Point of Relief

After my humiliating double-over-par performance on 9 holes, I realized that I was not an instant Tiger Woods (I was holding out hope that I would be a natural at the game), and I would have to practice if I wanted to improve.

But how? I had already realized that simply hitting balls down the range wasn't going to help me much so I turned to my short game. I am very fortunate to have access to an amazing practice facility within a 10 minute drive of my apartment (Harvey Penick Golf Course). In addition to a great driving range (though I wish I could figure out the yardage markers...), Penick offers two putting greens. The first one has at least 4 holes on the top part, a nasty downhill turn, and then another 3-4 holes on the lower portion. The second is surrounded by two bunkers that allow great practice on approach shots and getting out of bunkers and onto the green.

What follows is NOT a tried and perfected method of practice, but it is one that makes sense. Not knowing exactly what I needed to practice (I haven't played enough to know for sure) and not being able to afford a few $50 /half-hour lessons to tell me, I chose to cover it all. Taking from a few things I had picked up in my readings I designed what is below. You can use it as a full-day of practice or shorten it somewhat and use it for a warm-up or cool-down. I plan on doing both. The overall goal to takeaway is an increase in patience. When out of the course, you want to have patience and the knowledge that you have made each type of shop hundreds of times before. This is why I am calling this post "Practice Makes Patience".

What you will need...

• The full set of clubs that you will be playing with. If you don't carry a 2-iron when you play, don't carry one now. The idea is to become familar with the clubs you will actually use.
• $5 to $10 dollars for range balls.
• Water! (possibly a snack if you have something that won't melt)
• (optional) a different colored ball or one that easily stands out from others

1. Buy a small-medium sized bucket of balls and head to the range. Immediately set aside 5-10 balls and don't use them. With the remaining balls, start with your smaller irons and work your way up. At this point you should be aiming for targets under 100 yards and working on consistency and aim. Finish with whatever you use off the tee most often (a 120-degree hyrbid for myself) and enjoy knocking the ball as far as you can without losing accuracy.

2. With the 5-10 balls you set aside head to the putting green. I like to start out at the green with the bunkers. If you don't have this, try to find a green that has a large amount of space around it. The goal here is to practice hitting onto the green from about 15-20 yards out. To get the most out of this, try setting up balls every couple of yards with increasingly difficulty. For this next part, I personally like to use 10 balls because it makes it easier to keep track of, but 5 will also work. Work on hitting the balls onto the green. The most important part is to set a goal! If this is one of your first times out, set a low goal like 40% (4 of the 10 balls make it to the green and stay on the green. Shooting over or bouncing off doesn't count. You are setting yourself up for putting.) If this is easy, make it a better goal. If you hit 100%, try making your landing zone smaller by only allowing balls that come to rest within 5 feet of the hole count as a success. Before you move on, hit your goal a minimum of 3 times to make sure you are learning what works and not just getting lucky.

3. If you have a sand trap, place your 10 balls on a line parallel to the green spaced out as much as possible. You will be repeating most of the same things you just did. Once again, set a goal and meet it 3 times before moving on. It doesn't have to be the same goal as before and likely won't be. For some people, hitting out of the bunker will be easier and for some it will be harder. Set your goal appropriately.

4. Finally, you will work on putting. Depending on the difficulty of the green, set your 10 balls out in varying yardage from easy to make shots and hard to make. Start from the closest and work your way back. Once again, you will want to set a goal and meet it 3 times before calling it quits.

That's it. Sounds simple right? You can tailor it to meet your needs and course opportunites. To make it a short warm up, just do the final workout. To make it even longer, increase the number of times you must meet your goal before moving on or repeat the entire thing. If your course has a small mini-course (Penick has a 3 hole essentially pitch-and-putt course for free roam) go out and play to see if you can perform what you just practiced. As you play more, you will learn what you need more practice on and can come up with something different that fits those needs. Remember, this is just a starting guide for structered overall practice.

In closing, I want to include a few additional things. These are either ettiqute points or just fun things I have discovered while doing this.

• Check with the pro shop before pitching/chipping onto the practice green. Some facilities are okay with this, others strictly forbid it.
• If the green is crowded, only work with a maximum of 3 balls. Make sure you don't tie up more than one hole (by standing in someone's putting line, etc.).
• Make the colored ball (listed as optional in the "what you will need" section) a bonus ball. For each excerise find a shot that you think is next to impossible. Place the colored ball there. If it hits your target, count it as 2. If it misses, it doesn't count as any of your 10. This adds a little fun to try crazy shots, stretches what you think is impossible, and makes you feel awesome if you actually make it.