I don’t practice effectively

Practice makes perfect but bad practice makes... something

I didn’t grow up playing golf, I haven’t been to a camp or have been on a team. I’ve had near minimal instruction in my lifetime. Because of this, I don’t know how to practice, I don’t know how to do drills, and because of this, it leads to ineffective practice. Sure, I can fake it a little bit based on some random dude on Instagram’s drills, but I don’t think this is a fake it until you make it situation.

Still don’t completely understand how to use swing sticks. Do you fence with them? What are they there for?

Recently I have been reading Tom Coyne’s book “Paper Tiger” about him taking a year off of everything to see how good he could get at golf. Could he get good enough to make it through Q school?

He’d go and hit a ton of balls at the driving range and in the book, he talked about how he practiced with purpose. That each time he’d take a swing he would do his preshot routine, pick a target, and then hit. I also do not have a consistent pre-shot routine. (That is another topic for another day.)

I’ve developed my own practice system, but it is just a fancy way to mash a lot of balls at the driving range or chipping green. It’s not necessarily practicing with a purpose. I think because of this I have gone with a quantity over a quality approach which leads to a law of diminishing returns because the quality of shots I am hitting 100+ balls in is not very high.

I basically say I must hit 6 out of ten balls “well” with the same club before I can move on. And let me say the criteria for “well” is very subjective.

Is the ball in the air?
Did the ball go within 40 yards of the middle of the driving range?

Did the ball kill anyone?

Did I damage property?

Contrary to popular belief I do work, and I don’t have unlimited time to practice. So, I need to learn how to practice efficiently and more important meaningfully.