Practice makes perfect, or so they say. But does it? Not in my experience – certainly when it comes to visiting the driving range before a round of golf. Whenever I spend meaningful time on the range ahead of a tee time, I seem to play poorly on the course.
It’s a curious phenomenon. Clearly, practice is a pre-requisite to improvement, but timing is everything. Does hitting 30-50 balls before a round help or hinder? For me, it’s the latter, and I know I’m not alone.
It’s not something I normally do, because I’m usually short on time when I turn up at a golf club. I have many things ahead of visiting the driving range in my pre-round pecking order, including getting supplies in the pro shop, browsing equipment, ordering food, having a pint, going to the toilet, chipping and putting.
But before my last round, I turned up in uncharacteristically good time with more than an hour to spare before my tee time. When that happens, you have to go to the driving range, don’t you?
I initially hesitated, largely because of past experiences. I have no idea how many rounds of golf I’ve played, but I’d estimate it’s somewhere between 750 and 1,000. I can’t recall a single instance of a pre-round range visit yielding dividends on the course.
Why? I think it’s a combination of factors. Mentally, I’m not sure you can win. If you strike the ball brilliantly, you convince yourself you’ve wasted all your good shots and things can only go downhill from there.
But paradoxically, it doesn’t work the same the other way around. A succession of shanks, tops, thins and bad strikes doesn’t mean you head to the first tee knowing things can only improve; instead, you mentally consign yourself to having ‘one of those days’.
The other issue is range mats are beautiful to hit off and not representative of the turf you encounter on the golf course – something my colleague Elliott Heath has written about before. The astro-turf is proficient at disguising an average strike and far more forgiving than grass and soil.
Range mats are lovely to hit off
(Image credit: Getty Images)
‘My head was scrambled’
The trouble is, you always find yourself getting very technical on the range, even if you don’t want to, which is not a recipe for success on the course. Instead of batting balls away with freedom, you’re more aware of how you’re swinging and what movements you’re making, and those thoughts can be difficult to cast aside.
I know I don’t have a great golf swing, but it usually works reasonably well and I don’t have to think much about what I’m doing. I might have one swing thought as I stand over the ball, but generally speaking, I’m setting up and swinging with a fairly quiet mind.
However, as I hit wedges away off the astro-turf, I started thinking about needing to implement a pre-shot routine – not something I’ve ever really had. I know I should, but for some reason it’s never stuck when I’ve tried to incorporate one.
That was strange and distracting. Then, I started thinking about how much I was pushing into the ground with my legs, at what point my wrists were breaking in the backswing, how much shoulder turn I was getting, bumping my left hip to start the downswing and throwing my belt buckle towards the target in the follow-through.
Because the range was blessed with Toptracer technology, I was also monitoring my data. I wasn’t hitting the ball as far as I normally do, which I told myself was because of old range balls. But even still, it led to me swinging harder than normal as my competitive nature was piqued. This led to a loss of rhythm and tempo.
When I reached the first tee, my head was scrambled and I wasn’t swinging with any freedom. I couldn’t declutter my mind and I was paralysed by swing thoughts.
The opening three holes at my local pay-and-play are two reachable par 5s and a short par 3. If I’m playing well, I’d expect to be no worse than level-par standing on the 4th tee. This time, I started bogey, bogey, double.
From now on, if I want to work on my swing or head to the range, I’ll do it on days when I’m not playing. Five shots with a wedge into a net to loosen up is all I need. If I have an hour to kill, I’ll chip and putt.
Practice doesn’t always make perfect, especially when it comes to my long game.