I think you’ve all heard that saying “practice makes perfect,” well I’m here to tell you that that isn’t the case. In golf, as in everything else, “perfect practice makes perfect.” What does that mean exactly? Read below to find out.
Golf is kind of a funny game because, unlike other games, you can practice and practice and practice and still suck. And I mean suck in the nicest way, but you can still be just a hack. And there’s a reason for this – if you don’t swing the club the right way, you’re not going to be able to hit the ball the right way. And just because you go to the range every night and hit one hundred golf balls all over the place doesn’t mean you’re going to get better. What it actually means is, you’re going to ingrain in your body, in your muscle memory, that awful swing, and then it’s going to be really difficult to “unlearn” it.
In golf, if you want to be good, you’ve got to practice the right way. A cool thing about this sport is that you can put yourself in game-like positions even at the range. Because of that, you should always practice with the mindset of actually being on the course. That means when you go to practice don’t just wear your gym shorts – wear your golf pants out there just like you would if you were playing. You want everything to be natural when you’re actually out there playing, so dress like you would for the course.
The second thing is, and this is important, don’t go the range and hit one thousand balls every night. Hit like 50. And, when you’re hitting those 50, take the time to hit each one as if it were a shot on the golf course. Visualize what you want the ball to do, go through your pre-shot routine, and act like you’re out there on the course. If, before every shot, you wipe your club on the side of your golf pants, do that. You want to get ingrained in your mind the right way to hit the ball every time.
Make these very minor changes, start practicing perfect, and you’ll notice a big improvement in your game.