Beginner Golf Practice Plan

When you first get into golf you are keen to practice and get better, but knowing what to practice and how can be a challenge. In this article we share a simple beginner golf practice plan you can take away and use today.

If you enjoy it and want to make your practice more fun and interactive, you can always sign up for Break X Golf.

Let’s get going.

Beginner Golf Practice Plan (120 minutes)

• Long Game Technique Practice
• Will’s Range Challenge (Level 1)
• Chipping Zone Challenge (Level 1)
• 20 in a Row Putting (Level 1)
• 10 – 20 ft Putting

This is a simple practice plan that allows you to cover all the core elements of the game and also allows you to benchmark each area of your game against other golfers, and yourself as you progress.

Long game technique practice

To begin with, you want to learn how to make solid contact, with this in mind you want to dedicate some time to working on your golf technique. Hopefully, you have a golf coach to give you personalised instruction, but if not, it is a good idea to master your fundamentals of stance, posture and perfecting your golf grip.

When you practice your technique, head to the driving range, grab 30-50 balls and take your time to work on getting comfortable with the basics in your golf swing.

Will’s Range Challenge (Level 1)

Once you have spent some time working on your swing technique it is best to test your skills out with some skills games (PS – the Break X app has over 100 skills games for every area of your golf game).

This skills challenge mimics what you need to do in golf – get the ball in play off the tee, and then see how consistently you can hit your shots to targets of varying distances, from 100 to 200 yards away.

It’s a fun game, allows you to track your progress and really helps you transfer your skills onto the golf course.

Chipping Zone Challenge (Level 1)

The next part of our beginner practice plan tests your shot game. This game is so simple but gives you clear feedback on how close you can chip your ball to your target. Try different clubs and see how high you can score.

Another great tip is to check out the dispersion of your 10 shots and see if there are any patterns (short, long, left or right).

20 in a Row Putting (Level 1)

The 20 in a row putting challenge may seem like a game that is too simple, but trust me it is not. I still use this game to warm up as a pro. Pick a small spot on the back of the hole and aim to hit that spot with every putt.

As you get towards the 16th, 17th & 18th putt you’ll start to feel the pressure build, just like short putts on the golf course.

10 – 20 ft Putting

The final game in this practice plan for beginners is called 10-20 feet putting. This game extends the putting challenges to longer putts, you need to hole out each putt, so it represents what you need to do on the golf course and allows you to progressively improve your distance control as you move back from 10 feet, all the way to 20 feet.

Playing golf

On top of this practice plan for beginners, you should try to play golf as often as you can (or life will let you). 18 hole games are great, but fitting in 9 holes is great if you are short of time.

Wrapping up

That wraps up a great practice routine for beginners who want to improve, have fun practising and be able to track their improvement. Below we’ll cover a couple of scenarios for beginners who have less time.

30-Minute Practice Plan

If you only have 30 minutes a week I would focus on one range session where you fit in a quick bit of technique, followed by the range challenge. I would then try to fit in one piece of putting, possibly alternating between 20 in a row and 10-20 feet putting each week.

60-Minute Practice Plan

If you have 60 minutes, you can get close to fitting the full practice routine in, you just might need to cut down on how many golf balls you hit at the range. When you head to the short game area, try to fit in your chipping challenge each week, as this will benefit your long game striking and consistency, then alternative between the two putting drills.

Extra practice tips

The hardest thing to learn for beginner golfers is making consistent contact with the golf ball. However, practicing more wedge shots and chip shots is a great way to learn this ability and then transfer this into a longer golf swing.

This practice game is a little swayed towards short game and putting for that reason. If you would like access to over 120 practice challenges and personalised practice plans based on how you play, check out Break X golf.

Wrapping up

I hope you find this practice plan useful. The skills games really do make practice more fun, but also provide great feedback to help you improve at a quicker rate. Try to focus on quality golf practice over the quantity of time you spend beating golf balls.

Happy golfing – Will @ Break X Golf

pics in staging, will_shaw