Are you a Stick or a Hack? Depending on which you are, you have a jaded view of the importance of the driving range.

According to one unnamed, but certainly real, major golf publication, 85% of golfers identify as sticks.  According to the same publication, 75% of golfers are wrong. The good news is that none of it matters. Stick or hack, the pre-round trip to the driving range is overrated.

Why is this, you may ask?  A stick arrives early to warm up, takes his time, and employs a carefully laid out regime. The stick sees the importance of the driving range, apparently. He works his way methodically through the bag, does some chipping and putting drills, and hits the first tee.  A hack shows up 10 minutes before his tee time, sprays some irons, and pounds 20 drivers. He finally hits one straight(ish), rolls putts until one falls, and says something along the lines of “Course record’s in trouble today boys!”.

The results are fairly easy to intuit.  

The stick plays great. Not because of the warmup but because he’s a freaking player.  The hack has to buy another dozen balls at the turn. You hear such classics as “I don’t know what’s wrong, I hit’m great on the range”, or “the cart girl pulled up during my backswing, threw my whole game off.”

So, as I’ve scientifically proven, the importance of the driving range is a falsehood.  What to do instead? Sit aimlessly in your car listening to Howard 100 on Sirius/XM, or read the latest John Green book that your daughter left in your backseat. Stare up into the sky and try to count the number of planes that fly overhead and wonder where all of those people are going. Or drink. For the stick, he is going to shoot 72-75 and be fine no matter what.

And you hack…well it won’t matter if you hit 1,000 balls the best you have ever hit them, on the tee box of hole number one you are going to duck hook it into the lake anyway. So what does it matter?