How Should You Practise Golf to Actually Improve?

The short answer: practise the way you play. Give every ball a target and a routine, make a realistic practice swing about two balls away that actually hits the ground, change club and target often instead of hitting the same shot over and over, and keep a score on everything so you know whether you are improving. Spend your time on the part of your game that costs you the most shots, not the part that feels best.

Why most practice never reaches the course

Watch a typical range session. A pile of balls at the golfer's feet, one club, one target, and a ball raked over and hit every few seconds. By the end of the bucket they are hitting it nicely, then they go to the course and it disappears.

That isn't a lack of effort. It is practice that looks nothing like golf. On the course you get one ball, one chance, a different club, a different lie and a different target on every shot. Your practice needs to prepare you for that.

Block practice versus random practice

Block practice means hitting the same shot repeatedly: twenty 7-irons at the same flag. Random practice means changing something on every ball: club, target, shot shape or lie.

Motor learning research has shown this for decades, in what is called the contextual interference effect. Block practice makes you look better during the session, because you settle into a groove. Random practice feels harder and messier, but the skill sticks better and transfers to the course better.

Both have a place:

• Use block practice when you are learning something new. Ten or fifteen balls working on one change, so you can feel it.
• Then switch to random practice to make it stick. Once a move starts to feel familiar, change club and target on every ball.

If your whole session feels comfortable, you are probably doing too much of the first and not enough of the second.

Practice swings are rehearsals, not waggles

The practice swing is the most underused part of a good routine. Plenty of golfers skip it, or make an air swing that never touches the grass. That rehearses nothing.

Here is how I want you to make it:

1. Stand about two balls away from your ball, in line with it, and picture a ghost ball there.
2. Hit the ground. It doesn't need to be full speed or take a big divot, but the club must brush the grass. That softens your arms, sharpens your depth perception and tells you what the lie is like.
3. Brush the ground just in front of where the ghost ball sits, not behind it. Ball first, ground second is what you want at impact, so rehearse that. A practice swing that scuffs behind the ball is just rehearsing a fat shot.
4. Match the speed to the shot. For a full shot, a smooth, easy swing that brushes the grass is enough. Inside about 60 metres, rehearse the actual speed you need for that distance, the same way you would make a practice throw before tossing a ball to a target.

This matters even more on the course. A downhill lie, a ball above your feet or grabby rough all change how the club meets the ground. Your practice swing tells you before it costs you. If the rough grabs and twists the club, you have just learned to take more club or play safe.

Build a consistent practice station

Lay two alignment sticks down: one along your target line and one at right angles to it marking the centre of your stance, with the ball just forward of it for an iron. Now your alignment and ball position are the same on every shot, and you can focus on the one thing you are working on.

If you practise off grass, place each new ball directly behind the last divot. You will get one long strip of divots, like you see at tour events, rather than a minefield. It keeps your lie consistent.

Every ball gets a target and a routine

Put your bucket a few steps behind you and walk back for each ball. It slows you down and breaks the rake-and-hit rhythm.

Then, every ball:

1. Stand behind the ball and pick a specific target.
2. Pick a spot a little in front of the ball on that line.
3. Make your practice swing.
4. Walk in, set the clubface to your spot, then align your body.
5. Hit it, and assess it honestly before you reach for the next one.

If you are working on a swing change on the range, put the new feel in your practice swing, then go through the full routine and hit the shot.

Short game and putting first

Most golfers practise what they are already good at, because it feels good. Your scores drop fastest when you work on what costs you the most.

A standard hour I give my students looks like this: 5 minutes warming up, 20 minutes putting, 20 minutes short game, 15 minutes full swing. If your full swing is your biggest problem, shift ten minutes towards it, but keep the order. Putting and short game come first, every session.

Drills: three games with a score

New Club, New Target

1. Take 10 balls and three or four clubs.
2. Change club and target on every shot.
3. Score a point for each shot that is good by your own standard. Decide what "good" means before you start.

Nine Hole Up and Down

1. Pick nine spots around a practice green, mixing tight lies and rough.
2. Chip or pitch to a different hole each time and putt everything out.
3. Par is 2 on every hole. Record your total and try to beat it next session.

The putting ladder from my post on how to stop three-putting works the same way for distance control.

Write every score down with the date. A number tells you whether you are improving. A feeling doesn't.

Measure the results on the course

Play at least one round a week and track it: fairways, greens, up and downs, three-putts and penalties. That is how you find out whether practice is turning into scores, and which part of your game to put the extra time into next.

Common mistakes I see

• Hitting from a pile at your feet with no routine
• Fifty balls with the same club at the same target
• Practice swings that don't touch the ground, or hit behind the ball
• Ball position and alignment changing from shot to shot
• Only practising the part of your game you enjoy
• Never keeping score, so you never know if it worked

Want a practice plan that works?

My Game Development Playbook gives you an eight week plan with a score on every task, and The Consistency Reset rebuilds your fundamentals so your practice has something solid to work with. If your goal is a number on the card, start with how to break 90. Start at perform.golf.

Kerrod Gray is a PGA of Australia Professional, Advanced in Coaching, and the founder of Perform Golf.