Down the road, Apogee Golf Club is nearing completion of its 24-hectare facility with a 360-degree range featur- ing elevated tee boxes and target greens shrouded by bunkers, plus a separate short-game area with an AimPoint practice green designed by tour put- ting coach Stephen Sweeney. Augusta National’s 7-hectare tournament prac- tice facility has devoted careful thought to every element, including practice greens and bunkers that are precise facsimiles of the actual course. A simi- lar feature is available at New Jersey’s Metedeconk National, with replica fairway routings allowing players to practice different shot shapes. Lead- ing Division I college golf programmes like Arizona State and the University of Illinois have invested millions in cre- ating elaborate training areas meant to entice recruits and sharpen current players for tournament play. It’s not just where golfers are prac- tising. More important is what they’re choosing to emphasise. The reason May works with several players who have separate swing coaches is because they seek his input in structuring practices that are inordinately demanding. Simi- larly, Nico Darras and Kevin Moore de- veloped their company, Golf Blueprint, to devise “reactionary practice” rou- tines of assorted game-like challenges for tour players and other competitive golfers. “It’s a lot about keeping your finger to the flame as long as you can and just kind of becoming numb to it,” says Dar- ras, co-founder of Golf Blueprint. “We will create stressors so that when that moment happens, you’ve now done it enough.” Recognising this type of competi- tive practice doesn’t always require a sophisticated facility, Darras and Golf Blueprint have assisted Golf Digest with the development of a series of “Stress Tests” that are practice games designed to approximate round-like scenarios – for instance, a putting game that teaches speed control under pres- sure or an up-and-down game that tests recoveries from short-sided misses. The options can vary depending on the set- ting, but they all trigger more thought than hitting a ball into an open field or chipping aimlessly. “I go to the driving range all the time and just sit and watch what golfers do,” says Darras, a former college baseball
better because they recognise tourna- ment golf is even tougher. (No matter how impressive Grove’s setup, it, too, is subject to improvement. The club is renovating both the course and practice facilities.) If the facility stands out because of the exclusive address and the golfers who show up there, it also represents an overall shifting approach to golf practice in the United States. Thanks to launch monitors, there has never been more information available about how we swing the golf club and the way the ball reacts, but this feedback rarely accounts for golfers’ tendencies in spe- cific situations. It’s one thing to groove a pitching wedge on an open range, but what happens to the swing when you’re staring at a narrow green surrounded by bunkers or with a one-shot lead on the 18th tee? It’s only when training un- der what May calls “mental load” that golfers are provided an accurate sense of both a problem and a solution. “People don’t want to fail on the golf course, but that’s not the right way to coach them because it’s going to hap- pen,” May says. “I'm desensitising them to it, so they have a better sense of what they can handle and what they can’t.” As much as May believes golfers should strive for better mechanics, he believes limiting practice to the con- trolled setting of a driving range or a simulator misses the point. Unless your usual Saturday game involves hit- ting 40 consecutive 8-irons off a perfect lie, you need training conditions that can bridge the gap between low-stakes range sessions and pencil-in-your- pocket competitive rounds. Other sports figured this out long ago. College football teams will pump crowd noise during practice to prepare players for the chaos of Saturday. In baseball, hitters transition from batting cages to live pitching then to hitting with runners on base. But it’s taken longer in golf. The old stories of Earl Woods jangling his keys during Tiger Woods’ backswing represented an extreme form of situational practice, the father conditioning his son for inevitable dis- tractions. Decades later, it speaks to a philosophy that is gaining more wide- spread traction, reflected in elaborate practice areas like the Grove’s and other high-end clubs that are meant to sharp- en players’ focus under different forms of duress.
LEAPFROG The path to lower scores isn’t making more 10-footers but avoiding three-putts through better speed control. This drill tests your lag control under pressure.
YOU’LL NEED
A practice green, three tees, two golf balls, and a putter.
STEPS
1. Find a relatively flat section of green. Place one tee at your feet, then pace off 10 steps to place down your second tee. Pace off another five steps to place the third tee. 2. Standing at the first tee, putt your first ball to at least the second tee distance, finishing as close to it as possible. 3. Each subsequent putt must finish past the ball that preceded it, but cannot travel further than the third tee. 4. Following this pattern, putt as many balls as possible before putting a ball past the third tee. SCORE TO BEAT Two-time PGA Tour winner Nick Dunlap took this drill and eventually scored 9.
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 103
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025
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