During my recent recovery from knee surgery, I had some hours to expend just sitting on the grass and observing people coming to the driving range at my challenging home course. While my previous impressions that practically no high handicap golfers had a useful pre-round practice routine was pretty cynical, I had no idea how correct I had been. Watching them by the dozens only confirmed how counterproductive was their approach to a round of golf.
Here is a typical golfer: He drags a bag full of very expensive clubs down to the range. Without even a stretch, with an eager, almost vicious gleam in his eye, he whips the driver out of the bag. Teeing up a ball, he takes a wicked lunge at the ball, often either barely catching a bit of the ball on the toe or slipping under it, wearing out the top of the club as he hits weak popups or little toe shanks. After a couple of these, he is really getting tense. Muscles and eyes bulging, he winds up as far as he can, losing his weight all the way outside his right shoe and takes a "Mighty Casey" swing almost falling over backward.
Does he collect himself and decide that this is not the way to begin? Does he put the driver away and get out a wedge or 9-iron? Not only no, but HELL NO! REAL MEN HIT DRIVERS.
Now really determined to smash the snot out of that mean little sphere, he grinds his feet into the ground and takes another series of wallops. Lordy be, about his 15th shot is dead center, hit well. Grunting with satisfaction, he hits another twenty drives, splattering them all over the range, grabs his bag and heads for the first tee.
Now, it should be noted that on this golf course, even a modestly long hitter needs not drag his driver out of his bag but twice, and that only on the seventh and 18th holes. In fact, if he were to hit a few of those awful blasts left or right, he will just have to tee up another ball, or get a serious case of Poison Sumac from uselessly chasing balls out into the woods.
So, what is a good pre-round technique? First of all, you must get into the frame of mind of what it is you are trying to do. You are first of all, trying to develop a relaxed rhythm. You are also trying to discover what the shape of your shots might be for that day. They do vary, you know. Lastly, the shot you complete your practice session with should be the shot you want on the first tee. It is very important that you get your round off to a nice, safe start. I will begin my own practice session with three or four pitching wedge shots, starting with just half shots. Then I will skip through my bag, odd clubs one session, even clubs the next. I will hit three or four drivers but, on this course, a four-iron off the tee is my shot, I will make sure I have this club grooved. Depending on the time factor, I will either putt before or after my full shots but I always putt. I start with 30-footers to get the feel of the green that day then get down to four-footers and make certain I can make a confident stroke that "pops" those shots into the hole.
I will stop by the bunker on the way to the first hole and hit four or five sand shots and I am ready to go. That's what works for me.
I know no golfing professional that goes straight to the range and yanks out his longest club to start. Take a lesson from these bozos. Make a reasoned start to your round and see if those scores don't plummet. More importantly, you will feel better about yourself when you coolly whip that first shot right down the heart of the fairway.
You are very right on. most pros on tour actually go to a van to work out or stretch before the range. Then 75% will start out with wedges. The newest thing now is to grab a 7 iron to start your warm up. They say the wedges are way to slow swinging of a club to start out. Like warm up with 50 yard pitches. They say that is setting your body's tempo too slow to start with. so now they are starting with a 7 iron which has a little weight and length to it. I hit mine 165 which I will warm up with trying to hit it 100 yards with a half backswing and exellerated follow through till I am warm. Then hit a few 5's , 3 irons. fairway ,little driver shots then back down to a few wedges for feel of varoius distances.
I play a couple of local courses which only have a practice putting
green to be able to get a feel for the speed for the upcoming round.
Therefore, the need to stretch and loosen up is pretty important. My
game may suffer a little because I have a hard time going to the range
to work on my game. I would rather go to the course where every shot
counts.
