Ever hear people debate the best way to practice golf?
Some will tell you to never hit the same club twice in a row. Others will say you need a launch monitor, a camera, an alignment stick station or a perfectly structured plan before you even pull a club from the bag.
I’ve been playing golf for more than 30 years and I don’t believe there is one perfect way to practice.
The goal is not to find the one best type of practice. The goal is to know what your practice is doing, whether it’s helping and what you need to change to get the result you’re looking for.
Quick Guide: What type of practice do you need?
| If your goal is … | Use this type of practice | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Fix a swing flaw | Technical Practice | Helps you build or change a movement |
| Build comfort with a shot | Repetition Practice | Gives you enough reps to create consistency |
| Know if your change is working | Feedback Practice | Shows whether feel matches reality |
| Perform better under stress | Pressure Practice | Adds consequences, scoring and accountability |
| Bring it to the course | Transfer Practice | Makes practice look more like real golf |
1. Technical practice
Technical practice is when you are working on a specific part of your swing.
This could be your takeaway, wrist position, transition, low point, clubface, impact position or anything else that needs a real mechanical change. The key to having a good technical practice session is to make sure you are focusing on one specific thing. Trying to fix the whole swing at once is a mistake.
This type of practice may involve exaggerated movements because the feel you need on the range is often much bigger than the actual move that shows up in the swing. If you’ve ever seen Justin Rose before he hits a golf ball, this is what I mean by an exaggerated movement.
Technical practice is not always about hitting perfect shots. Sometimes the ball flight gets worse before it gets better because your body is learning something new.
When to use it:
Use technical practice after a lesson, after identifying an obvious swing flaw or when you know exactly what movement you are trying to change. Technical practice gives your practice a clear purpose and can work on long-term improvement. The downside of technical practice is that it may not transfer to the course right away and it’s easy to overcomplicate if you work on too much at once.
How to do it:
- Pick one swing priority.
- Use slower swings or shorter swings if needed.
- Exaggerate the feel.
- Don’t judge every shot only by ball flight.
- Give yourself enough reps to understand the motion
2. Repetition practice
Repetition practice is the traditional range session.
You pick a club, aim at a target and repeat.
This type of practice gets criticized because golf is not played this way on the course. You don’t hit 20 consecutive 8-irons to the same flag during a round. However, that doesn’t mean repetition practice is useless.
There are times when you need reps. If you are learning a new wedge distance, building confidence with a fairway wood or trying to get comfortable with a setup change, repetition helps.
The mistake is when every range session becomes nothing but repetition. You start hitting balls quickly, stop going through a routine and judge the session based on whether you found a temporary rhythm. That rhythm can disappear the second you get to the first tee.
When to use it:
Use repetition practice when you need comfort, rhythm or familiarity with a specific club, shot or movement. The downside is that if you only use repetition practice, you’ll get good at the range instead of getting good at golf.
How to do it:
- Choose one club and one target.
- Hit a small number of balls with the same general intention.
- Pause between shots.
- Track contact, start line or distance control.
- Stop before it turns into mindless ball beating.
3. Feedback practice
Feedback practice is when you use something outside of feel to tell you what happened.
This could be a launch monitor, video, Divot Board, impact tape, foot spray, alignment sticks, a start-line gate or even a simple notebook where you track patterns.
Golfers are not always great at knowing what they did. You may feel like the clubface was square or that you turned more. But feel can lie.
Measurement gives you a way to check your practice instead of relying only on ball flight or guesswork.
Feedback practice does not mean you need to become obsessed with numbers. It just means you need some way to know whether the thing you are practicing is showing up.
When to use it:
Use feedback practice when you are making a change and need to know whether it’s working. Feedback practice gives more structure to your session but make sure you don’t start chasing numbers instead of better golf shots.
How to do it:
- Choose one thing to measure.
- Use a tool that gives clear feedback.
- Compare feel to what happened.
- Keep notes if you are tracking a longer-term change.
- Don’t chase every number at once.
4. Pressure practice
Pressure practice is where you add a score, consequence or challenge.
Pressure practice doesn’t have to be complicated. You can give yourself 10 balls and see how many finish inside a target zone or you can create a wedge ladder where every shot has to finish in a different distance window.
When to use it:
Use pressure practice when you hit it fine during casual range sessions but struggle to bring it to the course. Pressure practice requires discipline but it’s well worth it.
How to do it:
- Create a game.
- Set a target and a scoring system.
- Use a limited number of balls.
- Record your result.
- Try to beat that score next time.
5. Transfer practice
Transfer practice is where your range session starts to look more like golf.
You change clubs and targets and you go through your normal routine. You hit one shot and then move on like you do on the course.
This is the practice golfers need when they say, “I hit it great on the range but not on the course.”
On the course, you rarely get to hit the same shot twice. You hit driver and then maybe a wedge. You hit an iron, then a pitch. You aim at different targets, deal with different clubs and make decisions before each swing.
Transfer practice is less about grooving a swing and more about playing golf.
When to use it:
Use transfer practice when your range swing does not show up on the course. You’ll feel more like you are playing real golf on the range. It’s sometimes hard to practice like this if you’re working on a technical change.
How to do it:
- Play an imaginary hole on the range.
- Change clubs after each shot.
- Pick a new target every time.
- Use your full pre-shot routine.
- Hit different trajectories or shot shapes if that fits your skill level.
How these practice types work together
The best players don’t use one kind of practice all the time.
They know when to switch.
Here’s a simple way to think about it.
| Stage | Practice type |
|---|---|
| I need to change something | Technical Practice |
| I need to know if I’m doing it | Feedback Practice |
| I need more reps | Repetition Practice |
| I need to test it | Pressure Practice |
| I need to take it to the course | Transfer Practice |
Final thoughts
I can’t tell you that one type of golf practice is the best.
The golfers who get the most out of their practice are not always the ones who hit the most balls or have the best technology.
Don’t ask, “Am I practicing enough?”
Ask, “Am I doing the right type of practice for what my game needs today?”
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