Let The Data Help You Get The Most Out Of Your Practice Time

Finding time to practice your golf game can be a challenge but, through data, we can help you get the most out of every session.

Picture this: You finally carved out some time to work on your game. Maybe it’s a Tuesday evening after work or a quiet Saturday morning. You’ve got an hour to practice and you want to make it count. Where do you head?

If you’re like most golfers, you probably grab a large bucket and make a beeline for the driving range. Makes sense, right? Work on that swing, groove some fundamentals, maybe try to add a few yards.

Here’s the thing: you might be practicing the wrong stuff.

Our friends at Shot Scope have recorded more than 400 million on-course shots from golfers around the world. That’s a lot of data and it tells a pretty clear story about where golfers actually play most of their shots.

Spoiler alert: It’s not from 150 yards in the middle of the fairway.

Where you actually play golf

To see if there were any differences between handicaps, we removed tee shots and putts from the equation. Here’s what the data revealed:

Plot twist: There’s virtually no difference between a 5-handicapper and a 25-handicapper when it comes to where they’re hitting most of their shots. Whether you’re scratch or you shoot in the 90s, most of your shots come from inside 50 yards and beyond 200.

Why so many shots from close range? Because most of us are missing a lot more greens than we’d care to admit.

The average 15-handicapper hits four greens in regulation per round. Four. That means 14 times per round, they’re scrambling around the green hoping to salvage something decent.

When we look at green-in-regulation percentages by distance, the picture becomes even clearer:

Check this out: A 15-handicapper has about a 30-percent chance of hitting the green from 100 yards. Move back to 150 yards and that number drops to roughly 15 percent.

Here’s where it gets interesting (and slightly depressing): If you’re standing in the middle of the fairway at 100 yards thinking you should be hunting pins, think again. Based on these numbers, more than half your shots won’t even find the putting surface.

Stop wasting time at the range

Look, I get it. Bombing drives feels good. There’s something therapeutic about the sound of a well-struck driver that makes you forget about your mortgage payment and that weird noise your car has been making.

But if you had unlimited time to practice, sure, work on your accuracy from every distance. The problem? You don’t have unlimited time. Nobody does.

Practicing at all these distances based on shot frequency data isn’t just inefficient—it’s a waste of the precious little practice time you have.

Your time would be infinitely better spent at the short game area, working on distance control and accuracy. Missing greens is inevitable (see above), but if you’ve got a sharp short game, you can turn those doubles into bogeys and those bogeys into pars.

Time to develop some short game sauce

Ladder drills are your new best friend for developing distance control and feel. Pick a target and hit balls from 10, 20 and 30 yards, focusing on how close you can get to the pin.

But here’s where most golfers screw up their expectations. When you’re hitting that wedge from 50 yards, you probably think you should stick it inside 10 feet every time.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

You might be shocked to learn that a 5-handicapper averages about 30 feet from the pin when hitting from 50 yards. Thirty feet! If that makes you feel better about your own short game, you’re welcome.

The reality check continues: Only when you’re hitting from 10 yards can you reasonably expect to get it inside 10 feet. And even then, you’ll probably think it should be closer.

Managing expectations with real data

Having performance data isn’t just about improving your game—it’s about managing your expectations and avoiding the mental gymnastics that lead to three-putting and broken clubs.

If you’re a 5-handicapper and you hit it inside 30 feet from 50 yards, you’ve actually hit an above-average shot. That might not feel great in the moment, but the data doesn’t lie.

The bottom line? Stop beating yourself up for shots that are actually pretty decent and start focusing your practice time where it’ll do the most good.

If you want access to data like this and more than100 other tour-level statistics, including Strokes Gained analysis, check out Shot Scope’s performance tracking products. They have GPS watches, rangefinders and more—all subscription-free forever.

Get the most out of your game with Shot Scope. Your scorecard will thank you.

Shot Scope is the Official On-Course Data Partner of MyGolfSpy.