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Hi All,

I recently took a clinic to begin golfing. It meets once a week and the instructor wants me to use only the pitching wedge, which I've done through about 300 balls. Face this gets boring. I know I need some direction and the more I do it the better I get but at this rate I'll be on the course in about 6 weeks it seems like.

I'm looking to you guys/gals to advise me on the best way to approach the driving range and what sort of progess I should look for before I try a short course. One club a week will not get me having any fun anytime soon. There are some nice 3 par courses nearby that are all iron shots I'm dying to try.

So far I'm feeling comfortable with the basics including putting.

Any advice to a practice schedule would be great!

Thanks,
Warren

Well im not sure if this will hhelp you but this is how I practise.

I start at the practise chipping green and spend maby 45min to an hour there.(Short game is important to meeh) Then I go to the stalls. I start small with my PW slowly moving up to my driver. One thing you should remember is never try to change or alter you swing yourself at the range, iv done this and in the end it hardly ever pays off, just try to groove your swing so it comes naturally without and complex thought and feel smooth and easy. Then of course I go to the putting green. As far as what sort of progress you should be looking for, as soon as your swing feels ok and your happy with how your doing go play, you could even go now if you wanted you sound good enough. Plus going out on the course will give you info on what part of your game neds the most work.

Some might not agree with the advice I am going to give you.. But .. OH WELL ..

I say head out to a local course, not anything fancy or anything. Have some fun, trust me a few times out on the old links and you will be headed to the driving range with positive thoughts about the practice you are doing, and in my mind this is one of the most important things to learn about golf. Have fun, and the rest will come when you get hooked like the rest of us.

Keep us posted

I went out on the course after a few weeks of lessons, once a week.

There is nothing like the course; face it. Unless somehow your mental game is shaped beforehand, which most of ours aren't, your range game and your course game are going to look so different they'll barely be recognizable. For me, my range game is usually better and more consistent, however it is the opposite with some. I think it is because I don't have much exposure to competition in any way, shape or form because I barely played any competition sports for the past 10 years... let's see, a year of soccer, a year of tee-ball, a year or pee-wee basketball, (these were just camps, no competition really), then skip like 5 years, a year of baseball, a year of basketball, football, but nothing too competitive. I just feel very jittery, unsure, and basically incompetent when I am out on the course, however you may be the exact opposite.

I think it seriously depends on what you hope to get from the game. Do you want to be a great golfer really quickly or do you want to build up your skills over time? How are you motivated? In the 'old days' one learnt to play the piano by practicing endless scales and drills. This was 'fine' for those who were absolutely motivated to be great pianists, but not so good for those poor kids who just wanted to play a few tunes. Nowadays, kids get to 'play tunes' pretty quickly and then if they are serious can get into 'drills and skills'.
I do not think it is very much fun learning to play chess by just moving the king and queen (but you can 'learn a lot' from this exercise). I prefer to teach it by fitting the skills into the game.

One way of marrying what your instructor is getting you to do and what you want to do is to simply play the par 3 course/s using only your wedge and putter. That way you will be able to practice both full swings and less with the wedge and see what it is capable of. And you can take your range skill to the course to see how it holds up in the new environment. Try to analyse what you want and then do it. If you want to get seriously better, then more systematic work is required, and make sure it is 'fun' for you. Hope this helps.

When i want practice i go out tpo the course on a day where it isn't busy and play more than one ball trying a variety of different thing, and work on chipping and putting on the putting green. When i am looking to practice my short game i take 12 balls out and go from just off the green-10-20-30-50-75-100 out and then see the percentage of up and downs i make, it helps me out with whatlengths i need to work on and it gives me feel when i am out on the course how hard to hit each shot, i also practice lob shots from about 20 yards out with not much green or down hill and stuff.
Before a round here is how i practice/warmup.
1. Stretch out i have my special streatches to make myself feel good and not pull anything. The take out a 6 iron and work on that for a few ball just getting to what my ball flight is like then i go lwedge, sand wedge, gap wedge, pitching etc etc. and hit all them with about 5 balls untill i get to the big dog where i usually rip 10 or so. I then just make sure i am stretched out enough and go to the putting green and stick a tee in the green and try and hit it from 3,5,10,15 feet with 3 balls. Once i feel confident in that i try some bombs like 25 feet+ putts to get a better feel and try and make sure i 2 putt all of those. I then go to my gap wedge and practice shots i would use it for to see how the greens are and if they check up and stuff, then to the lob wedge, i try some good lies and some bad lies. Then usually i am close to be done and again check and make i am fully streatched out.
Sounds weird, but it has helped me out immensley, working on these things before a round really helps me.

warren, i'm in a similar position as you where i recently started learning the sport, and the pro i took lessons with suggested i practiced with the 8 and 9 irons. i took his suggestions to a certain extent, but as you said it gets boring pretty quick. these days, i usually start my range sessions with my 9, and depending on how i'm doing that day, i'll get into the longer irons. unless it's a bad day, which has happened quite a few times, i'll warm up with my 9 for about 10-15 shots and then hit 10 balls with each of the longer irons until i start struggling. theoretically the swing should be similar for all your clubs, so hitting well with one should translate to hitting well with the others.

as for going onto the course, i took 2 lessons and about 5-6 driving range sessions and hit a local course with some friends. i scored pretty high, but it was a lot of fun and made me want to play even more. my thought on the whole thing is: the pros might know what they're talking about in terms of drills, but their practice techniques may be too conservative, and take away some of the fun. so heed their advice to a certain point, but go out and enjoy the game too.

I may not be the best judge of this, as I'm "only" an 11 handicap, but here's what I do at the range:

* Always focus on a target flag or other item in the range - hitting into the wide open spaces without focus is bad, bad bad.
* Avoid beating balls, by adding variety. Try to hit the same flag with ALL the clubs in your bag, by attempting knockdown shots, low runners, fades, draws, high shots, etc. etc.
* "Play" a course in your mind - hit Driver or 3W, then an iron shot, then a wedge, then perhaps a chip. Imagine you're playing a course for real!
* Drills - I work very hard on certain drills to help my swingplane, ballstriking, etc. etc. - consult a pro!
* Short game, short game - work on chipping/putting distances, drills, and various different things to keep it interesting, rather than beating balls.
* "No Wagering please!" - sometimes a little wager with a friend makes it fun!

I hope this helps somewhat!

this is some excellent advice!!!!!!!!1111

Hit balls?

I start with some pitches to the blue flag (70 yards) and then I hit ten shots with each club until I get to driver.

Warren, I'm not an instructor or anything, but I agree with Swingezy.

My first thought about what you said is this. If you go out to play a round, even on a par 3, you will have no idea how far you hit your other clubs. In you get to a hole that is 150 and think you should hit, say, 6 iron, you may actually hit it 175, and might land on the next tee box, or something.

If you want to deviate from the instructor, maybe skip 9 iron and start practicing with an 8 iron, just to see how you hit a club with a little longer shaft. That would also give you a little more length for a par 3 course.

In hindsight, I wish my dad would have spent more time with me on the range. I don't recall more than a few trip to the range before we started playing courses. I struggled mightily.

I hate the range!

I've always followed the idea of, "the course is my range." On the course you'll come across certain shots and certain situations you wouldn't put yourself in if you were simply wacking balls on the range.

Working at a course myself, I get to use our range for free. When I found this out I was excited because I was really struggling with my iron game. Turns out it took me 10 minutes in my apartment to figure out what I was doing wrong. I took that to the range with two buckets of balls. Only ended up hitting about half of the first bucket before I got bored with the range, went out and shot 1under for 9 holes.

On the flip side, yes, there are many benefits of hitting the range (many of which have already been posted), especially if you are new to the game. I think SamT hit the best one though, and that is something I do, which is to play a course on the range. Take a scorecard of your favorite course with you to the range, and try to hit shots according to the hole.

The short game is a completely different story. As a kid, my parents would drop me off at the course on a Sat and Sun. morning and not pick me up until dark. While waiting to play I would constantly be working on chipping and putting. And you know what, my chipping and putting rocked.

I could probably go on and on, but this has gotten long enough.

Have some fun. Blast your Driver. MIx it up.

I took the advice presented here and mixed it up a bit. I also came to the conclusion the chances of me getting a PGA card as a 43 year old beginner is worse than 4:1<g> So I'm probably better off having fun with golf.

I'm planning on hitting one of the 3par courses around here sometime next week in the late afternoon so I can play a few balls and see what happens.

Regards,

Warren

Escondido huh?
If I remember correctly, thats not too far away from Mission Bay golf course. It's fun playing night golf there.