he most common affliction in golf is not the slice but the driving range swing that has mysteriously vanished. For many players the typical practice session in- volves a bucket of balls, a series of swings and the occasional sense that a problem has been solved. If it rarely works out, it's because this way of practising has little to do with golf. The moment this idea really sunk in I was hitting wedges at The Grove XXIII, and not particularly well. The Grove is Michael Jordan’s South Florida golf oasis. It has plush leather chairs in the clubhouse and drinks and snacks delivered on the course by drone. Most of the experience is built around maximum comfort, but the practice area is designed around the opposite. On the Grove range, the golf coach Darren May paced me through a drill he gives some of the best players in the world. There was a green 100 yards away, where May had planted four wooden stakes around the edge. The arrangement was not random. May uses strokes/gained data to create an appropriate-sized target for a player’s skill level, which isn’t to say the drill for a 10-handicap like me was meant to be easy. All the target greens are elevated with an assortment of shelves, and the wind was blowing. After I missed the first target from 100 yards, May moved me back another six yards, and I missed that one. Then May moved me again. That I missed most of my targets and felt flustered throughout was precisely the point. In that sense, it felt like my usual day of golf.
May’s sessions differ from typical golf lessons in that they are not meant to be back-slapping confidence builders – or at least not in the moment. Along with Jordan and other Grove members, May works with major champions like Keegan Brad- ley and Justin Thomas as well as tour-aspirant college golf- ers. All entrust May to structure practice sessions largely built around failure. The more strain May can create at the Grove, the
RINGER SCORES A sequence of greens with bells as bullseyes tests your wedge control at Papago.
102 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025
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