golf is a great social sport. But as I’ve studied the habits of many great players, I’ve been struck by how many of them have found it a solitary endeavor, especially as they practiced.
The archetype, of course, is Ben Hogan. Whether it was due to the harsh circumstances of his childhood or just a sense of what would help him learn to play golf, Hogan liked being alone. He even had a fictitious alter ego, “Henny Bogan,” to keep him company.
When Hogan practiced, he went to the far right end of the driving range so he could turn his back on the rest of the players. I spent some time with Hogan in Fort Worth several years ago, and I asked him why he did that. He explained he simply didn’t want to watch what anyone else was doing. He was working as hard as he could to monitor and refine what he was doing.
In the prime of his career, people often gathered to watch him practice. Hogan, conscious of the fact he was paid to let people watch him play golf, tolerated this. But he insisted no one speak to him as he worked. A business executive, he pointed out, would not be expected to tolerate people barging into his office to ask him questions. Why should a golfer?
I’ve heard other stories of the way great golfers worked. Solitude is often a part of them. Byron Nelson got his first professional’s job in the depths of the Depression. On weekdays, almost no one had the leisure to come out to the club for play or lessons. So Nelson practiced, hitting irons to one end of the practice area, walking after the shots and hitting them back. Paul Runyan, winner of the PGA Championship in 1934 and ‘38, had a similarly lonely job at a club in Arkansas. He took advantage of it to hone his short game.
Practice doesn’t have to be a solitary pursuit; in fact, it can be done profitably with a like-minded friend. But these great players’ penchant for practicing alone can help you understand the difference between practice and quality practice. If you’re working hard at your golf game, but not getting better, learning this distinction can help you resume improving.
I see too many players who make one or both of two common mistakes in their approach to practice.
The first is that they socialize too much on the practice tee. They’re chatting about business or the movies or the putt that got away the last time they played. Their minds are not on the shots they’re practicing.
The second common mistake is they’re beating balls. Beating balls is a mindless exercise. There’s nothing wrong with mindless exercise if the sport is, say, jogging. But if it’s golf, your mind has to be on the task at hand. Otherwise, you’re liable to ingrain bad habits.
One way to determine whether you’re beating balls is to compare your mental processes on the course with those on the range.
On the course, I assume, you have a mental routine. It includes assessing the variables like lie and wind. It includes picking out a small target. It includes envisioning the ball going to the target or, if you’re not the type of person who envisions things, waiting until your mind is focused on the target and you’re confident the ball is going to go there. If you don’t go through each of those mental steps each time you hit a practice shot, you’re probably beating balls.
It would be helpful if players went through their full routines-both mental and physical-each time they hit a practice shot. Not many players have the discipline to do this. After all, on the range the club they want to hit with is usually in their hands already and the lie isn’t likely to change much from one shot to the next.
Remember, you’re not practicing to be able to hit good shots on the driving range. You’re practicing to be able to hit good shots on the last hole of the biggest match of your life. Your dominant habit will show up there. It had better be a good one.
You’ll notice that practicing with this kind of mental discipline takes time. Hogan was legendary for the number of practice balls he hit, but he didn’t hit them all at once. He’d hit a small bag, then stop, maybe drink a little water and think about what he was trying to accomplish. Then he would hit another small bag.
If you take your time as you prac-tice, and your time is limited, you will hit fewer balls. That’s all right. I would rather see a player hit 50 practice shots with his or her mind focused on every one than hit 200 shots with a mind that is wandering.
Another practice habit good players employ is switching clubs and distances frequently. You may be able to hit pretty good practice drives after you have had the club in your hands a few minutes, you’ve warmed up and gotten used to it. But on the golf course, you never hit a drive twice in a row. You put the club in your hands after you have hit an iron, perhaps a chip or pitch and a putt or two. That’s a different challenge, and it makes sense to practice for it.
A lot of players I’ve worked with play a course in their imaginations as they practice. Seve Ballesteros, in the years when he was playing well, would always have his clubs strewn about him on the ground when he practiced. That was because he was always imagining holes and situations, and the shots he would need to play them. He believes it’s no coincidence in recent years, as his play has gotten spotty, he has often found himself on the range with one club in his hands and the rest neatly stowed in his bag. He’s been trying to hit perfect shots with one club instead of practicing to play golf.
Imagining a golf course may help you with one of the practice challenges of a player on an improvement program-spending the right amount of time in the trusting mode. As you go through a series of lessons, you’re going to be learning some new mechanics. They may involve a significant swing change. They may be subtler alterations, like an adjustment in your putting stance. But by virtue of the fact you’re taking lessons, your mind will be engaged to some degree with mechanics.
Consciously thinking about the new moves you’ve been taught-what I call the training mode-is fine. But as the time between lessons goes on, you must gradually increase the number of practice shots you take in the trusting mode. That is, you’re not thinking about mechanics. You’re thinking about your target and the ball getting to that target. On the course, your mind ought to be always in the trusting mode.
On the practice tee, this isn’t easy to do if you’re trying to learn a new technique and you mis-hit a couple of shots. Suppose you’re trying to cure a slice by drawing the ball. Suddenly you hit a couple of big left-to-right fades. The temptation is to stop trusting your swing and start trying to fix it. It’s a temptation that most of the time you must resist.
Practice is, after all, intended to rehearse what you want to do on the golf course. If you set out to practice in the trusting mode and revert to trying to fix your swing when you mis-hit a ball, that’s very likely to be what you’ll do on the course. Continuing to trust your stroke as you practice is part of the discipline you have to learn.
Practicing in the trusting mode will also help you know when you have mastered a new skill. If the shot doesn’t work in the trusting mode, then you haven’t mastered it. You haven’t reached the level of unconscious competence.
How much should you practice? It depends, of course, on the time and enthusiasm you have. Bill Davis, head professional at the Jupiter Hills Club in Jupiter, Fla., and one of the best teachers in the nation, has a couple of pupils, Jay and Arline Hoffman, who’ve decided they want to see how good they can get at golf and are prepared to devote a lot of time doing it.
Jay started out in golf associating the sport with hard work-as a caddie. At Washington Golf and Country Club in northern Virginia in the mid-1950s, caddies got $2.50 per bag and maybe a 50-cent tip for walking a hilly course in the fetid humidity that is Washington, D.C., in the summer. But Jay’s family needed the money. If he carried two bags for two rounds, he could earn $11 for a day’s work.
After a couple of years of caddieing, he switched to carrying bricks at construction sites to make money. After serving in the Army, he went into the construction business. He played golf a bit with his caddie’s swing, but not often enough to get good at it.
Over the years Jay reached the stage when he owned enough real estate and radio stations to begin to set his own schedule. He and Arline started spending a lot of their time in Florida. They joined Jupiter Hills.
Arline had never played until her last child went off to college. But when she took it up, she found she liked the challenge of controlling the golf ball. Two years later they began taking a joint weekly lesson from Davis.
When Davis gets pupils that are eager to learn and willing to put time into the effort, he will prescribe their practice sessions, writing down the shots he wants them to try. The practice schedule he gave to the Hoffmans was extensive. In a week’s time, Jay and Arline would each hit 300 long shots, 540 putts and 800 chips and pitches. And, Davis anticipates they’ll play five rounds of golf per week and take two days off to keep fresh.
Not surprisingly, the Hoffmans have improved by following this regimen. Jay, who was a 22-handicapper when he started working with Davis a few years ago, recently played 12 consecutive rounds in the 70s. Arline’s handicap has dropped from 26 when she started to about 9.
“We like to practice,” Jay says. “And we have faith in Bill. We know what he’s teaching us will help us.”
Theirs is a strong practice schedule. I realize that not everyone can take this sort of time, but it’s exemplary in several respects. First, it places proper emphasis on the short game. Second, it’s a plan Bill, Jay and Arline have mutually agreed on, even though Bill takes the role of prescribing the drills and shots he wants them to practice. They all believe it will help them. Finally, the Hoffmans enjoy it.
It’s important to try to make practice enjoyable. For some people this is not a problem. They love getting out to practice; they’ll do it in the rain if necessary. For others, it’s a partial problem. They like certain kinds of practice-perhaps hitting drivers-but they don’t care for others, like putting.
This is where a buddy system of the sort that Jay and Arline have may be helpful. I know I’ve pointed out the solitary habits of many great golfers. But remember they sought solitude not for its own sake but because it helped them focus and concentrate as they practiced.
Two people can do this as effectively, perhaps more effectively, than one-if they’re both committed to the same program. They can reinforce one another. They can prod one another. When they practice together they are not socializing. There’s a sense of companionship, of camaraderie, that comes from being engaged in a joint enterprise, but they’re both concentrating on the task at hand.
I like to see a relationship where two friends compete with one another, yet take pride and pleasure in each other’s achievements. When they play a round of golf together, they urge each other to stick to the techniques their instructor has shown them, even if those techniques are as yet unpolished and are not helping their scores on this particular day. That’s how Jay and Arline play together.
If two people are supposed to practice, it may increase the likelihood they’ll do it. If one is not in the mood, the other may prod him or her to practice anyway. You’ll have to decide, based on your own personality and circumstances, whether the buddy system is right for you.
There’s one other way that effective practice can involve more than one person. I like to see players compete with one another on the practice green or at the practice tee. If one of your friends happens to be working on his putting at the same time you are, it’s fine to make a little bet on who can hole more putts from a given spot. If you’re on the range, compete to see who can hit an iron closest to the various target pins out there.
You’ll be focusing your mind in the same way you want to focus it on the golf course. That is quality practice.
- Dr. Bob Rotella
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