A good driving range practice plan splits one bucket into four blocks: warm up, groove one move, rotate clubs in a set order, then play the course. Moving from the same shot to a new shot every ball can help you keep what you practice. Check your tempo in each block to see whether your rhythm held.
The driving range practice plan, block by block
Each block has one job, and each one looks a little more like the course. Striped’s metronome plays 3:1 paces for full swings and 2:1 for chips, pitches and putts.
| Block | In Striped |
|---|---|
| Warm up | Pitches, 2:1 pace |
| Groove | Irons or Driver, 3:1 pace |
| Rotate | Irons, metronome off |
| Play | Irons, spoken shot labels |
- Warm up. Start with easy half swings with a wedge, then build to full swings. The aim is a loose body and an easy rhythm.
- Groove one move. Pick one club, one target and one change to work on. Repeat the same shot so you can feel the change.
- Rotate in a set order. Cycle through a wedge, a mid-iron and a long iron, in the same order each time. The club changes, but you always know what comes next.
- Play the course. Picture a hole you know and hit each shot it asks for. Use a new club and target on every ball, with your full pre-shot routine.
These driving range practice drills are simple. Keep them in this order.
Tones can help in the groove block. A 2021 study of sound-guided putting in novices found that auditory guidance reduced how far strokes strayed from each golfer’s own average stroke. The free web metronome plays the app’s paces in your browser, so you can try them before you go.
Why good golf practice plans move from repetition to variety
A 2010 study of practice schedules for learning sport skills had novices practice putting on one of three schedules. A schedule that moved from blocked to serial to random gave better retention-test results than blocked or random practice alone.
Dr. Greg Rose of TPI makes a similar point in GOLF.com’s guide to the best way to practice. Blocked practice helps with technical changes, he says, while random practice, with different shots and targets, is his pick for getting better faster.
That is the shape of this plan. The groove block is blocked practice, the rotate block is serial, and the play block is random.
Check that your tempo holds as the clubs change
Tempo is your backswing time divided by your downswing time. Tempo is a “biomechanical clock” that is “relatively insensitive to the length of the shot,” says Grober and Cholewicki’s preprint on golf tempo. So the rotate and play blocks test whether your ratio stays put as the club changes.
Striped times your hands. Apple Watch on your lead wrist finds the top where your hands reverse.
After each swing, you hear a soft chime, then your ratio read out in your AirPods. You get the number without looking at a screen between shots.
Over 11 irons practice sessions, the session average ran from 2.25 to 3.05, with a median of 2.85 (example data from 11 practice sessions). Six of the 11 sessions sat inside the app’s target band of 2.8 to 3.2. The median spread within a session was 0.21.
One session’s average can sit well away from your usual number. Record each block as its own session, and the reports show which block moved it. The golf tempo guide explains what the ratio means.
How to run your driving range session plan in Striped
Striped uses three devices together, set up in step 1 below. Setup help is on the support page, and the home page shows what else Striped measures.
Put your iPhone in your front pocket, your AirPods in, and Apple Watch on your lead wrist. Profile Devices shows whether your Apple Watch is ready.
Pick Pitches for the warm-up, and a metronome pace if you want one. Hit balls, then stop from iPhone or Apple Watch when the block ends.
For the groove block, start a new session on Irons or Driver with a 3:1 pace. After each swing, listen for your spoken ratio.
For the rotate and play blocks, start an Irons session with the metronome off. If spoken shot labels are on, say the club, such as “seven iron,” to tag the swing.
Open each session’s report and compare the tempo of the groove block with the play block. Variation (SD) shows how much your tempo changed from swing to swing.
In Progress, compare days with the same club. Progress plots one point per club for each practice day.
Adjusting the plan for beginners
A golf range practice plan for beginners can keep the same order. Spend longer in the warm-up and groove blocks, and keep the play block short. The 2010 study above worked with novices, and its best schedule still ended on random practice.
Sources
- Sonification of Golf Putting Gesture Reduces Swing Movement Variability in Novices (O'Brien et al., Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 2021)
- Rule 4: The Player's Equipment, Rules of Golf (R&A)
- Systematically increasing contextual interference is beneficial for learning sport skills (Porter and Magill, Journal of Sports Sciences, 2010)
- The best way to practice if you want to get better quickly (GOLF.com, 2022)
- Towards a Biomechanical Understanding of Tempo in the Golf Swing (Grober and Cholewicki, arXiv physics/0611291, preprint)
- Striped: Striped times tempo at the hands. The top is where the hands reverse, read by Apple Watch on the lead wrist.
- Striped: Tempo ratio (backswing / downswing, timed at the hands by Apple Watch), mean per irons practice session. (example data from 11 practice sessions)
- Striped: The paces the Striped metronome plays (backswing and downswing, in milliseconds).
Cite or embed
Cite this guide: Nick. “A driving range practice plan for one bucket.” Striped, 29 Oct 2026. https://stripedgolfapp.com/guides/driving-range-practice-plan/
Embed a diagram
The diagrams are free to use with credit. Copy the code for one:
The Tour and Short Game metronome paces in Striped, on one time scale
<a href="https://stripedgolfapp.com/guides/driving-range-practice-plan/#figure-two-paces"><img src="https://stripedgolfapp.com/guides/driving-range-practice-plan/two-paces.svg" width="420" height="144" alt="Two bars on one time scale, each split into a backswing and a downswing. The Tour bar's backswing is three times its downswing, and the shorter Short Game bar splits two to one."></a><br>Diagram: <a href="https://stripedgolfapp.com/guides/driving-range-practice-plan/">A driving range practice plan for one bucket</a>, StripedAverage tempo ratio of each irons practice session
<a href="https://stripedgolfapp.com/guides/driving-range-practice-plan/#figure-irons-sessions"><img src="https://stripedgolfapp.com/guides/driving-range-practice-plan/irons-sessions.svg" width="420" height="376" alt="Eleven bars, one per irons practice session, rise and fall around a dashed 3:1 line, a few just above it and more below it. A summary bar marks the median, just under the line."></a><br>Diagram: <a href="https://stripedgolfapp.com/guides/driving-range-practice-plan/">A driving range practice plan for one bucket</a>, Striped