3 range drills for a consistent golf game
Practice makes room for improvement
To get the most out of your practice sessions, you want to make sure you are spending enough time on your weaknesses. While it’s always fun to practice your strengths, it’s vital to spend time on the areas that are holding you back from shooting lower scores.
Playing 18 holes is fun and when the game is solid, it the best thing in world. To get your game in order and to be consistent, here is 3 effective drills to use on the golf range to improve your golf game and swing. range.
1. The 9-shot drill (advanced)
If you’re looking to improve your ball striking and spend your range time effectively, this is one of the best golf swing drills around. It got the evidence for that "best" claim. This drill comes from the G.O.A.T himself, Tiger Woods. In the book, How I play golf from 2001, Tiger talks about his love for this drill.
Here is how its done:
- * After a proper warm up, grab a six or seven iron at the range. These clubs are best as you can easily work them in any different direction.
- Then, try to play nine different shots. You can start in any order you want but here is a breakdown of the nine different shots.
- Straight (High, low, and normal flight)
- Fade (High, low, and normal flight)
- Draw (High, low, and normal flight)
Once started, you will begin to notice what kind of shots you struggle with the most. Try to play all nine in a row and while it’s unlikely, make sure to keep score out of nine. This golf drill is hard so we recommend to try this if you are comfortable with hitting different types of shots.
2. Secondary target
A lot of golfers know this already but the best aim in golf is the smallest possible target. Choose a branch on a tree in the distance, not ”right side of fairway”. If you can make it the smallest possible target, your body is subconsciously trying its best to hit that target.
Sometimes it can be hard finding the smallest possible target on the golf course and its then good to have a secondary strategy. This is when a secondary target comes in handy. A secondary target is something that’s in line with your target, but a lot closer to your golf ball. This makes it a lot easier to get yourself aimed properly.
It can be a piece of grass, or a leave, or a clump of dirt. On occasion, there is an object that rests perfectly in line and is big enough to easily find, but that’s rare. So, on the driving range, create your own secondary target.
To practice on range:
- Take a towel, headcover, glove, golf ball, whatever, and
set it a couple feet in front of your golf ball. - Then, stand back before each shot and line yourself up.
Making this secondary target bigger makes the process easier to practice and get consistent. It also makes it easily flow with your pre-shot routine.
3. Fairway finder drill
Golf shots is easier from the fairway and one of the goals you should aim for, while chasing a lower score and HCP, is to hit more fairways. The avarage +0 to 4 HCP player hits 63-66% of fairways. Here is average fairway % hits based on group HCP:
- Group 1: + to 4.4 HCP 65% Fairways
- Group 2: 4.5 to 11.4 HCP 58% Fairways
- Group 3: 11.5 to 18.4 HCP 39% Fairways
- Group 4: 18.5 to 26.4 HCP 25% Fairways
- Group 5: 26.5 to 36 HCP 20% Fairways
- Group 6: over 36 HCP 15% Fairways
So if you need to improve your fairways statistics, try this drill on the range:
- After a complete warm up, grab the three clubs you tee off with most (i.e. a driver, 3-wood, and hybrid)
- Create an imaginary fairway thats wide enough for you to hit comfortably. You could choose two trees, a flagstick, and a tree, two posts, etc.
- As you progress, imagine a smaller, more narrow fairway. Get specific and imagine that water or a hazard is on one side to increase difficulty.
- Hit 10 balls and score each ”fairway”-hit as one. If you miss its a zero. If you’re imagining a hazard, you get -1 point if you find water. Use alternate clubs and try to get 8-10 points and then make the fairway tighter.
This drill is for improving accuracy off the tee so that you can find more fairways and give yourself easier approaches to the green. Its great drill to use consistently while on the range and great for practising with a purpose.
