Don’t let your practising be just aimless smashing of the balls. Try to make it clear what you are practising and why. If practising feels boring, it will be of little avail.

You can train your basic shot by playing long straight lanes on felt, lanes 4 and 18 on beton, or the midhill and cannon on eternite. Learn also to vary the force, so that it does not negatively affect the direction or other parts of the shot. (You will notice that in very forceful shots it is difficult to keep the direction accurate. Unnecessary use of force should always be avoided, when playing in tournaments.)

If you have any natural spin, you should go back to the basics and try to learn a totally spinless basic shot. You might end up having two reliable basic shots, one with natural spin and one without it. This would be just about the best possible situation!

Good training for spin shots on felt are various “spare shots” from along the lane, playing from the backside of the green, or from one side wall and the backside of the green. Study what kind of spins the ball takes from the side walls (first hitting a side wall and then the backside of green). Also learn to estimate how much the spin “wears off” from the ball at a long distance.

On eternite spin is mainly used at wheel, bridge, flat loop, and flash. Double hill is one of the best lanes for training your spin technique: put a large ball with bounce 10 cm on the center spot, and try to play it into the hole from the backside of green, without using the side walls. You can use right-hand spin and pass the hole on the right side, or use left-hand spin and pass the hole on the left side.

(On lanes with round greens, if a spinless shot passes the hole on one side, it will bounce back on the other side of the hole. If you want to get the ball into the hole, the shot must have left-hand spin when the ball passes the hole on the left side, and right-hand spin when the ball passes the hole on the right side. This use of spin is very common on eternite, and it is called “check spin”. Also on beton “check spin” often explains why the ball goes into the hole, but the spin is usually produced by the side walls of the lane, not by the player.)

When practising the use of check spin on double hill, you will notice that the direction of the shot must be very precise: if the ball passes the hole as close as it can, you only need very little spin, but if the ball passes the hole five centimeters away, you already need a very strong spin to get the ball into the hole. The skill of producing spin does not help you much, unless you also are able to keep the direction of the shot accurate. Double hill is an excellent lane for training one’s spin technique, because you can see it very clearly how accurate the direction of your shots is, and how much you are getting spin to the ball. (In competitions the double hill is nearly always played from the side walls, because the straight spin shot is technically difficult and has a very small margin for error.)

Playing rounds is valuable training as too: you will constantly face new problems and unexpected situations. Find your own personal playing style and tempo, and behave in the same manner both when practising and in tournaments. If a situation occurs which requires special examination and consideration, do all the additional thinking and preparations before you take your stance to play the shot. The cause for a failed shot can be so simple that the player has tried to concentrate too much over the shot (which is common under pressure), or the player has made the shot too quickly and carelessly (which is common after one or two failed shots).

Always make sure that at the moment when you play a shot, you are optimistic and certain about succeeding in it.

TOP TEN TIPS FOR PRACTISING

1) Trace your weaknesses and concentrate on them. If you have problems with the spinless basic shot, hard shots, force touch, strong left-hand spin, strong right-hand spin, delicate left-hand spin, delicate right-hand spin... practise it! If you avoid the parts of the game that are difficult for you, and only enjoy your favourite easy shots all the time, you will never become a great champion.

2) Identify your weakest lanes and practise them. Especially on the day before a tournament you should not waste much time on lanes which you already master perfectly. Concentrate on the lanes where you are performing less perfectly, where some extra study and practice can save you many points. Many players and teams play “mini rounds” during the day before competition, skipping the easiest lanes and playing only the most difficult and decisive lanes.

3) Keep in mind that you can sometimes miss the opening shot. Practise putting from various places, and if you have time, make with your team members a complete putting map of the minigolf course (by putting from various places, and writing in a notebook where you needed to aim to get the ball in the middle of the hole). Test the most common “spare shot” options from the side walls on lanes like “illusion”. Practise putting on midhill, and make sure that you have chosen a ball that bounces to a comfortable distance from the backside of the lane, should you ever miss the opening shot.

4) Pay attention to the force of your shots generally. Do you use unnecessarily much force, or are your shots generally a bit too weak? When you play lanes like midhill, is the force of the shot usually close to optimal? You cannot expect to always hit the center of hole: your shots should be gentle enough so that the ball can sink also at the edges of the hole. But not so gentle that you risk leaving the shot too short from time to time.

5) Study the way how different balls behave after hitting a side wall. In which angle do they bounce from the wall, and how much spin do they get from the wall? On different courses the walls behave in different ways: when you are preparing for a competition, check how your chosen balls behave from the side walls and backside of green, in case you miss the opening shot and end up in unexpected places along the lane.

6) Analyze your aiming technique: does it always function reliably? Do you ever miss a shot because of a mistake in aiming, rather than a mistake in your swing? Is your playing stance always in the same angle compared to the line of the shot? Straight shots are quite simple, but in off-straight shots the risk of such mistakes increases greatly.

7) When you have nothing else to do, practise spin shots. Go crazy: play midhill with spin, or the straight lanes, or anything. The more you know about spins, the more you have secret weapons in your pocket for the bad day when a lane or a “spare shot” requires extraordinary spin shot skills.

8) Make sport of the game. Play trick shots that look ridiculous but require great skills. Play a round using left-hand spin in every shot (including the putts), and then another round using right-hand spin in every shot.

9) Make a game of the sport. Play practice rounds on the course, concentrating like in a real tournament. Play a few rounds under 20 on eternite, and under 30 on beton, felt and open system.

10) Go home. Don’t spend too much time at the minigolf course, lest you get fed up with the game.