What Does a Player Do In a Practice Round at The Open Championship?
What do tour players do in a practice round to help them adapt their games for The Open Championship? Jack Backhouse comments on what he’s seen this week at Royal Liverpool.
The tournament may start on a Thursday, but most players arrive at the course three or four days earlier to get tuned in to the environment and golf course. So how do professional golfers prepare for The Open Championship? Read on to find out.
Lots and Lots of Tee Shots
Getting your tee shot strategy and game plan organised is a huge part of any tournament prep for a player, but with the bunkers at Royal Liverpool being so punishing, they must get it right here (remember the Tiger Woods masterclass in 2006).
It is fairly common practice when playing a practice round to hit a variety of different clubs from the tee boxes on par 4s and par 5s. This is because even though players’ caddies have yardage books and spend ages studying the course until you get out there in the wind, you don’t really know how far the ball is going to go.
5 yards could be the difference between finishing short of the bunker or going in it, or hitting it out of bounds on three or not. It’s worth having a plan A, B and C for every tee so they can always make the best decision in the moment.
Putting to Nowhere
Players don’t know where the R&A are going to put the pins on the putting greens during the golf tournament. So spending a lot of time on the greens is important putting to places where they think that the flags might be on different tournament days.
Players and caddies estimate where the pin positions will be by looking at where the flags were when The Open was here in 2014 and 2006, and by generally surveying the green to see where suitable flattish spots may be.
When preparing for the golf competition days, players will drop balls in the spots on the greens that they think are reasonable targets from the fairways and then putt to all the different pin spots to get a feel for how the ball will move on the surface.
Practicing Worse-Case scenarios
Tour players never want to be faced with a shot in a competition that they have never practiced before. Golf is a random game at the best of times, but having a good idea of how to play all the different shots you may get faced with in a round gives you the confidence that you are well prepared ahead of that Thursday morning tee time.
A great example of this is a player this week at The Open putting seven balls into one bunker to hit all different kinds of shots.
The bunkers are going to play a real part of this year’s event at Royal Liverpool, and even the player with the best approach shots will find themselves in sand so its good to get this kind of short game practice under their belt.
The idea here is you do not know how the ball will finish when it goes in a bunker, so it’s good to have practice shots right under the lip, in the middle, at the back, one leg out, and any other variation of shot you can think of.
Playing Competitive Games
It’s not unusual for golfers to go out with their pals and play matches for money in practice rounds. This may just seem like a bit of fun between mates, but I think it goes deeper than that.
Playing a game for money or a forfeit is a great way to stay sharp and focused during a practice round, giving meaning to every pre-shot routine when playing golf.
It also helps play the course with different strategies under pressure, as sometimes a 2 iron feels like the right play but under the gun a bigger head gives more confidence under pressure. Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy were seen out on the course having a tight game between themselves during the Tuesday practice round.
What have you seen tour players doing in practice rounds? Let me know with a tweet.
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What’s In My Bag?
- Driver: TaylorMade Stealth 2 HD
- 3 Wood: Callaway Paradym fairway wood
- Irons: Takomo 301mb
- Wedges: Callaway Jaws Raw wedge
- Putter: EVNROLL EV 5.2 Putter
Jack Backhouse
Jack is a PGA Golf Professional who specialises in coaching, teaching golf to beginners and top-level amateurs for 10+ years. He also loves his golf equipment and analysing the data of the latest clubs on the market using launch monitors, specialising in blade irons and low-spinning drivers despite having a chronically low ball flight.
Although Jack has no formal journalism training, He has been reading What's In The Bag articles since he started playing at 12 and studying golf swings since his dad first filmed his swing to reveal one of the worst over-the-top slice swings he reckons has ever been recorded, which set him off on the path to be a coach. His favourite club ever owned was a Ping G10 driver bought from a local top amateur with the hope that some of the quality golf shots would come with it (they didn't), and worst was a Nike SQ driver he only bought because Tiger was using it.
Jack is a member of Sand Moor Golf Club and regularly gets out on the golf course to prepare for tournaments. Jack uses a TaylorMade BRNR Mini driver, a half set of TaylorMade P7MB irons, MG4 wedges and a TaylorMade TP Reserve putter.
