If you’re a typical amateur golfer, your average driving range session likely consists of a bucket of balls and your swing thought or problem club of the week. And if things go wrong and your ball flight isn’t what you want it to be, you try to diagnose and correct the issue right there at the range. The problem is, none of this actually carries itself over to the golf course. Here, Mustard Golf’s Mark Blackburn – Golf Digest’s No. 1 Coach in America and swing coach to Mustard ambassador Justin Rose – shares a more effective approach to your next hour-long range session. It’s a unique routine that utilizes Mustard Golf and can dramatically improve performance.
0:00 – 5:00: Warm Up!
The vast majority of recreational golfers pull into the parking lot at the golf course, grab their clubs from the car and hit the driving range or the tee box without doing a thing to warm up. Yes, golf is a sport that can be played by people of all ages and fitness levels. But the golf swing is actually a dynamic, explosive movement. It generates and requires the body to absorb a lot of force, so you have to prepare it to do that. You want to spend the first five minutes at the driving range doing something to get the blood moving. Try a bit of calisthenics, like jumping jacks, lunges or air squats. This will activate the muscles you use in golf before you pick up the club. You do not want to swing the club to warm up. You want the body to be warm before you pick up the club and start hitting to prevent injury and ensure a smooth and fluid swing.Â
5:00 – 15:00: Start Swinging the Club
Once the body is warmed up, we’re going to start with 20 to 30 yard shots with a lob wedge. Then, progressively work your way up through your wedges to your pitching wedge.
15:00 – 30:00: Drill Work
Once you’ve gotten to your full swing, it’s time to start doing some drills. The Mustard Golf app has given you a selection of drills specifically meant to help you improve your particular swing issues. It’s a good idea to choose three or four of those to work on and get comfortable. If you have a favorite Mustard Golf drill that really reinforces a feeling that helps you in your swing, work on that. Choose a medium to shorter iron to really groove in those feels we have talked about in your Mustard report card. By doing this drill work before you get to your full swing, you are reinforcing beneficial movement patterns rather than bad habits.
30:00 – 45:00: Performance Practice
When we play golf, we don’t just hit ball after ball to the same target with the same swing like we do on the driving range. We have 14 clubs in our bag, variable targets and different distances. So, we want to spend about 15 minutes on our performance practice, hitting shots to multiple flags on the range. Go through your full pre-shot routine with each shot. Hit a different club every single time. Hit the driver, hit some longer irons, hit some approach shots. Really try to get a sense of what you’ll be doing when you actually play golf. This will also give you an awareness of your shot pattern and dispersion and teach you to aim accordingly. Think about where you need to set up on the tee, where you need to aim on the green and what the scoring strategies are that will help you to play your best golf.
45:00 – 60:00: Short Game
The most important part of the game, where we do our scoring, is the putting and the chipping. So, to end your practice session, you have to find the putting green. You can hit the ball wonderfully well, but if you can’t get the ball in the hole, golf will be a real challenge. Practice using different clubs from different lies around the green and work on getting balls up and down. Really focus on those short putts inside of about eight feet. The best players in the world only have about a 50% make rate. So, you really want to work hard on those shorter putts.
What if your driving range does not have a putting green or short game area? Spend your last 15 minutes pitching and chipping to a head cover on the ground or to some other pre-identified target.
That will take you to the hour mark. You can take pride in the fact that you’ve put in a good session of practice and worked on your game the right way. The goal is to repeat these practice sessions as often as possible. Of course, you also want to actually play on the course – and keep a scorecard – so you can monitor your improvement and get comfortable playing your best golf.
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