How to Play Practice Rounds for Golf Tournaments | Professional Golfer Breakdown

Hey guys thanks for clicking the video today we’re going to be talking about my thought processes and strategies when it comes to playing PJ to Monday qualifiers and practice rounds in general I’ve played Four PJ tour pre-qualifiers and one PJ tour Monday qualifier so I feel

Like I have a bit of experience now that I can share you a little bit of insight as to what you should expect and how you should perform when it comes to the practice rounds this practice round that you’re watching right now took place in just outside of Sacramento this is the

Rancho Solano Golf Course and this is the site of the PJ tour pre-qualifier for the foret championship in Napa Valley now I ended up actually winning this pre-qualifier I shot 67 I shot four under and I’m going to be showing you kind of how I go about my practice round

Now the first thing you’re going to see here when it comes to a short game shot I walked up to the green I wanted to see how much green I had to work with if it looked soft if it look firmed see what I need to do with this and this shot I

Tried to hit a little bit higher just to see how it reacted on the green now when it comes to practice rounds I do like to play 18 holes but I don’t really care too too much about the score itself obviously I’d like to post a good score

And we absolutely whiffed on that birdie putt there but the more important thing when it comes to practice rounds is I want to get a feel of the golf course itself what the conditions are like and what I can really expect when it comes to the round of golf the next day now

I’m never going to be one of those guys that hits you know 20 chips on each hole and kind of walks every single green and stuff like that I will walk um certain areas of the greens for the most part but I like to play golf I don’t want to

Play a sixh hour practice round stuff like that I absolutely hate now the first thing I like to do when it comes to these rounds of golf is I like to look at the scorecard see how long the golf course is are there any driveable par fours how are the par fivs

And this course in particular and I’ll share the scorecard up there right now is it’s quite short 6,600 yards in California the ball’s going to go far so right away I know that the scores are going to be relatively on the lower side this one this qualifier in particular

Had 12 players and ties get through out of about a 100 competitors now what you can do is actually look at the last year or the previous year’s scores to get a rough estimate of what it’s going to take to get through cuz on average it’s going to

Be roughly the same anywhere from like 200 under to 5 under almost always gets in on these pre-qualifiers depending on how many spots they actually give now one thing I want you guys to take note of when you’re looking at my scorecard is I do take a lot of notes

Ideally have my notepad with me but I didn’t in this case and one thing before I move on these red dots are going to come into play later on and I’ll explain that shortly but when it comes to my scorecard here I like to take notes

Every single Club I hit into every Green where the wind wind direction was whether it was in the rough did I hit it well did I hit it short kind of getting a gauge of what shots I hit going into the holes the next day I will bring this

Scorecard to me in the practice round just to see if I go to let’s say the fourth hole oh it was 100 y I actually hit a 50° wedge to try to take some spin-off because this screen in particular was very soft so there’s going to be a lot

Of things I’m going to take from the practice round into the actual round of golf itself so moral of a story here is take lots of notes because you never know when they’re going to come in handy I think it’s very important to be able to have a reference point of certain

Holes certain shots because if you’re nervous if you’re not playing well like it wanted to and you reference those notes and you be like oh I actually hit a perfect seven arm pin high on this hole and it’s the same conditions let’s do the exact thing something like that

Is going to give you a tremendous amount of confidence hitting that shot especially if you can reference to the practice round where you hit the exact same shot and you executed it perfectly so don’t underestimate taking notes they come in Handy now let’s go back to these red dots what these red dots do is they signify where the hole is going to be the next day now we did this practice around the day before the tournament so that means the pin is going to be right

Where that t is now what I like to do and you’re going to see it on the screen here is I actually like to chart the greens myself and I like to put where that dot is in reference to the pin sheet for the next day so I can kind of

Get a good gauge of where I need to hit the shot and I like to hit a few putts ideally pin High because that’s where I expect to be and see how the putt reacts and if it’s something I don’t necessarily expect I’m going to write those notes down in my little notebook

Here again when you’re doing these practice rounds you don’t want to take a million hours to do this stuff but I think it’s very important to be taking good quality notes and definitely be charting the greens especially here I’ve learned that the greens are quite soft despite being in California so what I

Did I had 112 yards and I ended up hitting 120 yard shot it carried about 118 yards and it spun back to about 114 or like 13 yards and I had about a six seven footer for birdie right so I could reference that in the practice round so

I could use it into the tournament the following day and as you can see I’m actually playing quite well a minus two through four holes and had a really really good chance here for birdie and again when you’re going into these practice rounds if you can see the pin

The green is slightly elevated to where I am on the T box so that’s another note I’m going to make in my little notebook there right this hole was 186 but actually played Four Yards uphill so it’s a 190 shot now during the practice

Round I had a down wind so I could just hit a stock seven and it ended up being perfect so I had the exact same wind in the tournament itself so I just hit the same Club and I hit a good shot I think I actually birdied this in the tournament

Round now one thing I’ve noted so far playing this golf course is the trouble seems to mostly be on the left side and for me my Miss tends to be a fanny Fade to the right so that tells me with a lot of these shorter holes I can be

Aggressive because I don’t really miss to the left so you’ll see throughout the course of the round here that I hit a lot of drivers right right again we’re playing a one round shootout we need to be aggressive we don’t need to shoot ourselves in the

Foot right we don’t want to make bad decisions but we know that we’re going to have to shoot under par to get through and if this was a PJ tour Monday qualifier at this course I would say the minimum score you’d trying to be firing

Would at least be a 65 because of how short the golf course is now again we got out of bounds all up the left side so I could just comfortably aim up the left side and just hit my normal stock cut that’s a nice thing with this course

It really suits my and this is probably why I actually played quite well is cuz I could comfortably rip driver off every single hole now if I was someone who had a big left Miss I may not have been as aggressive off the tea and I may not

Have played as well right so just because you don’t necessarily play well it doesn’t it’s not always your fault sometimes golf courses just don’t necessarily suit your eye and that means you you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself right so just make sure that you try to pick events pick venues that

Kind of suit your game obviously not everybody can pick and choose but if you’re a professional golfer if you’re someone who knows that they really struggle with open windy golf courses but they’re very good on tight kind of Parkland style golf courses what you can do is most of these

Golf courses most of these like qualifiers actually do have have multiple courses so if you’re diligent enough and you plan early enough as soon as those golf courses open the registration you can pick the golf course that you feel suits your game a little bit better right now obviously

Certain qualifiers like this qualifier in itself had only two options for golf courses and they’re both relatively similar so I ne I had played either so I really didn’t care to be honest but I did play in the the waste management pre-qualifier and I believe there was six maybe seven different qualifiers at

Different courses right so at that sense you can look to see oh am I someone that goes really low on easy golf courses then you should pick that right the golf course I chose in my pre-qualifier the cut was 62 I shot 69 and lost by seven

Right so if you’re someone that can really go low that’s a better option for you if you’re someone that likes to grind and can grind out a 69 when the conditions are quite hard then you should choose that style Golf Course right the beauty is you can go back and

Look to see what type of scores are being shot in these qualifiers do your homework don’t be lazy right if you are smart with this stuff you can really take advantage of some of these things right but that requires a little bit of effort the people that aren’t going to qualify are

The lazy people that are just going to sign up and show up and play right you have to do your homework try to give yourself the absolute best chance of qualifying here as we head towards the back nine we are two under through nine I’m going to give you a little bit more

Strategy and insight into why I hit some shots now I did hit driver there in the practice round but in the tournament I hit three-wood the reason why straight ahead it was about 315 yards through the Fairway and into those trees and it’s downhill if it’s a little windy

That is absolutely doable I managed to cut the corner a little bit and hit a perfect drive but if I make the mistake of hitting a shot that’s dead straight or I even push a little bit to the right I’m screwed now this hole here look look

At that 315 yard to get to this par five in two I ended up just laying up but it’s not worth the risk to try to rip driver and then rip a three-wood that probably won’t even get there right so if that out of bounds that tree line is

Going to come into play a little bit and I can’t really get there into two we’re going to make the decision to just make sure we take that stuff completely out of play hit it in the Fairway lay it up with a two iron or four iron and have

Like 100 to 115 yards in and try to give ourselves a good chance at bre right just because it’s a par five just because it’s a driveable par 4 if the strategy doesn’t really fit you don’t have to hit driver I’m someone who is very aggressive with driver and I

Typically hit driver a lot but not every scenario requires it now here’s a hole that we can see there’s a little bit water short left of the green and we don’t know exactly how far that comes in to the Fairway so what we’re going to do

Here I’m hitting a two iron and I still wasn’t really sure so I ended up hitting a very poor pushy shot to almost just like subconsciously not go in the water on the left what I should have done maybe hit a four iron take a little bit

Less Club guarantee a shot but again I’ve never played this golf course before so what we’re going to do we’re going to hit multiple shots here I’m actually going to go grab a three-wood to see how far that water actually Cuts in I’m purposely going to try to go up

The left side and challenge that water to see if a perfect Freewood actually goes in the water now I believe in the tournament I ended up hitting a four iron off the te because that water does cut in and when we get into the approach shot here you’re going to see that two

Iron although it was kind of a high Fanny right shot is going to be very much in line with the water and it’s we don’t want to take any unnecessary risk right if we’re going to lay up lay up okay like I said as you can see here

We’re right in line with the water I mean we only have 152 yards so we are going to hit a pitching wedge cuz it is a jumpy lie but our goal here especially when it’s a hard hole if you’re going to lay up make sure you lay

Up remember we don’t really care about score ideally we shoot something good in this practice round but the whole goal is is to learn we need to learn what clubs we’re going to hit off certain holes when we’re going to attack when we’re going to play defensive you need

To have a strategy going into these tournament rounds every single time right you need to know going into it what shots you’re going to hit off each te if you don’t you’re then you’re just going to be thinking you’re going to be making decisions based on emotions and

Based on what you’ve done the previous holes because that’s just human nature right if you make a bogey on the last hole you’re going to play more aggressive on the next hole try to get it back but can’t do that we’re all good golfers here for the most part I mean

Speaking for myself I’m capable of ratting off a bunch of birdies in a row so I know if I make a bogey it’s not the end of the world if I make a double it’s not the end of the world because I know I can make birdies coming back here and

I do apologize for not showing the putt on that massive R 3 for some reason the I don’t I don’t know what happened either I didn’t record it it got deleted who knows I T put it for par it’s fine now this hole we’re finally starting to get a little bit of trouble

On the right side so when that trouble’s on the right side what I typically like to do is aim up the left side and hit my safety cut this shot is going to go significantly amount shorter but it’s very accurate it’s a club I can rely on

And I’m never going to miss left my Miss is going to be an overcut but because I’m aiming so far left I would have to hit a horrendous golf shot almost like that putt for it to not stay in play having a safety shot again when you’re doing these qualifiers when

You’re playing tournaments it’s so important you really need to make sure you have something to rely on whether it’s a stinger whether it’s a big draw whether it’s a big fade it doesn’t matter I don’t care what it is you need something to hit when stuff is going

Wrong because in tournaments and anyone that’s played a tournament will tell you stuff goes wrong all the time right you’re going to hit a shot where you double cross it you blast it right you hit it out of bounds and then that next swing you’re going to be very tentative

Right and then you’re going to instead of blasting it right you’re going to Quick snap hook it left to overom compensate we don’t want that for me I love that safety cut and how I hit it I choke up a little bit I aim a little bit

Left and all I try to do is just swing left that’s it I’m not opening up the face right I’m keeping my club face relatively square and I’m getting that curve by making sure that club path is going hard left the more I swing left the more it’s going to curve right now

Here’s another good example of what you should do in a tournament golf in general I’m setting up for this shot here and I am definitely aiming so much more right than I should right as opposed to correcting it in my stance in the golf shot there I back off collect

Myself and then really try to focus and make sure my alignment is a priority there is no issue of taking a few extra seconds to make sure your setup is good most issues shoes in the golf swing stem from an improper setup whether you’re aiming right aiming left standing Too

Close standing too far you want to make sure you give yourself every chance at success golf is hard enough when everything is going perfectly right when you’re set up good everything is going fine do not make it harder on yourself by setting up to a putt and thinking it

Breaks a little bit right and setting up there and be like oh I don’t think it breaks that much right so what I’m going to do I’m going to pull it a little bit that’s the worst way of thinking you can’t be doing that you’ve got to have

Perfect and complete Clarity when it comes to set up and approaching the Sha do all the thinking behind the ball beside the ball I don’t care but as soon as you set up into hitting that golf shot you’re locked in you’re only thinking of your target maybe one swing

Thought and then you’re good to go we have another example of trouble to the right I’m not quite sure of what to do so we’re going to hit that little bit of a bender cut there and it ended up up it didn’t cut as much as we wanted to but

It’s fine a short hole we got a good chance at birdie if we can get up and down from about 75 80 yards don’t ask me about the camera angle here I don’t know what we were doing I think I was playing around with the three Zoom there we got

Another chance for birdie when it comes to these qualifiers as you can see I this is how I like to play golf I’m not the best putter as you guys know but I it’s a lot of stressfree golf I hit a lot of greens a lot of Fairways I have a

Lot of bird putts I don’t make a lot of the birdie putts but I also have a lot of tapin and it’s very stressfree when you get into these rounds of golf banging these four or five Footers in for par it it just wears on you you’re eventually going to miss

One and it’s going to throw off your psyche here’s one more example of a par five where we did not hit a driver in the tournament same thing about 320 yards straight away is out of bounds and I hit a great drive here just to see where it

Ended up and it ended up being like right beside the added bounds so when it came to the tournament I ended up just ripping a three- wi up the left side I still easily got there in two but again it wasn’t worth it taking this unnecessary risk to try to get a few

More yards into this par five because when it came to the tournament itself I was either three or four under going into this hole and I knew that was going to be for the most part good enough enough it ended up winning but I just didn’t want to make I just didn’t want

To pump drive and hit it great and then I’m out of bounds right I didn’t want to be punished for a for a great shot so I made sure I hit the club that was never ever going to make it to that out of bounds and we still managed to make

Birdie unlike here that was a nice three- wiggle City man that was absolutely brutal and as you can see here caddy Josh hasn’t been making a single thing all day we’re kind of rubbing off on the best way but it’s fine we rocking and rolling when it came to the round

Itself now last hole 18th hole 350 yards we hit driver here but when it came to the tournament again I knew I had a chance at doing really well so I did not hit driver didn’t need to take any unnecessarily risk here ended up just

Hitting a four iron hit like a I don’t know pitching wedge to the green two puted and left thank you I really played precision and surgical golf when it came to that tournament and I do believe the prep work really contributed to that I really relied on a lot of my

Notes a lot of my green sketchings everything just felt so easy and I need to do that every single time and I think you guys need to do that every single time if you’re going to take golf seriously so if you found this helpful please leave a comment let me know which

Piece of advice you like the most that was also too that putt terrible I think I was hungry the last couple putts we was absolutely bad but it didn’t matter we managed to shoot a good score in the tournament and won so let me know if you like this video like comment subscribe Cheers