A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Ralph Waldo Emerson

If I’ve seen it once I’ve seen it a hundred times golfers practicing on driving ranges with plenty of energy and enthusiasm but little direction.

What is the purpose of practice? If you’re like many people I’ve asked you’ll probably say something like; to get better … or words to that effect. And you’d be right, you do practice to get better but the problem is not the amount of energy you put into practicing but the actual result you’re trying to achieve.

In this article I’m going to introduce you to a simple highly effective system for managing the amount of practice you do and the results you produce. How do you practice at the moment?

Do you purchase an amount of range balls and find a spot on the range and just fire away? Some golfers do, and I imagine that the reason is based on one of the following assumptions;

• You just want to hit the ball and you don’t care too much about the result, just the exhilaration of bashing balls around the range.
• You’re working on some aspect of your technique to improve it and you are carefully paying attention to how you move your body and club.
• You’re trying to perfect your ball flight by adjusting your technique to reduce unwanted spin on the ball.
• You don’t know what you’re doing there, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
• You’re receiving swing tips from your well intentioned friend who is trying to solve a pressing problem you have with your swing.
• You’re a taking a lesson with a PGA professional who is going through a process of diagnosing your problem, and prescribing a method to improve your performance.
• You’re trying out the latest golf club technology to learn how it can improve your current performance on the golf course.

Whatever reason you have for being at the driving range one thing is clear you’re trying to achieve some objective and it’s either working or it’s not. It’s interesting that the majority of people playing golf are not improving as quickly as they want to and the big question is why?

Why don’t golfers make faster progress?

What is slowing them down?

I think we need to take stock of what we need to do to improve golf performances before we begin to expend energy. There are four important factors to consider in improving your performances.

• 1.Your Time
• 2.Your Intention
• 3.Your Attention
• 4.Your Energy

Your Time

The most important consideration is time and how you use it in your efforts to get better. Whatever you do, time will be the constant and for many golfers their return on effort for the time they spend is less than acceptable. If you have a limited amount of time to work on your game then you need to work out what’s important to work on.

One of the best methods for managing your time is to work out how long it takes you to hit a set of ten golf balls with a pre-shot routine and without. If you measure the amount of time it takes to hit ten short putts with a stop watch you now have information that will be helpful in building an effective practice program.

By breaking your shots up into sets of ten balls you can measure any skill and determine the amount of time it takes to practice that particular skill set.

For instance if you take three minutes and thirty seconds to hit ten five irons then you can multiply that number by say five and easily work out that it will take you about seventeen and a half minutes to hit fifty five irons.

Using this simple method will greatly improve you time management in this area of your performance.

Your Intention

Your intention is your purpose for being on the range practicing. Next to managing your time this is the most important factor to consider because this is the reason for doing something. For many golfers this is where they fall down as they are not specific enough about their intention.

You need to know exactly why you’re there, and that what you are practicing is exactly what you should be practicing. It’s not uncommon for golfers to be practicing shots they’re already competent at.

Rather than practicing the shots that would lower their scores and give them more enjoyment. You should identify the critical skills that would dramatically improve your performances and move you towards better golf faster.

Make a list of the different skills in your game and grade each skill on your ability to perform it competently as well as its impact on improving performances on the golf course.

Your Attention

How long can you practice without being distracted? If you’re like many golfers, not for very long simply because the amount of distraction around you gets between you and your intention making it difficult to keep your focus in one place for any length of time.

There are a number of factors involved in focusing more effectively and doing them well will dramatically improve your performances.

1. Duration

The attention span of an adult has been measured at somewhere around six seconds which probably doesn’t seem like very long but believe me it is an eternity when you consider what you are ignoring.

Around you at any moment are a countless variety of distractions that want to divert you from keeping your point of focus in one place.

You can increase the duration of your focus by doing two things; firstly always hits sets of ten golf balls and if you find that challenging try five balls at a time without being distracted.

Secondly focus your mind on detailed imagery of the type of shot you wish to hit.

Imagine the ball flying off the clubface and travelling towards your target before you hit the shot. Make the image rich with colour, sound and even the feeling of it coming off the clubface.

If you can practice this you will slowly but surely improve your ability to maintain the correct level of concentration leading to more effective practice sessions.

2. Intensity

You’ve probably heard about the illustration of the power of a magnifying glass and its ability to burn through an object only when the lens is held in one place for long enough. If you move then lens around you cannot harness the power of the sun and you won’t burn anything.

Your intensity is the level of concentration of your focus which is related to the level of importance of the task. Your intensity is always better when you practice a stroke that has a higher level of importance so you need to makesure that you think about this carefully.

Again it’s easier to manage intensity if you can control the duration so keep you golf ball sets to five or ten at a time.

Your Energy

You can’t do anything effectively without the investment of energy and flailing away at the ball is not only an ineffective way to practice but it’s also a waste of energy. When you practice consider that it’s important that you practice in the right energy frame.

What do I mean by energy frame? Well I’m sure you’ve had days when you felt excited to practice because maybe you were practicing a new move in your swing that was producing better results than normal and it gave you a positive feeling about yourself.

On the other hand maybe you have been on the golf course having a particularly bad round where nothing seems to be going right for you and your feeling frustrated and maybe even a little angry. Your energy levels are quite different in the two examples in the first you feel great and up for the moment and in the second your spiralling downwards with little control over your outcomes.

When you practice you need to be aware of keeping your energy levels in the right frame of positive and slightly excited to really get the most out of your practice session. Be positive and anticipate a great session where everything will go well for you and that you have control over your concentration and also your emotions.

Always practice in the positive energy frame and keep your concentration within the boundary of the ten balls your hitting and you’ll find that you get better at practicing without the normal distractions, your practice sessions will be much more effective leading to less time spent on the range and more time enjoying your rounds on the golf course.

Lawrence Montague is one of Australia’s leading golf instructors, and Director of the Australian High Performance Golf Academy (AHPGA), and Gold Coast Golf School, based at Palm Meadows Resort on the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia. He and his team train amateur and professional golfers for the major golf tours around the world. Email info[@]ahpga.com for more information

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