used to have a feel for. Hit four to five shots in a bunker to see how the club and sand interact. Then, bounce over to a space where you can nip a few fairway bunker shots. These are the ones where club meets ball in a most conspicuous way. Nothing like hitting a good drive, finding the sand, and making double or triple because you weren’t confident from the beach.
4. Five Minutes: Driver
The point here is not to hone your tee ball, nor to find that extra 50 yards to finally reach 300. The goal is to simply determine which way your ball is curving, unless it is going straight. If you’re fading the ball, forget the draw today. Vice-versa holds true. If you’re the Tom Kite of the group and have the straight ball mastered, I’m told it plays as well.
Remember that you are impoverished with practice time as your currency, so don’t force a draw or a fade or a straight during warm-up. Go with what you find.
5. 10 Minutes: Punch Shots
You might be amazed at how many people can’t pitch back to the fairway. They hit it too high, too low, too hard or too soft, turning a one-shot surrender into an X on the scorecard.
It would be comical if their tears were fake, but they aren’t. These golfers know that it’s time to play safe, but they don’t know how to do it. Take some time to learn what clubs allow you to to pitch or punch the ball back to the fairway with the most ease.
The punch shot is also an awesome option when directly into the wind, or when battling a side wind. The higher the ball gets in the air, the more the wind has a day with it.
Also, if you’ve lost your swing (remember that you have no time to practice), the half-swing or punch shot can be easier to control than a full swing. Normal 7-iron distance with zero confidence? Punch a six- or five-iron shot to the green apron and count on your chipping (see No. 2).
6. Five Minutes: Clean Your Clubs
Nothing against the change-up or the knuckle ball, but I need spin. If my grooves are filled with muck, my ball isn’t spinning. That’s why it’s imperative to keep extraneous materials off your clubs, out of your grooves and away from your grips — gunk is not your friend if you want to play a clean game of golf.
Warm and soapy water does wonders, and remember to clean your golf balls while you have a tub of the suds. And if the grips are slick because they are worn, clean them too — or have a friend/golf professional change them for you. If you can change your own grips, well … why did you let them get slick in the first place?
Conclusion
I could go on, ad infinitum, but I sense that you have the spirit of the points I’m trying to make. The old adage of “practice smarter, not harder” is the basis for my decrees.
Too many golfers bang away on the course or on the range and have no direction nor goal in mind. By the end of the session, they are tired, frustrated, at times injured and unaware of any impactful discovery about their game. Don’t be that guy.
Address every ball as if it truly were the last you would ever hit and every ball will count toward your improvement, even if you only have five minutes.
Thanks to Simond Selin, whose How Much Time Do You Really Have To Practice Golf? served as the impetus for this piece, and to River Oaks Golf Club (Grand Island, NY) for location.
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Instruction
Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?
Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
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Instruction
The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic
My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
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Instruction
Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!
Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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Ronald Montesano
Aug 16, 2013 at 1:25 pm
Beautiful words, Joey! It’s great to have the perspective of the middle ages…here’s hoping you preserve your health and can play well long into your years. Keep reading and keep commenting!!
Joey Koontz
Aug 15, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Good stuff here. I’m just getting to a point in my life where I have more time to devote to the game, my only child is now a senior in HS.
I even got a part time job at the city course so I could play and practice for free. It’s a bunch of fun for sure.
The advice in your article is simple, “not simplistic” which is a great thing for me. Loving the game, hoping to get down to scratch one day. Will enjoy the journey no matter the destination. Peace!
Ronald Montesano
Aug 14, 2013 at 10:48 pm
Nick…good point. It’s the things we take for granted, be it long putts or scoring clubs. I chose the punch or recovery because I see so many kids and adults destroy good rounds with a woeful recovery shot. Thanks for reading, EVERYONE and for commenting!!
Nick
Aug 15, 2013 at 3:54 pm
No doubt that a failed effort to “take your medicine” is a double bogey or worse, without fail.
Nick
Aug 14, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Ronald, I very much agree with your article, especialy the long putting. I neglected it for years, mostly because the embarassment of rolling long putts woefully short or long on the practice green was more than my fragile ego could bear, but come to find out, its better to be embarrased on the practice green than the first or eighteenth green…
The one thing I would add, perhaps in substitute of the punch shot which I think is fairly easy to master (perhaps because I’ve spent a lifetime employing it with great regularity…) is that the average joe should spare ten minutes on his precious time on 80-125 yard approaches. Few of us with little time to practice will throw darts with our long irons or fairway metals, and even the mid irons can be a challenge without time to hone a stroke, but we should be able to be confident enough with our “scoring clubs” to at least routinely find the green.
Timothy Young
Aug 14, 2013 at 3:04 pm
Love it. I actually cleaned the wifes clubs and my clubs the other night when the weather didn’t let us get out to the range.
Tyler
Aug 14, 2013 at 12:10 pm
Good article. I have an 8 month old so making time to practice can be tricky when I’m working.
I’ll go to the range a few times in the evenings after the crowds have left(and hopefully left me some grass). I’ll hit about 60 balls in 45 min. Wedges(focusing on rhythm and contact)then I fly some short irons out into the range(no targets yet). After some solid shots I’ll starts firing at some pins.
Then I’ll do the same with mid irons and hybrids. Then I move to metal woods and Driver.
Quality over quantity works for me. I like hitting less balls more often versus practicing for hours at a time a couple times a week. It helps of course that I live right across from a golf course.
P.S I usually alternate hitting odd and even numbers each session.
Ronald Montesano
Aug 14, 2013 at 6:18 am
Thanks, jabrch. I would fill up the sink with hot, soapy water and my clubs always said “gracias.” None of us backs up the ball like the pros, so we’re not looking to take spin off the ball. Appreciate the read, friend!
jabrch
Aug 13, 2013 at 11:48 pm
Brilliant article. I have two 6 year olds. I totally get your point. The clean clubs point is tremendously underrated with Jo Average who doesn’t have caddies and rack room boys to clean their clubs or aren’t analysis retentive about their sticks. I try and clean mine after every round.
Ronald Montesano
Aug 13, 2013 at 9:36 pm
Damian…if I knew then (when our 4 kids were ankle-biters!) what I know now…Thanks for reading.
Curt…I hope you meant “simple” and not “simplistic.” Thanks for reading.
Curt
Aug 13, 2013 at 9:03 pm
A very simplistic, well organized, article!
Damian
Aug 13, 2013 at 8:35 pm
Great article Ronald! From someone who has 2 kids under 2 years old, its great to hear how to make the most out of little time. Thanks for that little gem.