‘Positive Practice’
The way you programme your swing must follow a logical and common sense system with the main requirement being that you understand not just that you have to practise, but ’how’ you practise.
The tour professional follows a system which time alone has found to be a good one and although you can’t find the same amount of time as he does, you should still copy his method.
One hour before play he will go to the practise range and start the warm-up session, starting with the short irons and finish with the driver to enable him to find out just how his swing is working ‘on the day’ and he then knows how his swing will manoeuvre the ball before he starts his game.
During this pre-match practise he is mostly reminding himself ‘how’ to hit the ball, to repeat and groove his swing by hitting ball after ball with the same method, to ensure that when he stands on the first tee, he is feeling confident about his game.
After the game you may see him carry on this ’grooving’ of his swing, but if he has a problem, you will not see him alone, he will be either with his coach or discussing the fault with a fellow professional.
From this, you must realise that to go down to the practise ground with a bag of balls and hit ball after ball is not enough but you must spend most of your time playing the shots that you know how to play, thus grooving your swing, or if you are trying to overcome a fault, to follow strictly the instructions of your professional.
There is another feature of practise, which was ‘discovered’ long ago, and this is with regard to the use of time you use for practise.
There is only a certain amount of time when following any training routine before you find that things start to go wrong.
You will find that you can hit the ball well for perhaps half an hour then bad shots appear and at this time you MUST stop and do something else like pick up the balls.
It is not easy to stop for a while when things go wrong because you would like to find out just why you are not hitting the ball as well as when you started but do stop because the findings of research say that during the break from practise, your level of competence will increase and you are in effect learning by doing nothing.
Positive practise lies not in how much time you spend on the practise ground, but in using your time wisely.