practicerecords
How to Build a Golf Practice Plan
Start from where your rounds lose shots, split your time to match, pick drills that end in a number, put them on set days, and check it against your rounds.
Most practice is a bucket of balls and a driver. Most of the shots that cost you are inside a hundred yards. A plan is how you stop practising the part of your game that feels good and start practising the part that loses strokes.
Start from your rounds
Track four things for a handful of rounds: fairways hit, greens in regulation, putts and three-putts. Then set each one beside what is typical for your handicap. The one furthest from typical is this month’s work.
Without the numbers, almost everyone guesses the driver.
Split your time to match
Write down where your practice time went last month: range, short game, putting, on the course. If your rounds lose most on the greens and most of your time went to the range, the plan is the wrong way round. Give the weak area at least half of your time until the number moves.
Pick drills that end in a number
“Work on putting” doesn’t get done. A drill with a score does:
- 3-6-9 ladder. Three balls from 3, 6, and 9 feet around one hole. Makes out of 9.
- Lag putts. Ten putts from 30 to 50 feet. Total feet left.
- Up-and-down 9. Nine balls around the green. Up-and-downs out of 9.
Run the same drill the same way every time, so the number means something. Make one of them a test you do once a week.
Put it on days
Two or three set days beat “when I can”. Thirty to sixty minutes is plenty. Decide which drills go on which day, set a reminder, and give it four to six weeks: long enough to see a drill number move.
A week might look like this:
| Day | Time | Drills |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | 45 min, putting | 3-6-9 ladder, lag putts |
| Thursday | 50 min, short game | Up-and-down 9, 3-6-9 ladder |
| Saturday | 60 min, range | Wedges at 50, 75, and 100 yards, then hit what you like |
Keep a weekly goal in minutes
Minutes are the easiest thing to log, so make them the goal. Pick a number you can hit in a normal week. The streak worth keeping is weeks in a row at your goal, not one big Sunday.
Check it against your rounds
After a few weeks, ask two questions. Did the drill number go up? Did the round stat move? If the drill improved and the round didn’t, it is the wrong drill for the problem. Swap it and keep the days.
How Swilkin handles it
Practice lives on You. Log the minutes and where they went (range, short game, putting, or on course), with drill results if you like. A plan holds the drills, the days, 2 to 12 weeks or until you stop, and a reminder at your time. Each drill keeps your last result, your best and your average over the last five.
With your index on file and fairways, greens and putts tracked when you score, your stats sit beside the typical figures for your handicap. Practice finds where your rounds fall behind the typical figures for your handicap, putting first, suggests a plan for it, and says when your time doesn’t match where your rounds lose.
Golf practice app · make a practice plan, step by step · your stats.
More reading: what to do between golf lessons.