How to practice like a member of the U.S. National Junior Team

For the second straight year, the U.S. National Junior Team — part of the broader U.S. National Development Program, which launched in 2023 with a mission to identify, train, develop, fund and support the nation’s most promising young players — descended upon Scottsdale’s Desert Mountain in early March for the group’s spring practice session. Last year, I attended one of the sessions to get a feel for how the team operated. I came away impressed by the highly-organized and specific drills they practiced, and jumped at the chance to observe the team in action again this year.

Twenty members of the team’s 24-player roster were present for the multi-day practice session, and head coach Chris Zambri had the team undergo the same combine-style practice drills as before, which involves rotating between three separate practice areas and completing four different drills designed to sharpen putting skills, bunker shots and ball-striking.

How did Zambri land on this particular plan of attack for practice? Years of experience — and data collection.

Prior to his appointment as head coach of the U.S. National Junior Team, Zambri, a former pro himself, coached the men’s golf teams at both the University of Southern California and Pepperdine. While at USC, Zambri worked with a research scientist to identify the average length of putts that players were leaving themselves during a round. Using that data, Zambri created an “18-hole” exercise to simulate a round’s putts on the practice greens.

Putting: Simulate a round

At Desert Mountain, the players’ simulated putting rounds included practicing putts from two feet to 52 feet, putting out any misses and recording their scores. Zambri’s data is patented, but available on the Decade Golf app to the general public with a paid subscription. Every member of the U.S. Junior National Team has access to Decade Golf as well.

With these stats, not only can the juniors compare their scores among themselves, they can also compare them to the PGA Tour average. On this particular drill, a score of 29 equates to 0 strokes gained on the PGA Tour. Players can also analyze their speed by measuring how many inches long or short their putts end up.

Want to try this drill for yourself? If you’re a stat tracker, you can incorporate data from your own recent rounds for a truly personalized practice round. Or, there’s apps like Decade Golf.

“The advice that I would give to the general public is to take a tape measure and actually calculate how far 12 inches is, 6 inches, 24 inches,” USNDP regional coach Mo Martin advised. “Because 20 inches is a lot smaller than a lot of people think.”

Bunkers: Target proximity

For sand practice, the players hit 15 shots from the bunker to a “pin,” which was embodied by USNDP assistant coach Tiffany Joh, who changed locations for each shot. Every shot’s proximity to the target is measured in inches (with a maximum of 200 inches) and the three highest numbers are thrown out at the end. The remaining numbers are then added together for a total number. The lower the number, the better your bunker play.

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Driving range: Line test

In this test, players use a launch monitor set to a specific target to measure how far offline each shot is. The players hit 20 shots with the number of yards missed left or right added together for a total score.

Driving range: Random yardages

Once again, the players are tasked with hitting 20 shots, but this time, the random yardage test is meant to challenge players to hit a specific yardage with their scoring clubs — wedges to short irons — in an attempt to simulate an on-course experience.

The point of these drills, of course, is not only to help players improve but also to provide a baseline for that improvement. The tests are repeated in the fall, so players can compare results, as well as test themselves at home in between the team’s formal gatherings.

“It’s an awesome practice tool,” said USNDP assistant manager Christopher Tanabe of the combine drills. “It’s one thing to just go to the range, work on your swing and hit balls, but like doing a test like this, especially when you’re so focused on getting on-line, it’s so intentional, you’re tired after. But it’s a good way to finish up a day on the range.”

Ultimately, Zambri said he hopes the players can use the combine drills not only as a means of game improvement, but also as a measurement of true excellence.

“We did this test for about 11 years, twice a week, with a bunch of really good players,” Zambri said of the combine’s development. “So, consequently, we figured out what really, really good is. And so it’s almost like a ladder of just trying to find your way towards that number eventually.

“We’re pretty much saying, close to the human level of excellence is a score of maybe X on one of these tests. And what are you getting? And that tells us right there, where’s the room for growth? How much room? Are we there? If we’re there, we can say, hey, no matter what happens, get over it quickly because you’re doing something really, really well.

“On the other hand, we can say to other people, hey, you might want to try a few things. We’ve got to get this score down from 80 to 60, or 160 down to 120. A measuring stick is what I’m hoping for, to pass that along to them so that they go home and get better at it.”

For the best young players in the world — and the rest of us recreational players — here’s hoping these drills can help make this upcoming season of golf the best yet.