Practice Should be Harder Than the Game - Part 2, Get It Up & Down

Practice Should be Harder Than the Game - Part 2

, Get It Up & Down

Continuing our series of articles on making your practice harder than the game we now take a look at getting up and down from around the green to save par, or maybe better. In the world of tour golf this is known as scrambling and is a vital part of every golfers game, in any given season the best figures for hitting greens in regulation on both the PGA and European tours will be between 75% and 80% with the average in the high 60's, this means that for most players on over a quarter of the holes they play they will need to chip, pitch and putt well to keep a score going. The short game is the least physically demanding part of golf and yet how many players do you hear bemoaning the fact that they can't chip, or putt or just as often both, this is a ridiculous mind set to get into that leads to all sorts of duffs, jabs and thins as the players total lack of confidence in this area prevents him from ever making any decent sort of strike at the ball. But, how often do you see players' duffing chip shots around the putting green, the answer, apart from complete novices, is almost never. Standing at the putting greens edge with a pile of balls repeating the same shot over and over again is really no way to practice if you wish to improve this aspect of your game, practice needs to have a consequence and be as close to or harder than the real thing. Karl Morris has given me a great training drill to help you in this area, it takes up very little time but pays big dividends fast and is called "Par 18".

Par 18 involves playing 9 par 2 holes around the practice green, depending on your skill level choose 9 spots around the green from which you will attempt to get up and down in 2, vary the degree of difficulty, maybe 3 easy, 3 medium and 3 tough starting positions. As with the driving drill you only play this game once, unless, you complete the drill in 20 shots or less then you go again but this time using 2 balls, taking your worst score at each of the 9 holes if you manage to get round in 20 or less you go again with 3 balls and so on, the best I've heard of anybody getting to is 5 balls, but that was a young Pro who has a fantastic short game. By the way, the Pro who achieved this said that when he was putting his 4th ball for a 2 at the 9th hole to get to go again with 5 balls every part of him was shaking, how good a drill is this if it can produce that sort of pressure when he really is only practicing after all and how useful will it have been when he faces a pressure putt in competition.

I recommend that you play this game no more than 3 or 4 times a week but it is most important that you keep a record of your scores and work out your weekly average, you should see a steady improvement but if you don't the exercise is still valuable as it obviously means that your technique is flawed and needs to be worked on with your Pro.

For more great game improvement tips and drills visit Golf Psychology Online.

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