How do you take your range game to the course?

[DVS]

Some of the greats of golf have stated that the secret to golf "lies in the dirt"; meaning in practice.

So my question is, how does one take their range game to the course?

Yesterday, I had one of the best range practices ever! 90% of the shots were right at the target, and even the misses were acceptable. I tried every club in the bag and I was hitting them all pretty well. I'd say that if I hit like that on a course, I'd had shoot a personal best for sure!

Now my next round isn't until a couple of days. How can I make sure that I can bring yesterday's golfer to the course?

Is it just a mental thing?

-DVS

[SilverUberXeno]

There are two methods:

1.) Take two pictures of the driving range, and glue them to the front of your favorite sunglasses. Now you don't have to take your range game to the course, because as far as you know, you're still at the range! Duh.

2.) At the range, you swing more smoothly. It doesn't matter if you drive 250 or 270 at the range, right? Just think about this on the course. If you have a 350 yard hole, you can pretty much hit the green in 2 even if you only drove the ball 150 yards. Swing within yourself, not within John Daly (although there's probably enough room in him for many of us to swing at the same time.)

If you don't wanna do the glasses thing, just play your driver shots without thinking about the green, other than the direction. Put it in the middle of the fairway. It'll get the distance all by itself, usually. There's not a whole lot of difference swinging 5mph faster, but it does take quite a bit more effort if your swing is not solid. Relax a little, and play your own game.

Or, again, do the glasses. You'll be the talk of the town.

[DVS]

Originally Posted by SilverUberXeno

There are two methods:

1.) Take two pictures of the driving range, and glue them to the front of your favorite sunglasses. Now you don't have to take your range game to the course, because as far as you know, you're still at the range! Duh.

LOL...thanks man. I think I like the glasses idea!

Good advice about the other thing. I normally don't swing all out anyways, but I am too focused on the ball infront of me. I really do need to pay more attention to the target and landing area.

I'll give that a try.

-DVS

[Shea_Butler]

Tiger says he visualizes that hes on the driving range before every full shot he takes. When hes walking up to the ball club in hand he sees the wide open space of the range with the flag there so the rehearsed swing just comes natrually back... ive tried this, and as long as you practice the same preshot routine on the range before everyshot and remember to do that on the course its almost like its committed to muscle memory and it really works great

[Clugnut]

(In best Lee Trevino voice) If I knew, I would tell yoouuu!!

[LyleG]

Originally Posted by DVS

how does one take their range game to the course?

Thankfully I dont. I suck on the range.

[Eracer]

We don't play golf on the driving range.

Thus, I think the trick is not to take your range game to the course; rather, you should try take the course to the range.

When we play golf, we have one chance at each shot.

At the range, we have the luxury of not really worrying about whether each shot will be a good shot. We know that it's "just practice". We know that we can "work on fixing that swing error".

Make your range time seem more like course time. Go through your routine for each shot. Always pick a target. Don't hit the same club twice in a row.

I'm not saying you should do this all the time. There is room for repetitiveness. And drills are important. But at least 50% of the time, you should treat the range shots as if they were golf shots.

[warbirdlover]

Used to play with a guy called "two ball Tom". He'd lay another ball down by the tee like he was at the range. (Still didn't work, he sucked.)..

[ualtim]

Originally Posted by warbirdlover

Used to play with a guy called "two ball Tom". He'd lay another ball down by the tee like he was at the range. (Still didn't work, he sucked.)..

"two ball Tom". I guess its better than a name we tagged one my co-workers with 10 years ago. He told one of my coworkers one night over a few beers that he only had one of them so he was instantly tagged with the nickname "uni-baller".

My game is similar to Lyle's. My range sessions are worse than my on course game. I like to leave my range session at the range.

[DVS]

Well fellas, looks like some of that advice helped, cause yesterday, I shot a +13 over par; which is a new personal best for me!! Considering I usually shoot 25-27 over par per round, a 10-15 stroke drop in a single round is quite an achievement for me!

Tee off's were so-so, but I was killing it with the irons! I dont mean in distance, but just accuracy. For once I was able to pick which part of the green I wanted to land it on, and then actually execute it! Great feeling of control after years of "hit and pray" lol.

And the ones that I did miss, I was able to recover with a solid short game.

Time to string a few of these kind of rounds together, and maybe I will be able to safely say that I shoot in the 80s!!

Thanks for everyone's advise!

-DVS

[SilverUberXeno]

Congrats, man! Call me up and I'll caddy for you when you his the pro circuit. I can come up with clever methods of game improvement all day long. It'll be worth my substantial price tag