This article was created by Steve Thomas and featured in Today's Golfer magazine for their 2025 March edition - Issue number 461.
The article content:
TOP 50 TEACHER Steve Thomas
www.stevethomasgolt.com, Head of Instruction & Fellow PGA Coach
at Three Hammers Golf Academy, Wolverhampton.
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CRIMEWATCH
WASTING PRACTICE TIME
It’s not a sliced drive, a duffed chip or a missed three-foot putt, but misuse of practice time could be the biggest crime of the lot.
Almost every club golfer I meet tells me how much they’d love to have more time to work on their game… which also tells me that what practice time they do have is valuable. Yet so many fail to make the most of these precious sessions, meaning their games stagnate or, in some cases, actually get worse.
In this article, I’ll explain what I see as the biggest and most common waste of practice time, before detailing a couple of options that will help you form new, more effective range habits. Put them into practice – literally – and your game can start to move forward again.
Block head
In my experience, the typical club player makes two fundamental errors that massively limit the effectiveness of their practice time:
They hit the same shot over and over and over again.
They work too technically.
Now, there is a time where both of these make some sort of sense – and that is when you are making a fundamental swing change.
Here, ‘block practice’ (as it is known) can help groove a new move. But a real, genuine swing change is a far bigger deal than many give it credit for: it shouldn’t be attempted without a clear understanding of what the point of it is, and an expert to guide you through it. It takes a serious investment of time and energy to see it through. If you are going to change your swing, I’d advise keeping it to once a year, perhaps a winter program that is done and dusted before the new season kicks off.
At all other times, this sort of technical block practice should be kept to a minimum. It bears no relation to the game of golf, it is complicated, it encourages you to focus on irrelevant areas… but above all, it’s really boring! So let me outline two options that replace those dull, technical ball-beating sessions with fresh challenges that will help you develop real, relevant golfing attributes: skill, creativity, and versatility.
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Cross trainer
For this exercise, you’ll need a piece of chalk. Draw one, longish line to represent the ball-target line, then a short second, the length of the clubface, intersecting it at right angles. Believe it or not, this small cross is pretty much the only training aid you need. If you can get the club to find that intersection on a regular basis, you will take care of face aim (square face), low point control (attack angle), and strike point (centred contact) all in one go.
Better… where it matters
This is a simple mission, but also a profound one. It puts the focus of your practice time right back where it should be: improving your skill at being able to apply the clubface to the ball effectively. With your attention on the cross, you’ll have no time for all those funky, technical takeaway and transition moves… which serve only to create confusion and tension. And the payoff is that once you start to hit the cross regularly, those technical issues take care of themselves.
Break it up
If block work is monotonous, uncreative, non-golflike, and tedious, the opposite can be said for breaking it up. There are so many ways you can do this:
By varying clubs. Make sure a switch in your weaponry is a constant and regular part of your session. This also means a continual adjusting of targets and shots, which keeps things fresh and delivers better preparation for a game which demands the same, constant adaptation.
By calling the shots. High, low, mid; draw, fade, straight. Mixing these combinations essentially gives you nine shot options with every ball.
By playing games and challenges. Just one example is golf’s version of ‘Snakes and Ladders’ – work your way through the board to make it to the end. Each square asks you to execute a different task and shot. If you fail the task, you will slide down the snake to a previous square. This means you’ll be hitting a different shot for every golf ball. Create your own board… and make your practice more fun!
Written by Fellow PGA Coach Steve Thomas
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