I will often have students who have just completed a lesson want to know whether they should take that swing out onto the course. The best way to answer this, is if you think you will have time to hit balls before your next round. You want to prepare your week ideally by having a lesson early in the week followed by 1-2 practice sessions before you go out to the course.
Once you have completed your lesson, it's important to then prepare how you will implement the practice before your next game. The best way is the bucket immediately after your lesson should be dedicated to drills given by the coach in order to begin embedding the latest swing move. The next bucket which is ideally one to two days before your game is divided into technique practice and pre-shot routine. The pre- shot routine is exactly what you would do on the course. This means switching off from thinking about technique and focusing on just getting up to the ball and hitting it.
This is ideal before your next game as you will approach the game feeling as though you're fully prepared and only thinking about your routine and not your swing. Now you might think that if you don't think about your swing all the time that you might gravitate back to old habits. However this is not the case because if you've focused on embedding the technique earlier in the week, the new changes will start to morph into your swing even when you just focus on pre-shot routine for your round.
Now if you don't get a chance to practice after the lesson, try and at least hit some warm-up balls before your round. Ideally around 15-20 mins. During this span, do your pre-shot routine but also take note of what is happening to your ball flight. If you see it going right, then you may have to start aiming left on the course and vice versa if you're 'hooking' the ball. If nothing is really working, I would then recommend hitting longer clubs for example choosing a 7 iron rather than an 8 and feel like you're swinging at around 50% of your power all day. This will take the pressure of having to hit the ball perfectly each time.
If you'd like any further help on how to bring your range swing to the course just book in with myself at David Waters Golf.
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