I have good news for you all, everyone who is reading this has the ability to play much better then you ever thought was possible. Whether you are a beginner who is struggling to hit the ball in the air, or a player trying to break 100,90,80 and even 70, it is always possible to improve your game. Everyone looks up to those who are playing professionally on the tour, but the truth is that they don’t have anything that you don’t! But if you want to be great at the game or even just the best in your friend group, it takes a little bit more than simply standing up on the driving range and hitting balls hour after hour, just going through the motions. Every coach that I have had, from my beginner coach when I was a child, to my collegiate coach now has attested to this. Practice doesn’t make perfect, it only makes habit. However, the fact is that perfect practice makes perfect.

Perhaps you practice how I used to practice. I used to get 1or 2 buckets of balls and work my way up through my wedges, to my irons, to my woods. Never really focusing on, or accomplishing anything in particular. I used to get confused on how I sometimes hit good shots and then also hitting bad shots without even changing my swing. At that point, I was searching for the good shots and just forgetting the bad ones. But obviously when I went on the golf course I hit those bad shots. This was obviously frustrating, as I felt that no matter how much I practised I wasn’t seeing any improvements. Sound familiar? That’s because when I was practicing I wasn’t practicing with purpose.

So, the first tip that I am going to give you is practise with a strategy. When was the last time you hit 10, 7 irons in a row on a golf course? Properly 0. So why do it when practicing. After warming up with every club, only hit one shot with one club to a specific target. Go through your routine. And if you don’t have one, make one up as long as you can repeat it every time. For example, you could go from hitting a 9 iron 140 yards to hitting a flat-out driver swing, then for the next shot hit a 70-yard pitch. This creates almost a mock round of golf. If you constantly do exercises like this your ball striking will improve dramatically thus creating more consistency when you’re actually out playing on the course.