4 tips to improve your game - Be the smartest golfer you know

I play often with amateurs from 0-28 handicaps and notice many habits that are not optimal. I am often surprised at how bad many players short game is under pressure so the first couple of tips are short game related and the next two are for full swing.

Find a putting green and place a tee at 3′ 6′, 9′, and 15′ away from the hole. Putt the tees in the ground to the top of the tee is just about even with the service. Putt balls on each of the tees and hit putts from each spot. The point of this exercise is to keep your eyes down after the ball is struck. Notice I didn’t say keep your head still because good putter don’t keep their heads still while putting. Practice keeping your eyes down rotating from balls on the tee for 30 minutes and you should improve.
Learning touch from chipping and pitching is difficult for many beginning and intermediate players. To be good at these shots you must be able to visualize theses shots and feel these shots. Most of your power for these shots come from your trail, normally your right arm and hand. For this drill put about 8 balls in your pocket and stand next to a practice putting green. Practice throwing balls underhand with different trajectories for as long as you need to become pretty good at height and distance using your hand to throw it. This should help you when you then put a club in your hand.
I hear players say they are in between clubs all the time when maybe this is not the case. In reality you should be able to hit three clubs to most distances. For this drill go to a driving range and pick out a target and distance that you would normally be able to hit a 9 iron and also a 6 iron from. If you hit your 9 iron 100 yards or 140 it does not matter for this drill just pick out your yardage. For session one use your wedge, 9 and 8 irons. Hit two ball with the Wedge, then 9 and then 8 iron to the same target. This is a great drill. To hit your wedge farther you may want to put the ball back further in your stance and feel like you extend your right arm and wrist a little faster at the ball. For the 8-iron you may want to play the ball a little forward. In theory if you hit a normal straight ball from a neutral position you should hit a slight draw with the ball back and a slight fade with the ball forward. After about 45 ball switch to your 6 iron distance and then do the same drill with a 7, 6 and 5 iron.
This is the hardest drill but can be the most rewarding for good iron players. This is one I heard about from Lee Trevino friends who said he used to hit 5 irons out of fairway bunkers to practice good body motion and solid contact. Try hitting a few different clubs like 9-7-and 5 irons hitting about 30 balls each. This can be frustrating because you must hit the ball perfect or you will chunk it or hit is skinny. You will definitely learn to hit the ball more clean. If you are not able to find a range with a bunker to practice from you may want to find a patch of dirt somewhere next to the range and put your own sand in a spot. You could borrow two or three sand bottle from a cart and dump them into a area essentially making your own practice bunker.