Putting practice in perspective

Last Saturday, my wife and I visited Het Rijk van Nijmegen, a golf course close to the city of Nijmegen. Our former golf instructor had moved there and offered a session of 1-hour training on the driving range and 1-hour coaching on the course. That was an excellent deal and a perfect opportunity to try a golf course we hadn't played before.

If you have read my article on personal metrics, you know how I like to measure stuff to learn and improve continuously. As you can imagine, I was excited about the launch monitor system available on this course (Trackman in this case). These systems register all kinds of data about the balls you hit on the driving range: speed, launch angle, direction, carry distance, total distance, spin rate, etc.

Driving range practice

Practicing with our former golf instructor was fun again. He used the data from the launch monitor to explain how we were doing and what each of us could change to improve ball flight. It doesn′t mean you get more consistent automatically, but at least you learn how inconsistent you are. That′s also a form of predictability :)

Next, we used this intelligent radar system to measure the average distance per club. Because clubs vary in a few aspects (length, loft), you hit different distances with different clubs. You can pick the appropriate club when you figure out how far you want to hit the next ball on the golf course. So, it is beneficial to know what your average carry distance is for each club. After completing the measuring exercise, we were ready for the real deal.

Golf course reality

First, it must be said that the weather was lovely, despite the cloudy forecast. And the course was beautiful, situated on the slopes of some hills (Dutch standards apply here).

Our instructor accompanied us on the first holes, where we tried very hard to implement the lessons from the driving range. After a few holes, the golf lesson came to an end. We said goodbye to our instructor to complete the nine holes on our own.

I wish I could have stated that our play matched the beautiful landscape.

But it didn't.

Although we enjoyed the walks up and down the hilly landscape, our play only went downhill. We both produced plenty of wobbly shots, hit some trees, ended up in sand bunkers, and lost several golf balls in the bushes. The occasional good golf swing kept us going.

Lessons learned

After completing our round, we settled in the clubhouse for drinks and comfort food—time to recover and reflect. It had been a beautiful day, and we learned a lot. One hour on the driving range followed by playing a nine-hole course might have been a bit too much for us. And maybe all that training made us feel too consciously incompetent? Or too eager to hit perfect shots?

The bottom line is that no matter how hard you practice, there is no guarantee that you'll perform just as well when it is for real. In fact, performing for real is an experience that counts as practice, too, I'd say.

I found some reassurance in two quotes from the South African golfer Gary Player:

You must work very hard to become a natural golfer

The more I practice, the luckier I get

I think this wisdom also applies outside the world of golf.

What are you practicing?

Take care and till next time!

Kind regards,

Herman / Scrumpy Dad

PS1 I write about applying effective practices from the world of Agile and Scrum in my new book, A Scrum Master's Guide to Happiness. Please subscribe to my newsletter to stay tuned...

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PS3 Did you notice the word pun in the title? That was a lucky accident, to putt it mildly...