Practice with a Purpose: Building Pressure Training Into Range Sessions
Golf exposes everything. Not just your swing—but how you trained it.
On Sunday at Augusta in 2024, Scottie Scheffler pulled away with birdies on holes 10, 13, 14, and 16. Four birdies in his final seven. It wasn’t flash—it was execution. Under pressure. On demand. The kind of finish that doesn’t happen by accident.
Same at the 2022 Players Championship. Cameron Smith came out firing with 10 birdies, including one on the infamous island green 17. Then he pulled his tee shot on 18 into pine straw and sent his next into the water. But here’s the difference: he still made bogey. That saved the tournament.
Moments like these don’t just test your swing—they test your ability to swing when it matters.
And that’s why most practice routines fall short.
Training Isn’t About Repeating Swings. It’s About Repeating Under Stress.
Most golfers hit balls until something feels good. Maybe a groove shows up. Maybe a nice little draw. They call that a "good session."
But when they’re standing on the first tee with three people watching and OB left, that groove vanishes. The nervous system tightens. The tempo shifts. Suddenly they’re trying not to mess up.
The problem isn’t the swing—it’s the way they trained it.
Pressure changes how we move. Your brain doesn’t respond to a full bucket the way it responds to one shot that counts. And if you want your performance to hold up, your training has to recreate the environment you’ll face on the course.
This isn’t a theory—it’s proven. A 2023 meta-analysis in the International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology showed that athletes who practiced under pressure—using consequences, competition, or performance tracking—had significantly better outcomes in competition settings.
Step 1: Add Structure to Reps
“Rake and fire” teaches you nothing.
Instead:
Pick a target
Use your full pre-shot routine
Hit one ball
Evaluate the result
Set standards: Did it start on line? Would it have hit a fairway or green? If not, reset. The goal is to reduce wasted reps and force the brain to focus—exactly like it has to do on the course.
Step 2: Randomize
Block practice (same club, same target, over and over) builds familiarity, not adaptability.
Real golf isn’t like that.
Build a sequence of random, specific tasks:
56° to 70 yards, one hop and stop
5-iron cut to a back-right pin
Low draw with driver to an imaginary tight fairway
8-iron stock shot from a sidehill lie
Rehearse each one like it matters—because on the course, they will.
Step 3: Keep Score
Cameron Smith didn’t win because he hit pretty shots. He won because he handled pressure—and still executed.
You can simulate that.
Try this drill:
9-Shot Challenge
3 wedges, 3 mid irons, 3 drives
One shot at each target
No do-overs
Keep score: in play or not (green/fairway equivalent)
6/9 is solid. 7+ is great. Less than 5? Your swing might be fine, but your execution under pressure isn’t.
You’re training your swing, but also your psychology. That’s what makes it performance-ready.
Step 4: Simulate the First Tee
Most golfers feel nerves over their first shot of the day—not the 30th.
So replicate that.
Start every session with one full-rep shot.
Make it count.
Visualize a fairway.
Feel the tension.
Swing through it.
This rewires your response to pressure—so that by the time you’re actually standing on the tee in competition, you’ve been there before.
Step 5: Use Feedback, Not Obsession
Launch monitors are tools, not toys. Don’t live or die by the numbers on every swing.
Use them to check:
Smash factor (quality of strike)
Clubface consistency
Launch and spin trends
Path patterns
What matters most isn’t hitting a "perfect" number. It’s whether your numbers hold steady under decision-making pressure.
The Science Backs It
Pressure training isn’t hype. It’s a documented way to increase transfer from practice to performance.
A study in Sports (Hinchliffe et al., 2023) showed that adding performance consequences—like peer judgment or performance tracking—raises heart rate, increases focus, and mimics real-game pressure.
Another study from the University of Southern Queensland found that randomized, consequence-based practice in rugby led to greater improvements in match performance than traditional repetition.
Golf is no different. The brain doesn’t separate mechanics from emotion—it processes feel, context, and consequence together. That’s why you need to build those things into your training environment.
What We Do at ATX Golf Performance
At ATX Golf Performance, we coach for transfer.
That means:
Shot-specific training under pressure
Score-based challenges and randomized reps
Measured feedback using launch monitors
Movement training that sticks under fatigue
Mental training layered into physical reps
We’re not just helping you groove a swing. We’re preparing you to trust it when the moment matters.
Final Thought
You won’t suddenly become a clutch player on the 72nd hole of a major if you’ve never trained that way.
You can have a technically sound swing and still collapse under pressure.
But if you train with pressure, consequence, and structure—you’ll build a game that holds up.
Scheffler didn’t birdie four of his last seven because his swing was pretty.
Smith didn’t win at Sawgrass because he was relaxed.
They both trained to trust what they had when the stakes were real.
That’s the bar. Raise your practice to meet it.