You might have to get creative to find an area to do the longer work - where I grew up, there wasn't a range (just 9 short holes), so I would go to a park and/or football field and hit shag balls to various distances. You can also laser (or step off yardages if no one is hitting at the time) on a range and pitch to imperfections in the grass (dark spot, dirt spot, etc), or if there is a fence along the side of the range pitch towards the range and work up & down pitching to the poles that hold the fence. They are usually several yards apart.

Good luck & let me know if I can be of help!

Been a few years since I lived in ATL, but there was a range off Windy Hill up 75 that had some short game area. I know it's OTP a little bit, but it's close enough that it's where I practiced when I lived in Buckhead.

Doc mentioned Bobby Jones; at least when I was there they had nothing but a putting green. Maybe that's changed though.

dagolfdoc,

I found this thread through a google search a couple days ago while looking for a short game practice plan to follow. I wanted to thank you for sharing this and ask a couple of questions.

First, some background:

I'm a recent high school grad that will be playing NAIA collegiate golf starting in about a month at a small school. My handicap floats between 2 and 5, depending on how much I've been playing. Throughout high school, I devoted almost all my time to ballstriking, pretty much ignoring my short game. I made a lot of progress, going from shooting in the low 50's for 9 holes my freshman year to posting a 33 in a 9 hole match my senior season. I did it, however, in spite of my short game.

I'm not a bad wedge player, but I haven't invested the time into short game work that will be required for me to succeed at the next level. In tournaments, I waste so many shots around the greens. It drives me nuts to hit 15 greens and shoot 75 with two birdies. I've greatly improved my putting from inside of 10 feet, but my lag putting is still problematic. I am determined to improve my scoring game though, which led me here.

I've tried the routine the last two afternoons, re-starting yesterday rather than continuing from where I left off. My goal is to be able to complete program A in its entirety in under 4 hours before my first team practice in mid-August. So far, I haven't missed a 3 footer, making 25 in a row first try both days. The 20 foot lag putts were also easy for me, getting through on my first try on day one and my second try yesterday. The first time through the 30 footers took a while, but yesterday they were easy. I have really struggled with the 45 footers, though. On day one, I gave up after about 45 minutes, having managed about 10 in a row. Yesterday, I managed to get to 18, but still failed to reach 20 after 45 minutes. Both days, I decided to skip ahead to the chipping.

The chipping from 30 ft is relatively easy for me, taking only a couple tries to complete. The 30yd and 50yd pitches were probably the easiest part for me, but I haven't completed the 70 yarders yet. Yesterday I managed about 15 in a row onto the small target green on the range from 75. To get to this point, after giving up on the 45 footers, seems to take me about 2 hours right now. Looking ahead at the rest of the routine, I think that the ball striking component should be really easy for me. I know I'll have trouble with the sand parts though.

Now to my question: For someone in my situation, should I strive to complete the entire routine in a day, like I am planning, or should I instead make the routine more difficult in the areas that I am currently successful at, so that I continue to challenge myself in those areas? I know that my putting and short game are keeping me from playing at scratch or better, and I am willing to follow any routine that will get me where I want. I know you said earlier that this routine is geared more toward the high handicapper, so I'd like to know if you think it needs some adjustment for me.

Thanks again and please excuse the long post!

Yes he loves it because I try to make it fun. We just finished watching the John Deere 3 way playoff and he was calling the shots etc. lol

I shall try and post a swing video. Basically I have taught him from the hole out so his scoring game is not too bad. We do only a 75% version of your routine though due to focus and age issues.

15 x 3ft = first time, 20 ft lags x 15 first time (these are really too easy), bunkers 6 out of 10 inside 3ft, trouble with the longer lags and the chipping needs work.

Hits the driver about 150-155 on average with a slight draw and is left handed so loves Phil Mickleson not sure what the top kids hit with the drivers though.

Hey dagolfdoc:

I have a question that I was hoping you might be able to help with.

I am near-scratch, yet I fight the shanks. I'd estimate that I shank one random iron shot maybe every 3 or 4 rounds. I've tried to deduce some sort of pattern but it happens in all scenarios (uphill/downhill/on the tee) and when I'm playing well or struggling with my swing. There truly doesn't seem to be much of a rhyme or reason, but it shatters my confidence for the rest of the round without fail.

I know this is a very broad request, but I was wondering if you have any tips or suggestions? As far as my swing, I'd say it's relatively flat and my grip is very strong. I hit the ball mid-low trajectory and a draw is my comfortable shot-shape.

Just reading through this thread got me thinking about how important the short game is and by focusing in on that I've lowered my scores when playing. Also since doing that I've began a practice routine based upon "The ULTIMATE practice routine" and am hoping that that will help me in my goal of actually getting good enough to truly use this.

Most good players who battle the occasional shank do so because the arms aren't supporting the club on the downswing - the handle tends to move out & up when coming into the ball as opposed to being inline with the right arm (for a RH player). When this happens, the clubhead will move outward and if the hands rise enough, the dreaded "S-word." Many players associate this feeling with being "stuck" which is similar, but different. A good drill to let your hands stay lower & "turn the corner" is to shove your putter head into the top of your bag so the grip is out & the shaft is parallel to the ground. setup so the grip is in front of your left foot (perpendicular to target line) and just out side the line of your hands -- make slow practice swings allowing your hands to move inside the grip of the putter. This moves the hands left and allows the clubhead to move inline or slightly outside the hands. It may feel over the top, but it rarely is in reality. A good feeling is to try & make the divot slightly deeper with the heel of the club, which also puts the hands lower. I'll be happy to give you some good videos or other drills as well if you think this may the issue.

3 footers I can do pretty easily now.
For some reason I thought 30 footers was next. I've been struggling there. I don't think I've done more than 10 or so. Going to go back to 20 footers next time out.

Strange find. Ive been playing golf on and off for so many years but am definitely one of those guys that just goes and swings clubs at the range without a lot of thought about what I am practicing.

I joined a club and started playing regularly again over the last few months (after being a very infrequent golfer for five or 6 years due to kids and life) and have been pretty frustrated by my inability to score. I can still strike the ball ok but inconsistency and limited ability around the greens means I am stuck in the high 80's, low 90s for the most part. Ive had some patches in the past where I was ok. Ive broken par over 9 holes 3 or 4 times and was shooting consistently around the 80 mark for a year or two way back when.

I was sitting thinking about this over the weekend and figured I needed a plan to practice more effectively. I didnt expect when I started googling for ideas that I would find something on 2+2! :-)

I'd like to play in the A Div club champs next year which means I have about 6 months to cut my handicap from 15 to 9. I am going to put this plan into action immediately (starting this week) and will let you guys know on an ad-hoc basis how it goes. I cant find time for more than 2 (maybe 3) decent length practice sessions a week so it will have to do but at least I'll arive at the range with a plan of action and not just go smash 6 irons into nowhere for an hour or two.

You may also want to check out Rob's (dagolfdoc) thread "New to the site, saying "Hello" & willing to offer advice" as well in your spare time.

Thanks for posting this! I have taken and made some adjustments to it that I feel best fit me. After first week of doing it I decided to apply the ideas to absolutely every part of my game, all the way up to driver. I am currently a 1.7 trying to get to 0 by end of this year.

Couple changes I made that I will share as the may help others. I made a spreadsheet. I took the listed number and staggered it. IE, 25 3ftrs. first attempt 10, once I made 10 done with that for day and move on. once I made 10 next time out 15, then 20, then 25. gave me a sense of accomplishment that I was improving. Also I would move on if felt my focus and attention to routine taking a big hit. I would simply write on spreadsheet most I got and move on. No reason to waste my time if my head wasn't there. Usually this happened about 45 minutes into one.

Also on lag putts, I count it as 2 in a row instead of one if I hole it. I know some people complained about putting to circle instead of trying to make it. this helped keep me super focused on making as opposed to lagging. I liked the in the row stuff so much that I changed all the 8 out of 10 and such to in a row with same staggering. no let downs more pressure. I have started using this on my full swing shots all the way up to driver.

I definitely feel sharper from doing this for a month and am impressed with how much my mistakes have gone down. I also feel so exhausted by routine sometimes that playing a round it is easy to stay focused for all 18 holes.

thanks again,
Valdos

ps, dagolfdoc, do you have any speed drills that you recommend for increasing clubhead speed. clubhead speed is 107ish and want to add 10mph in next 15 months. Not looking for technique advice, I am working on that with swing coach just any pure rotational or hand speed exercises. Currently have some sort of interval type training I do but feel like there could be some better exercises

I'm interested in this as well.

My driver clubhead speed is 102 which is pathetic considering my overall level of fitness is pretty good. I've always been reasonable strong but not fast.

Most good players who battle the occasional shank do so because..doc
can you expand on this a bit...

2 questions really - my 14 year old is playing and I showed him you UPR, and he has had fun with it - in addition to the occasional S word...help needed - he needs some guidance on alignment.

I try and minmize my swing advice (club pro works w/ him) - but the other stuff, alignment, game mgmt, etc -I assume just comes w/ time/experience. But alignment seems one that he often gets out in left field on.

We have talked and I know playing (& trying to beat) the old man is a factor - but this alighment matter costs him way too many shots (pretty deflating to pure a wedge right into middle of bunker, 30 yards right of pin)- just missing of course, but also sometimes missing in very tough locations - not sure if it is a poor thot process or just a technical/set up routine he's missing.

Unbelievable how true is this!
I've been playing for a long time, tournamets etc..
My best golf ever was just a saturday evening i took my girlfriend to a short walk in the course (its the second time she comes with me and we are dating 7 years...)
First hole, par 4 i was a meter from the green, hitting my best driver ever.
It was the beginning of the best round of my life endind with my first hole in one in the 9th hole (165 m).
It was the first time I went on the course without a polo shirt and my golf shorts, i wasn't thinking about golf and it was crazy!
This is a crazy ass sport and i love it!

Hey Dagolfdoc!

This routine sounds good, i can't wait to try next week that I go back home from my vacations.
Here is my story-
I used to play 4 years ago very seriously, practicing a lot and participating in a lot of tournaments. I was scratch back then but since then i stopped practicing because i was away in the army. This 4 years i used to play once every two three months, just a quick 9 holes no practice at all and now i want to get back in the game seriously.
We are just about to start the league in the club and i want to be fitt for that but its very close. Currently i think im playing around 8-10 hdcp.

I think your routine could be very usefull for me if i want to get back my old hdcp in a short time and get back into tournaments as well. i will love to hear what do you think about it.

Hi everyone

Like some others, I only just stumbled across this via google. It's taken me a few days to read and absorb! I notice that dagolfdoc hasn't posted in more than three months so I hope I am not too late to the party.

I've just returned to golf after a five year absence ... life got too busy and also being honest I had reached a level of frustration with my game because I could not find a way to improve. I had managed to get my handicap down to 19, but seemed to be stuck in the 19-21 bracket. My short game was generally ok but my distance is terrible. I don't hit the ball long mainly due to a bad reverse pivot habit ... I never learned properly as a kid when I took the game up. I was all arms and its only recently I finally had some lessons and learned about weight transfer etc. Problem is now at age 42 overcoming the habit of a lifetime is really difficult!

So anyway I returned to golf about six weeks ago, again off 19 (my club reactivated my old handicap) and I've been a bit all over the place. Worst round is 108, best 94 so far but generally I am stuck at 101 or so.

I'm really committed this time to try and improve so I wanted to practice with purpose rather than just hitting balls at random and not getting anywhere. I found the UPR and thought it was perfect ... working on my short game isn't dependent on solving the reverse pivot. Having played a few rounds I can easily see myself breaking 90 if I stop losing shots through missed pitches/chips and erratic putting. While I need to solve the reverse pivot long term I am really keen to try the UPR to improve my scoring in the short-medium term.

So last Sunday I played a par comp and playing off 20 I had a nett +2, my best comp round since I came back. All enthusiastic after the round I started UPR with the 25 3 foot putts. My practice green has quite a bit of break in it and well as vertical slope, there arent actually many level straight putts! So I hit three balls from four compass points for 12 different putt lines, all of which had some break. My first session went:

6, 17, 12, 1, 12, 5, 6, 14, 2, 1, 6, 14, 14, 6 15

after which I ran out of time and had to leave. Tougher than I thought! Still I thought it was great practice.

So today I played another comp round - Christmas Eve comp - and was full of confidence. Unfortunately things went not so well ... I thought I struck the ball better than Sunday but short game was erratic, and my putting was worse than at any time! Only 27 stableford including a horrible three putt on the last (par 3) that turned a par into a double bogey, after just missing the par putt then missing the 18" putt coming back!

So straight back onto the practice green after the round. Given how poorly I putted I was thinking I could be there a while but was determined to complete the first step. Results were:

7, 12, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 25!!

Four misses in a row then bang just nailed the 25. The four misses were all a slight downhill left to right break and all four I had slingshot off the cup after consistently just missing the read on the break. Then suddenly it clicked and stage one done!

Immediately moved to the 20 footers and nailed the 20 first go! I feel comfortable with that length and even with a breaking putt I sank three and kept the rest in the circle.

Moved on to the thirty footers and found that much harder:

0, 1, 0, 3, 12, 0, 5, 2, 1, 4, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 3

On the 12 I felt like I was in the groove but then put one just outside the circle. I started concentrating on technique as well with eyes over ball and a nice smooth action from the shoulders which meant I hit the putts a lot sweeter, but this seemed to make me hit the ball a little longer which caused a lot of the 0 and 1 results where I went fractionally long.

I also decided that for all misses I would try to make the putt back which was good practice for 3' - 5' putts.

Anyway ... thats my story and I am going to work hard on the UPR. It's exactly what I have been looking for, a structured way to practice and hopefully improve.

I'm not sure if dagolfdoc is still around, but I'm keen to record my progress here ... hopefully there are still some others working on the routine and if nothing else it will allow me to record my progress and give me a way to see results!

Since you brought this thread back I thought I'd chime in and hopefully more knowledgeable players will offer advice again. I've been playing about 6 months and generally shoot low 90s (best score 89) on a 6300 yd course from the whites. My ball striking has gotten much better than when I started and is probably what I'm currently best at. I've started working on this program and on my second round through while trying to make the sections slightly harder. On the first attempt I kept all the putts to flat or slightly uphill putts with no break. This helped my putting immensely as I was a beginner and had trouble judging distance and hitting in a straight line consistently. Now I'm trying to complete the 3 footers from 4 points around the hole. All of which have a significant amount of break and are either uphill or downhill. I spent a while today trying to get it but wasn't able to make it past 15. Clearly I need to work on handling break/elevation change better!

For anyone who is a complete beginner and using this program to improve I would suggest to complete the 3 footers, 20 foot lags and then move onto chipping /30 yd pitch shots for your first time through. I think as a complete beginner it is more helpful to have a general idea of the form and not mi****ting every other chip/pitch than having a slightly better touch on the putting green.

Hi smaug,

Good points ... although I will say that I found the 4 points on the three footers helped my focus because I think taking them all from the one spot it is easy to switch off and not analyse the line first because you "already know it". Even hitting three balls a few inches apart from each point introduces a slightly different line and forces analysis of each putt ... which is more representative of putts out on the course.

When you say second round through, you completed the whole program both A and B?

Not quite, I went through A through the pitching section and am restarting program A at 3 footers. I did not do the bunker portion or any of the iron/driver portions as I don't have a great way to practice those aside from the driving range.

I expect learning to deal with the break a bit better/focusing a bit more on each putt will help immensely. I could also move to a hole/green with a milder slope (temporarily) than the one I'm trying now.

Went to work on putting and chipping again today. I managed to knock the 3 footers out on the hole I was struggling with before in 3 tries! I then moved onto the 20 footers putting uphill with no break. Those went by quickly and then managed the 30 footers fairly quickly as well. I temporarily skipped the 45 footers as the only way to do them on the green I was on involved an insane break and I'm nowhere near good enough to do that. I will go to another green next time where I can go through the 45 footers with a fairly small amount of break.

I also worked on chipping a bit. Right now I'm using 2 different clubs depending on if I'm on the fringe or back a bit farther. I use a 7 iron with paul runyan's technique for the fringe and a sand wedge for anything else. I was able to knock the 8/10 out reasonably fast with both!

I'm going to work on 45 footers and move onto pitching during my next practice session. Hopefully I can get through the 45 footers without too much trouble.

Nice work

I've actually been playing a lot over the last week, need to get more practice in!

I only had a short time available after the round yesterday so knocked out the three footers, still took me a few goes with misses around 14ish, but look a lot less than the first time.

I think I am going to separate the putting and chipping/pitching part, becuase I can get down to my local park to do the pitching reasonably easily but its harder to do the putting. I tend to try and do the putting after a round.

Also having a lesson in a week and a half on bunker play.

Question for you Smaug, can you talk about Runyan's fringe technique? I like using 7 iron there as well.

Hey guys, been a while since I've had time to visit the forum. Sorry! Hope I can get a couple questions answered before the family is awake.

Valdos, I like how you have adapted the program to best suit your needs and keep you focused. That's what it's about - it's really a guideline to help you find what helps YOU improve! As far as increasing speed, working your core muscles is probably the fastest way to increase speed. LPGA players (which are closest to am golfers in terms of speed/distance) have made substantial gains through improving their core. If you have an exercise ball, you can find a ton of great core exercises that can be done in just a few minutes a day. Strengthening the core will not only increase distance, but also provide stability in your swing and reduce the chance of injury.

Keep me posted!

Alignment is very possibly the most common problem in golf. Many times it's a chicken & egg type thing - a player instinctively aligns themselves a certain way due to missed shots on the other side, however, it can also be corrected with some good process/practice. First look at how you (or your son, friend, whoever) steps into the ball. Usually, this is when I see whether a player is going to be aligned good or not - good players will step in with their back foot (right foot for a right handed player) behind the ball and a few inches from the target line; then they'll step in with the front foot placing it close to where it will be at set up, then adjust back foot to it's place. Sounds simple, and it is, but most players who struggle with alignment will step in with the front foot first (naturally aligning them to the right), and while they can see the target by turning/lifting their head, their body will be mis-aligned. My first golf lesson was with the legend Jim Flick, we spent about 40 minutes working on what he called the "tilted stork" - you put your right foot close and behind the ball, club head behind the ball before your front foot moved into the shot - from behind it gives and image of a 1-footed player (thus, the stork) and since the club is behind the ball, you'll be in your posture (thus the tilt). Easy way to think about it and remember.

Another way to work on alignment is to setup a practice station - lay a couple alignment rods or clubs on the ground: one in front of the ball (target side) about 10 inches towards the target aimed directly at the target. Lay another 6-8 inches inside that and even with the ball (this is for your feet, knees, hips). Then shove a rod angled into the ground 10-15 feet in front on the target line - this will not only give a visual to the player as to where they want to start the ball, but it is great for getting the ball to start online - try to hit shots that start directly over the rod & you'll gain clubhead control in minutes.

Let me know if you have any questions. I probably have a picture somewhere of a good practice station, so if the description didn't make sense, I'll try to post a picture.

Keep us posted on your progress - as a good player, you know the importance of the short game, and how it can keep you in a round when the ball striking isn't at it's best, and can allow you to go low when you're striping it!

Good luck!

Buzz - glad you found the routine and hopefully it's been helpful. I have been absent for a while, but will hopefully be more active in a few threads in the future. I'd love to hear how the routine has been working for you the past few months. If you have any questions or would like additional advice, post some questions, and I'll try to answer quickly!

Thanks!
RS