How many bad shots in a practice session?

[julsk10]

I was out practising earlier and was hitting the ball lovely when out of the blue I hit 3 sh...s near the end of my session. Hit some more balls with no problems. My question is does this happen to anyone else? Does it happen to the pros? and why do the three or so bad shots stick in your mind?

 

[EZprophet]

How bad are you talking? I mean, of course every player hits bad shots all the time, but a pros bad shot is going to be a hell of a lot better than an amateurs, and thats why they are pros....

I reckon when I'm hitting balls with a standard 5 iron at the range I'd guess that 5% of my shots are exactly how I intended, 20% are good, 50% are acceptable misses, 20% are bad misses and 5% are complete mishits...

For a tour player its probably going to be more like:

15% perfect shots
50% good shots
25% acceptable misses
9.8% bad misses
0.2% complete mishits

obviously my definitions are completely vague and this is based on nothing but guesswork but I reckon its not a million miles off....

also, obviously some nights you are going to be completely on fire and hit an entire bucket and only mishit one or something, but then other nights your gonna completely mishit 20 shots in a row... it all balances itself out in the long run.

 

[Toby_LeRhone]

I find that it depends what I'm practicing. Often I just practice not getting it wrong and concentrate on relaxation and simply hitting every ball as well as I can, other times I may be working on something closer to the limits of my ability. On a good day it is not uncommon for me to not have a single miss-hit, other days I'm a little more distracted and spray the things alis uber de platz.

 

[Imurg]

I go round our short course with just the wedges and putter. I'll play 5 or 6 balls on each hole. Most will be decent but then all of a sudden I'll throw in half a dozen shermans in a row, then back to normal.

God alone knows why - don't often do it any other time...

 

[HawkeyeMS]

It's been known for me, proper shanks right out of the hosel too. Not so much recently but a few years ago I would always shank my wedges on the range after hitting shots with my driver. The wedges would be great before tge driver then shite after. The only thing I could do was to stop hitting fir 5 mins after the driver and all would be fine with the world again - very odd

 

[Potor_36]

It's been known for me, proper shanks right out of the hosel too. Not so much recently but a few years ago I would always shank my wedges on the range after hitting shots with my driver. The wedges would be great before tge driver then shite after. The only thing I could do was to stop hitting fir 5 mins after the driver and all would be fine with the world again - very odd

Wow, thats weird - I thought I was the only one this happens to. I'm not good with a driver anyway to be honest, but I find if I hit more than about 4 or 5 drives in a row when practicing and then switch to an iron/wedge, the shanks begin to rear their ugly head. No idea why, the only way I manage to justify it to myself is that I'm so bad with a driver (compared to, say, a 3 wood) that there must be something wrong with my swing with driver in hand, and hitting it a few times temporarily ingrains these issues.

 

[Alex1975]

I reckon when I'm hitting balls with a standard 5 iron at the range I'd guess that 5% of my shots are exactly how I intended, 20% are good, 50% are acceptable misses, 20% are bad misses and 5% are complete mishits...

I would say the above is me too. Last night and the night before I was at the range and had periods of not being able to hit the ball at all, Maybe 3 or 4 balls along the ground for no good reason(clearly there is a good reason). I walk away, have a smoke or something and clear my mind. I have to put it down to loss of concentration, you would never hit that many balls in a row on the actual course.

Why does it stick in your mind? For me its because I am a HUGE self analist and crave information about my faults, I would not want it any other way.

About 10 years I was a works team Kart racer, A massive accolade. We won the british champs as a team that year. In one race I was way off the pace and was actualy pulled out of the kart and swapped for another driver. I still think about everything that happend that day and try to work out why I was off the pace.

 

[AyrHead]

It's interesting that you hit the shanks towards the end of your session as i have had the same problem over the years. For me its down to hitting too many balls and sometimes when i'm smashing them away nicely one after the other i find it difficult to walk away and the result is my tempo gets quicker i might get a bit tired without realising it and before i know it i'm hitting the ball sh*t and have completely lost all the momentum and confidence. Nothing worse than finishing a practice session on a sour note.
As for the shanks (bearing in mind i play off 3) i have had terrible periods over the years and went through 3 months of them last year. Reduces me to a complete wreck on the course and can manage to do it from Wedge to 3 iron. I put it down mainly to hitting too many practice balls and prefer to hit a couple of balls around the course for my practice - i only go to driving ranges as a last resort! Can anyone else relate to this?

 

[pokerjoke]

I dont hit many complete howlers,but inconsistent i am.Our range is 180 yards long but i only use up to a nine iron.Also,i dont know about you,but i try different things,so one minute my swing can go off,the next im back on it.Trial and error thats how i practice.

 

[AyrHead]

Ive come to the conclusion that if i'm playing well - bounce games gives me all the practice i need - maybe a twenty balls as a warm up before a competition. If it aint broke don't fix it! The number of times i've been in good form and ended up at the practice ground for whatever reason (course busy etc) and practiced my way out of a good swing is to numerous to mention.

 

[Paul_Stewart]

I took a leaf out of Karl Morris' coaching ideas that he worked with G-Mac on. Hit 10 shots with a club and rank them good/quality miss/poor. Down to you what you rate in each category.

Keep a track of them over a few weeks and you will soon see if you are improving or not.

And more importantly, it makes you focus on each shot you hit on the range.

We've all see the numpties smacking 50 drivers and talking about the one that hit the back fence of the range. The other 49 were topped, sliced or just never seen again.

 

[Alex1975]

Keep a track of them over a few weeks and you will soon see if you are improving or not.

And more importantly, it makes you focus on each shot you hit on the range.

This is a great idea, im sold!

 

[SatchFan]

My nasty shot repertoire consists of the cut the ball in half thin, the foot of turf before the ball fat, and the 15 yard top which leaves a dimple pattern where the ball used to live.

I reckon I hit one of these every 20 shots and hardly ever feel that I've swung the club that badly to get such a cr*p result.

Same on the course. I can be striking the ball well and then all of a sudden - clunk, and then nothing bad for the rest of the round. Hugely frustrating.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Tend to hit more bad shots as I go through the tempo getting way too quick and tiredness. Less really is more in terms of practicing but it's only in the last month or so that I've found the resolve to stop after one bucket.