You can spend eight hours a day on the driving range, hit a thousand balls and walk away exhausted, and still your tournament scores stay the same. And that’s a common observation among players’ performance during practice sessions.
This was the topic of discussion at a recent players’ assembly at TSG Academy, where Assistant Director of Instruction at TSG Academy- Prithviraj Ram spoke on it. As the great golfer Arnold Palmer once said: “The more I practise, the luckier I get.” But as Coach Prithviraj said, it’s not just about putting in the hours or doing “donkey work” without thinking. It’s about how you practise.
Here is the official TSG guide to efficient, high-performance training for budding golfers in their practice sessions.
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Know the two types of practice
All players need to understand the two basic types of training, Block Practice and Random Practice, to correct technical errors and to perform under pressure.
Block exercise: Block practice is repetitive practice. This is what you do when you’re working on swing mechanics, when you’re doing a particular drill or when you’re building muscle memory with one club and not worrying about changing targets. In block practice, you have to remove your entire mindset from outcomes:
- Don’t worry about distance, direction or perfect contact. Just think about the quality of the movement. Practice swings are important; muscle memory doesn’t come from hitting balls, but from the right repetitions.
- Take two practice swings before each shot. Make them purposeful. Instead of rushing through 50 practice swings, you get 150 quality reps by taking two practice swings per shot and hitting 50 balls.
- What you feel you are doing in your swing is rarely what actually happens on camera; exaggerate new movements to bridge the gap between feel & reality.
Random Practice: Random practice will help close the gap between the range and a real tournament. On a golf course, you never hit the same club twice in a row. Random practice forces your brain to adjust to changing variables on every shot. Important rules of random practice:
- Change clubs, targets, and shot shapes (draw, fade, high, low) after every single ball.
- So take a step back, and review your complete Pre-Shot Routine (PSR) before every shot.
- When you can, practise on different lies and slopes.
- Simulate tournament pressure by visualising real stakes or packed galleries on the tee box.
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Moving Mechanics into the Course
It can be tough to take a technical drill to your full swing at full speed. To ease this transition, Coach Prithviraj recommends two proven training protocols:
- The 4-in-2 Method: Hit 4 balls with your drill and then immediately hit 2 balls with your normal, full swing. Do this again and again until the feeling comes naturally.
- The 10-Ball Speed Ladder: 6 balls at 50% (where you can feel the mechanics clearly because you’re moving slow), 2 balls at 70% and the final 2 balls at 100% full tournament speed.
If you’re trying out a new swing move for the first time on the course, leave your score at home. For that round, your aim should be to get the move done in real conditions, not to worry about the final scorecard.
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Practice What You Play, Play What You Practice
Why do so many golfers look like pros on the range, but struggle in tournaments?
The answer could be no pressure on the range; you hit a bad shot, and there is another ball sitting right there. In a tournament, you have one ball, one shot and real consequences like water hazards and out-of-bounds lines.
Random practice gets your brain to play in tournament reality. When you walk to the first tee in competition, you will feel right at home by practising on the range with your full pre-shot routine, switching clubs on every shot.
If a tournament is coming up (2 weeks away), change up your training distribution: shift from heavy block mechanics to 70% random practice so your mind is fully prepared for decision-making under pressure.
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Own Your Time and Stay in Your Bubble
High efficiency demands tight boundaries and single-minded planning. To make the most of your training hours, coach Prithvi advised golfers to work on these core habits:
- Schedule Every Hour: Before you come into the facility, write down your daily practice schedule and specific goals. Knowing what you want to get done every hour stops you from wandering around aimlessly.
- 100 Yards and In: Spend as much as 80 percent of your practice time on the short game like wedges, bunker play, chipping and putting. For an average round of 80 strokes, only about 30 shots are full-swing tee or approach shots. The rest of the game is played inside 100 yards.
- Stay in Your Bubble: Guard your focus once you get to your bay or on the putting green; lock into your routine. Don’t run around, chatting or getting caught up in distractions. Schedule socialising for breaks for rest and hydration.
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Record Your Practice Data
You can’t fix something you don’t really measure. Coach Prithvi laid focus on monitoring your tournament stats and how it gives you some kind of clear feedback on your technical growth, more or less.
Keep a training log or use tracking tools to monitor how you’re doing:
- Tracking Performance: Keep track of your contact quality. How many shots do you hit clean, thin or fat?
- Record Shot Patterns: Keep track of your start lines and curve patterns (for example; you always miss 8 yards right with a 7-iron).
- Contrast practice with tournament data: If you practice 90% of your 4-foot putts but only make 50% in tournaments, you know the problem is in your head or in your routine, and you provide your coaching staff with precise data to work with.
The Master Mindset
Tiger Woods once said that he was never the strongest, fastest or most gifted athlete on tour; he built his legendary career on an unmatched work ethic.
True work ethic isn’t just grinding until your hands hurt; it’s mental discipline to plan your schedule, stay in your bubble, focus on every single repetition, and practise with a clear purpose. Train with intention, be patient and trust your process; the leaderboard results will take care of themselves. And with this we complete yet another learning session. We hope you enjoyed this quick read!
Train smart, stay focused and enjoy your training!
Happy Golfing!
