“It’s a very odd environment – the way people behave at a driving range,” says Tom Irwin on The NCG Golf Podcast. “I go to lots of ranges, and you do find different people at different places. I have to say I do count myself among the weirdos.”
That it might be a weird and wonderful crowd shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. The driving range can be one of golf’s odder experiences. There aren’t too many sports where you can find yourself practising in an completely different venue miles away from where you might normally play.
From entertainment-style facilities offering loud music, drinks, and fast food, to spartan tracks of grass where all you might see is a machine and a set of targets, a trip to hit a few balls can be an adventure.
But how should you go about it? Fire off a basket and leave ASAP, or savour the practice? What do you wear? Do you go solo or with your mates? Tom and I went through some of the variables in our podcast, but you can get the gist of what we had to say below…
What’s the correct driving range etiquette?
Rattle them off or take your time?
What’s the play? Are you machine gunning through a basket – smashing ball after ball and barely taking a breath? Or are you painstakingly recreating everything you want to do out on the course, right down to the number of waggles?
I’m just a 50 balls guy. Hit them as fast as possible and then retreat to the car, where I will then berate myself for wasting my time and money. One day, I will tell you I learned something.
Going solo or get in a group?
Golf’s quite unusual, isn’t it? It’s something you can do on our own. Take football, for instance, someone’s usually kicking the ball back to you.
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“That is quite appealing to me,” Tom said. “It’s very meditative.”
But is it a solo pastime, or is it better with company? “I was at a range recently. I’m currently trying to swing it faster so I’m there huffing and puffing and doing huge overswings and bashing the club on the ground to try and get myself psyched up,” Tom added. “I’m doing little jump steps and all sorts of stupid things. I’m swinging weighted sticks rather than clubs.
“I say this with complete self-awareness that I’m definitely a driving range weirdo in a particular category – the try-hard category.
“Two bays up for me was a husband-and-wife combination where the husband was trying to explain to his wife how to play golf. I kept overhearing the conversation, and let’s just say it wasn’t PGA pro levels of advice. I’m not quite sure this guy was speaking from a particular position of authority on the golf swing, but it wasn’t stopping him trying.
“You see a lot of that kind of thing – mates trying to help their slightly worse mate or their slightly newer to girlfriend with some very bad, ‘keep your head still’ advice or ‘slightly wider stance’. It never works does it?”
Jeans and T-shirt or full golf gear?
Go casual or go in your golf clothes? It depends where you are. At the purpose-built range near my house, you’ll see me in jeans, trainers, and a T-shirt. If I’m at the club, though, I’m usually there to play a round – and am only using the driving range to warm up. In that situation, I’d have my full golf uniform on.
So when it comes to clothing, driving ranges fall between two stools. You’d probably look a bit daft in full kit at Topgolf. But do you really need to wear a polo shirt to hit balls on a driving range?
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“I think it’s quite a tell what you wear to the driving range,” said Tom on the pod. “These days it’s impossible to do any sort of leisure activity or health pursuit without thinking about Instagram and that’s definitely infiltrated golf driving ranges.
“Nowadays de rigueur is basically some sort of gym shark bottoms and whatever those things are that gather at the ankle. The best thing you pair that with should be a trophy venue hoodie.”
Golf shoes, or not? I don’t tend to wear them, although trainers in the wet can be a magnet for slipping when the weather isn’t great. I’ve had the bruises to prove it.
Alignment sticks at the driving range? Look at you!
Nothing screams woke, or wannabe pro, in my opinion then getting out the alignment sticks – especially when they’re that heritage wood type that look like the colours they sell in the club shop.
You will not be surprised to learn that not only does Tom own some, he’s got fancy headcovers for them too. “I’ve just bought some as a latest accessory,” he said. “That’s how keen things are getting.
“The sticks arrived on Friday. They are a sort of very kind of wokey brown wood thing. And then they’ve got a very old school golf club colour kind of wrapped around the middle, a like a pair of long socks
“They’re a thing of joy. Then I bought some covers which are in the style of that Man United blue and white Adidas horrific kit from the 90s.”
What is the big problem with driving range tees?
I’ve never found a tee at a driving range that hits the spot. They’re either too thick, too high, or too small. Even the mechanical ones where you can set the height have never done the trick. I just can’t get them to a size I’m comfortable at. Maybe that’s my fault – and I’d actually hit the ball a bit better if I compromised.
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You can always tell a range rat when they’ve got their own wooden tee buried somewhere into the mat, so they don’t have to use the ones provided. Some ranges have a little slot you can put them into. At others, golfers have taken matters into their own hands and carved a little X into the artificial turf.
Where do you keep your balls? Do you house them in the basket, steer them into a tray, or feed them into a machine and wait for them to pop up at you after each shot?
“The optimal experience is one of those little black rubber trays that are alongside the mat,” said Tom. “Then you can tip your balls into them, so they’re not in the basket, but they’re not creating a mess on the mat.
“On the tee thing, for all the things driving ranges have got right over the last few years – Toptracer and TrackMan Range and so on – why can’t the tee height get sorted out?
“Why can’t I have a mat I can just put a normal tee peg into? Imagine how many tee pegs you’d break. Tee sales would be through the roof. There is never, ever, the right size rubber tee. It’s absolutely maddening.”
To bud or not to bud? That is the headphone question
You’d often find me hitting balls with a pair of headphones dangling from my ears. Then, back in the day when they were still wired, some iPhone buds got caught in my downswing and went further than the ball. They were spinning down the range. From that day on, I have been music free on the driving range.
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These days, after too many years of listening to music that is too loud, in-ear buds are out of the question anyway. I feel self-conscious enough walking down a street with these big wireless headphones on these days. I’d feel even more self-aware trying to swing with what look like floorstanders attached to each side of my head. I reckon I’d look like a Cyberman.
“It’s a bit like method acting for me,” Tom said. “I’ve decided I do wear headphones because I’m not there to chat to people. I’ve given this quite a lot of thought and I don’t really want to catch anybody’s eye.
“Putting my headphones in is all part of the perception of someone who is there for some serious graft. I’ve got purpose and I’m here to work on one thing. Nothing’s going to distract me from it, let alone the mansplaining in the next way.
“The only thing I’ll make an exception for is if someone who works at the driving range walks past and then I’ll be absolutely desperate to make sure I hit a good shot.”
Listen to The NCG Golf Podcast
Tom Irwin and Steve Carroll get stuck into the driving range debate in far more detail in this week’s episode of The NCG Golf Podcast.
Now have your say
What do you think about our discussion of driving ranges and driving range etiquette? Let us know with a comment on X.
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