The driving range is where most golfers waste the most time. Not because they are lazy — the opposite. They hit ball after ball, a full bucket, feeling good, and then on the course nothing holds up. Here is the honest fix: practise less like a machine and more like real golf. Change your club, pick a target, use a routine, and hit fewer balls with more attention. That is the whole secret, and I will show you exactly how.
Why does your range game fall apart on the course?
Because the range is too kind to you. You get a perfect flat lie every time. No wind that matters, no water, no score, no one watching. You quietly forget the shots you don’t like and remember the good ones. The course gives you none of this comfort, so the swing you grooved on the mat does not travel with you.
A Dutch instructor once described the same pattern I see every week: the range always “feels better” than the course, and golfers cannot understand why. The reason is simple. On the range you build your own easy world. His advice was lovely — go play an imaginary hole on the range, commit to each shot before you step in, and count the result honestly, even the bad ones. This one change turns ball-bashing into golf.
Science backs this up. Most people do “blocked” practice: same club, same target, over and over. It feels productive. It transfers poorly. When researchers compare it with random practice — a different club or target on every shot — the random group keeps roughly twice as much skill when tested later. A 2024 review in a sports-science journal confirmed the same thing across many golf studies. So the uncomfortable practice is the useful one.
What does a practice session that actually works look like?
Small and focused. Coaches interviewed on this topic recommend a maximum of 50 to 60 balls per session. At a proper pace, that already takes close to an hour. A big bucket hit quickly just carves your faults deeper.
Here is a structure many PGA coaches use, and I like it a lot:
- 10 balls — warm-up. Short wedges, half swings, slow. Wake up the body.
- 20 balls — technical work. One or two swing thoughts, no more.
- 20 balls — skills games. Vary the club and the target every shot.
- 10 balls — pressure shots. Full pre-shot routine, one target, make each ball count.
Fifty balls. Forty-five to sixty minutes. When you leave you should feel like you played, not like you exercised.
And please warm up. Golfers who skip the warm-up are 70% more likely to get hurt during a round. Two quiet wedges at the start protect you.
Which clubs should you practise — and in what order?
Start with your wedge, not your driver. Beginning a session with the driver is the single most common mistake I see. It is the hardest club, the ego club, and cold muscles hate it. Begin with a pitching or sand wedge, little 30-metre shots with half swings, then work up slowly through the bag.
Now the order across a whole month matters even more. Elite players spend about 70% of their practice on shots inside 100 yards — around 90 metres — the wedges, chipping and putting. Most amateurs do the opposite and pour their time into the driver. On the course you hit far more short shots than long ones. This is where scores actually drop, and it is why the short game is so close to my heart. If you want to break 100, this is the door — I go deeper into that in my guide on a weekly practice routine to break 100 .
How do you add pressure to your range sessions?
You invent a little discomfort on purpose. The best way I know is a simulation game: play an imaginary hole. Hit a driver. Then walk your eyes to where it “landed” and hit an iron from that spot. Then a wedge approach, using the range markers and flags as your fairway and green. You cannot re-hit. One ball, one shot, then the next club. This is one of the highest-transfer drills that exists, because it forces the two things the range normally removes — a real target and a consequence.
Add a pre-shot routine to every single ball. Pick a target, aim the clubface first, then step into your stance. Golfers who do this get more consistent contact and a tighter miss pattern. A small trick from a well-known range study: place an intermediate target, a small mark about 60 cm in front of your ball on the target line, and aim over it. In the research, golfers who did this hit the ball 6.13 yards closer to the target and 3.11 yards farther. A spot on the ground did that. Beautiful, no?
I think of a Tour player who, as a junior, would spend five hours on the range after two bad shots, spiralling, trying to fix everything at once. Many good golfers tell me the same story about themselves. He learned that what happens on the course is the only test that counts, and that endless range time was feeding his nerves, not his game. If your practice feels anxious, you are doing too much of it. This ties closely to the mental game , which I promise matters as much as your swing.
What are the two or three drills every beginner should know?
Three simple ones, and they need almost nothing.
Alignment sticks. Two cheap sticks on the ground — one along the ball-to-target line, one along your feet. Aim drifts a few degrees session to session and you will never feel it happen. These sticks are the cheapest useful training aid at any range.
The clock drill (klokoefening). A classic from Dutch instruction. Aim shots to 9 o’clock (left), 12 o’clock (straight), and 3 o’clock (right). You learn to feel the clubface, which is the thing that steers the ball. No equipment, endlessly repeatable.
The one-ball routine. Every ball gets the full routine, a fresh target, and a new club if you can. Uncomfortable at first. That discomfort is the point.
A golfer who fought a slice for 25 years is a story I hold onto. Bucket after bucket, year after year, the slice stayed — because each swing was rehearsing the same fault. One lesson, twenty focused minutes of feedback, and the ball moved more than decades of solo practice ever did. Practice without feedback just makes you very good at your mistake. That is honestly why a few lessons pay for themselves. When you are ready, come and practise with me — you can see how my lessons work and what they cost on my lesson prices and booking page.
How does practising at a Dutch driving range work?
Easy — and this surprises a lot of expats. You do not need a GVB (golf-vaardigheidsbewijs / handicap 54) or any club membership to use a driving range in the Netherlands. You walk in, buy a bucket, and hit. A bucket usually costs between €3 and €10 depending on the place and size. The main course needs your GVB; the range does not. This is exactly why I tell curious first-timers to start here.
The Dutch weather is no excuse either. By early 2026 the Netherlands had more than 60 golf locations with digital ranges that track your ball and show live data on a screen in your bay — wonderful for a beginner who otherwise gets no feedback at all. There are also 55+ indoor golf locations, so winter is a real practice season here, not a pause.
At Chi Chi Golf in Utrecht, one of my home clubs, the range bays are covered with automatic ball return, so you can book a bay and practise at your own pace with a friend or your kids, in any weather, with no equipment of your own. And if you want structure between sessions, the free NGF Stappenplan on golf.nl has over 100 short video exercises to follow.
Come and hit a bucket. Bring a wedge, a target, and a little patience. Fifty good balls will teach you more than five hundred tired ones — and I would love to show you the difference in person.