What I learned about practice in 2022

Time to talk about practice.

1) Practice is not accomplished when warming up for a round

“I’m going to go early and practice” is something I easily said 20-30 times this year, specifically in the summer when I was playing often. Conceptually if you went and practiced, then had lunch, then went and warmed up for your round that would be a go early and practice situation. However, I’m not retired, who has time for that?

Going 30-60 minutes before your round starts is not intentional practice. It’s warming up.

2) A half hour of intentional practice is worth more than an hour of ripping balls

Do I have any metrics to back this up? No.

In the past, my practice routine was to warm up and then go through my bag and hit five shots with each club tracking how many “good” shots I’d hit out of the five with the goal of hitting three out of five good shots. I wasn’t working on any specific type of shot, I wasn’t working on a specific feel or motion, and I wasn’t doing my entire routine to ingrain my muscle memory.

Bad habits could manifest.

3) You need to have a plan when you go

What I listed above is a routine with a goal but not a goal that impacts my game. Yes, wanting to hit 3 out of 5 “good” shots is a goal, but how is that improving my on-course game or swing?  Am I improving my weight transition, set up, dialing in a specific distance, etc?

Now I might go to my net and hit for 15-30 minutes working on one specific motion or trying to accomplish one specific thing. I feel like this benefits me way more than just going and swinging.

Also, it’s fine to go to the range and just hit for fun or because you haven’t swung a club in a while, I’m talking about accomplishing my specific goals.

4) I do not practice my short game, specifically chipping, enough

Throughout this blog I have talked about my chipping issues, it’s well-established that it hurts my game the most. And do I do anything to improve it? Barely. I know I talk about going with a plan when you practice, for chipping I just need to take my wedge and practice for an hour being creative and establishing a feel. This year I really wanted to get a repeatable swing down and I concentrate on that, while I am not 100% there, I’ve seen improvement. Chipping needs to be priority 1B next year and not something I cram in here or there.

What did you learn about practice habits in 2022?