To improve your game around the greens, practice under pressure

Anyone who has struggled to bring their range game to the golf course knows that hitting balls in practice is very different from executing the same shots on the golf course when it counts. Holding the handicap, maintaining an up-and-down level, and hitting the green in regulation after a missed drive are important skills that contribute to good scores.

The ability to perform under pressure it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. But the good news is that in golf, skill can be acquired, and it’s a skill you can hone and sharpen over time.

Adding pressure to your practice sessions is one way to improve your performance on the course and GOLF Top 100 Teachers Trillium Rose there is a simple exercise to help.

In a video posted on Titleist’s YouTube pageRose explains why adding pressure to your practice sessions is an important step to improving your overall game.

“Practicing under pressure is a bit hard to do on a normal driving range or short range when there’s no consequence,” she says. “The driving range is great, you have a lot of balls. It may not matter if you hit a bad one. But on the golf course, everything matters. So what you’re going to do is limit the number of hits you have and set consequences for each one, make each one count.”

To do this, Rose recommends collecting five balls and trying to smash them in the same spot so that the balls end up within a flagstick of each other. If someone ends up outside the length of the flagstick, you have to start over.

As you go through the workout, the pressure will naturally increase as you try to get to five. When you’re only one shot away from hitting your goal, that’s the pressure you want to feel.

“I have to get this or I have to start over — that’s the feeling we’re looking to achieve when you practice,” says Rose.

So if you want your practice time to count, make sure you add pressure to help you see results.

“The more pressure you put on yourself in practice, the better equipped you’ll be for the real thing,” says Rose, “and you’ll play a lot better for it.”

To watch a video of Rose’s advice in its entirety, click here.

Editor of Golf.com

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural women’s varsity player class, Jessica can blow away anyone in the masthead. She can also drive them in the office, where she is primarily responsible for producing print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Issue, which debuted in February 2018. Her series The original interview, “A Round With,” debuted in November 2015, and appeared in both magazine and video form on GOLF.com.