Practice makes perfect, but perfect practice ranges are rare

        There are a couple of reasons I don’t hit more than just a few limbering shots on a practice range before I head for the first tee.  One, I really do leave all the good ones on the range.  Unfettered by the pressure to hit a shot exactly where I want

to, I, of course, hit the ball where I want to on the range, straight and generally true.  But the other reason for ignoring the range is that, with few exceptions, yardage markers on practice ranges, even at some of the better private golf clubs, are inconsistently placed, if indeed they are there at all.  At my advancing age, I never know if I have picked a day when my 5-iron will fly 160 yards or 150.  To find out on the range before the round would be a big benefit, but should we really have to walk off the 10 or 15 yards to the marker and then do the math to figure out the distance.  Is it really that expensive to put a few more yardage blocks in the ground?

        Fully outfitted ranges are far and few between, but when I find one I am impressed.  The golf community of Fawn Lake, which I visited for the first time this week, has one of the best.  Wide enough for a full outing of golfers to practice and with pins stuck in shaved areas that look like putting greens, the Fawn Lake range is a great place to practice before or between rounds.  And if you keep your head down, you will see clearly marked yardage blocks on the Fawn Lake range, spaced at intervals of about five yards for the 25 yard depth of the hitting area.

         I rarely use a practice range on days when I don’t play.  But if I lived at Fawn Lake, I might make an exception.

Great ground game:  Fawn Lake's clearly marked and frequently placed yardage markers makes its practice range among the most helpful anywhere.