Practice is not something we golfers seem to like much.  Of course, most of us would rather be out on the course than at the driving range or practice green.  That’s only natural.  But we put in the time anyway, so that we can play better golf.  Unfortunately, we don’t tend to have the best practice habits.

We often approach it like a chore, instead of looking at it like critical preparation for what we really love to do.  You can see it clearly at the driving range.  Watch as people aimlessly beat balls down range with no target, no desired shot, and no purpose.

We tend to fall into the same trap around the practice green. Watching the U.S. Open last week, there was one shot that set all this off in my mind.

I want to say it was Sunday.  Maybe, maybe not.  Ricky Barnes hit an approach shot and missed the green to the right.  He wasn’t on the collar.  He was in that nasty, horrible, U.S. Open rough that we hope never to see on our own courses. The lie was just awful.

As he was trying to decide on a shot, Johnny Miller remarked that the way to play it was either to play it like a bunker shot or to pick the club up and just sort of drop it on the back of the ball with little or no follow through.  Sure enough, that’s what Barnes’ practice swings were showing.  He executed the shot and had a nice result, given the absolutely awful lie.

The next day, I was at my practice green and noticed that the rough was almost at U.S. Open difficulty, mainly because the crew couldn’t mow it for a while with all the rain we’ve had this month.  Naturally, me being me, I buried some balls in the nasty stuff and started executing the same shot Barnes did.  I tried it with all four of my wedges to different length pins.

I was impressed with how well I did once I knew the secret, but it got me thinking that I might lack the imagination to have tried that on my own.

Even on the practice green, we tend to fall into driving range “rake and beat” mode.  We just throw down a few balls and chip or putt them toward one of the pins with no real purpose.  We chip them off the collar where we have nice lies.  I see some people chipping out of the rough, but not to challenge themselves.  It’s just that they don’t like chipping off of tight lies because they tend to skull or chunk the ball. Hitting out of the rough gives them a bigger margin for error.

The fact is, we practice around the greens to save ourselves strokes.  When we miss approaches, it’s time to shine but we’re not faced with the same vanilla chips and pitches that we practice around the practice green.  The ball sits way down in thick rough or depressions. It might sit way up on fluffy rough. The lies might be bare. We might be faced with a downhill shot two paces off the green hitting to a pin that’s only two paces on. The pin might elevated several feet on a shelf.

I might be shorting myself when I say I might lack the imagination to try the Barnes shot.  After all, I do tend to practice from wacky lies and difficult situtions a lot.  But what is imagination, anyway, when we’re talking about golf?  Is it being able to think up crazy shots?  Or is it knowing the tools in your bag so well that you know which crazy shots are possible?  Is it knowing your tools so well that you know exactly how each will react in a given lie?

I believe imagination in golf is mostly those things.  When we think of imagination, we usually think of Seve Ballesteros.  I’m sure you might have heard how he would impress people by hitting out of greenside bunkers with a 3-iron. Was it is great imagination that let him try a shot like that?  Or did he know his tools so well that it was obvious to him that he could pull it off?

I think we can all do ourselves a favor by forgetting the dull, repetitive chips and pitches once in a while and try out the shots we never thought to try.  Practice the things we’ve seen on the course that cost us strokes in the past.  Practice in situations that we’re never going to see, just to see if our clubs are capable.

Things on the golf course rarely ever work out like we practice them on the driving range or around the practice green, when we spend our time hitting from perfectly flat tees with perfect lies, or we chip and pitch from nice spots.

If we put ourselves in those bad situations in practice, we will be able to handle them better when it counts.  That’s how we develop our creativity.  Strive to never face a shot on the course that you haven’t practiced. Figure out what your tools are capable of in your hands and your creativity will flourish.

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