Tour pros are very particular about it. You should be, too

At a PGA Tour event, very little a player does is left to chance, especially when it comes to a pre-round warm-up. Unless the range is completely packed and there are no options, a player is going to do whatever he can to set a stage that lets him get his preparation done fully and comfortably. For example: virtually every player would prefer to hit into the wind in a warm-up, because doing so provides faster feedback on how the ball is flighting and curving. If the predominant breeze is across the range, the goal becomes getting to the side of the tee that lets the player hit his preferred shot shape – so it curves into that wind as much as possible.

If there’s no wind, the priority is to favour the side of the range that allows for the preferred shot shape to curve away from a boundary. That provides a fuller set of targets for aiming, and more visual cues about what the ball is doing relative to what the player expects to see.

The takeaway for you is that if you tend to hit a certain shot shape, pick the side of the range that allows for the wind to soften some of your curve. Change your process away from hitting a bunch of the same shots in a row and instead hit each shot to a specific target.

It sounds cumbersome, but if you can incorporate your pre-shot routine into each warm -up shot, that’s an even better way to transfer what you’re doing before you play into what happens when you’re on the course.  

Mark Blackburn is No.1 on Golf Digest’s 50 Best Teachers in America list. He has worked with several tour pros including Collin Morikawa and Max Homa.

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