Watching the World's Best on the Range at The Open

Last week I went up to Royal Birkdale for The Open. Most people head straight for the grandstands. I spent the best part of my day stood by the practice range, watching the best players in the world warm up. I promise that's less strange than it sounds.

Here's the thing: the practice range at The Open runs on Toptracer. The exact same system we have in every bay at Winchester Golf Academy. Same cameras, same tracking, same numbers on the screen. So while everyone else was off following their favourites down the fairways, I had a rare chance to see how the very best use the same technology our members hit balls on every day.

What the pros actually do on the range

The first thing that strikes you is how little they hit driver. Almost every player I watched spent most of their session on wedges and mid irons, working through their carry numbers one at a time. Pick a number, land the ball on it, check the screen, repeat. A caddie stood behind almost every bay comparing what the ball did against what the yardage book said it should do.

Nobody was raking balls over as fast as they could. Every single shot had a target and a number attached to it. If it didn't do what they wanted, they wanted to know why, and the screen told them.

Sunday morning with the world number one

The highlight for me came on Sunday morning. I found a spot behind bays 17 and 18 and watched Scottie Scheffler, the world number one, go through his final-round warm-up a few feet away. It was calm, unhurried and completely deliberate. Short wedges first, then up through the bag, one ball flight at a time, with his caddie confirming the carries as he went. By the time the driver came out, he'd already hit every shot he was planning to use on the course.

The same tech is sitting in Winchester

This is the bit I really want to get across. There was nothing on that range that we don't have at the academy. The carry distances, ball speed, launch, height and curve that Scheffler's team were reading at Birkdale are the same numbers on the screen in every one of our bays. My Practice mode will even run you through the same kind of session I watched the pros do: pick a target, hit to it, and see exactly what the ball did rather than what you hoped it did.

The difference between their range session and ours isn't the technology. It's the habit. They treat every ball as information. That's something any of us can copy the next time we're in a bay, whatever our handicap.

"Watching Scheffler warm up, the thing I kept thinking was: our members hit balls on exactly this system every day. Next time you're in, try one bucket the way the pros do it. Pick one wedge number, hit ten balls at it, and let the screen tell you the truth. It's the fastest way to get better that I know."