Help – Practice Sessions

Practice sessions are the backbone of improving with Golf Mentor. You can record a past practice session manually, or use Live Practice to capture swings in real time with your Apple Watch and iPhone.

Starting a Live Practice Session

  • From MyHome, tap Start Practice in the left-hand menu (☰ on mobile).
  • Choose your Focus for the session. Golf Mentor suggests focuses based on your recent games and practice history — these appear under Recommended For You. You can also choose from the Other Practice Goals list below.
  • Enter your practice Place (driving range, putting green, backyard, etc.).
  • Tap Start. Put your iPhone in your pocket and start hitting.

During a Live Practice Session

  • Your Apple Watch detects each swing automatically — no button press needed.
  • After each swing, the Watch displays a brief summary of your key metrics.
  • The Live Practice screen shows your swings as they are recorded.
  • Tap Sync Watch in the left-hand menu if the Watch connection drops.
  • If connectivity is lost, swings are buffered and uploaded when the connection restores.

Ending a Live Practice Session

  • Tap End Practice from the left-hand menu.
  • Add any final notes or comments.
  • Tap Save.

A Practice Recap is then generated — see below for what it contains.

Tempo Focus and the Metronome

When you choose Tempo as your practice focus, Golf Mentor activates a metronome that plays two beats for each swing:

  • Beat 1 — your cue to begin your takeaway.
  • Beat 2 — your cue that you have reached the top of your backswing. This is the moment to smoothly change direction and start your downswing.

There is no beat for impact — the downswing and follow-through are left entirely to muscle memory. This is deliberate:

  • Prevents rushing the top: waiting for the second beat trains a smooth, patient transition. The most common amateur mistake is starting the downswing too early.
  • Eliminates hit impulse: trying to time impact to a click can cause tension and wrist flip. Removing the impact beat promotes a natural release.
  • Creates reliable triggers: beat 1 says go, beat 2 says change direction. Everything else is autopilot.

The gap between the two beats is set to three times your average downswing duration — matching the classic 3:1 backswing-to-downswing tempo ratio used by most Tour professionals.

First Tempo Session — Metronome Calibration

The metronome timing is personalised to your swing using data from your most recent recorded swings. If you are new to Golf Mentor, or have not recorded many swings yet, the initial calibration may not feel right.

What to do: hit 10 practice swings in your first tempo session without worrying about the metronome beat. Then tap End Practice, save the session, and start a new one. On the second session, the metronome will be calibrated to your actual downswing speed and should feel natural.

Choosing a Focus

The focus you choose shapes your session:

  • Recommended focuses are suggested by Golf Mentor based on metrics from your recent games and practices — for example, if your tempo has been inconsistent, Tempo will appear in your recommendations.
  • Other Practice Goals let you choose any focus manually — useful if you have a specific area you want to work on regardless of the data.

The focus also determines which metrics are read aloud on your Apple Watch after each swing during the session.

Posting a Past Practice (Manual Entry)

  • From MyHome, tap Post Practice in the left-hand menu.
  • Fill in: Duration, Place, Focus, Outcome, and optionally a Comment.
  • Tap Post to save.

Understanding Your Practice Recap

After ending a live session, a Practice Recap is generated with:

  • Swing count by category (full, pitch, approach, mistaken).
  • Average metrics — impact speed, tempo, horizontal rotation, and timing.
  • Consistency scores — how repeatable your swing was across the session.
  • AI coaching summary — a paragraph from the AI Caddy interpreting your session and suggesting focus areas for next time.

Open the session from MyHome to see the full recap, individual swings, and to start a chat with the AI coach.

Contribution Analysis

Contribution Analysis is a section of the recap (currently shown to coaching/admin accounts) that looks across every metric tracked in the session and reports which one correlates most strongly with your Impact Speed — the Strongest Contributor.

It only reports a contributor when there is enough data to trust it: at least 6 swings with both values present, and a correlation of at least 0.3 in magnitude. If nothing in the session clears that bar, the section shows "No significant contributions found" instead of guessing.

This is expected and not an error. It usually means one of:

  • The session was too short to have enough paired data (fewer than 6 usable swings).
  • A tracked metric was too noisy or inconsistent swing-to-swing to show a clear pattern.
  • No single tracked metric stood out as a clear driver of speed changes that session — speed may have varied for reasons the tracked metrics do not explain.

A "No significant contributions found" result does not mean the session went badly — only that Contribution Analysis could not identify one dominant cause with confidence. The rest of the recap (Key Metrics, the Focus Over Session / Focus vs Outcome chart, and the AI coaching summary) still reflects the full session even when Contribution Analysis is empty.

Watch Error Codes

During a Practice or Lesson session the Golf Mentor Watch app may display a 3-digit error code on the watch face. Here is what each code means and how to fix it.

Code Meaning Fix
E101 Watch has no session — iPhone hasn't sent one yet Open Golf Mentor on your iPhone and start or re-open your session
E201 HealthKit workout never started on the Watch Force-quit the Watch app, reopen it, then tap Sync Watch in the iPhone left-hand menu
E202 HealthKit workout started but stopped unexpectedly Same fix as E201
E301 Watch motion sensors never sent a sample Force-quit the Watch app, reopen it, then tap Sync Watch on the iPhone
E302 Watch motion sensors stopped mid-session Same fix as E301
E401 Swing upload timed out — server or phone didn't respond Check iPhone internet connection; the swing may retry automatically

How to Force-Quit the Golf Mentor Watch App

  1. Press the side button (the long rectangular button, not the Digital Crown) to show the app switcher.
  2. Swipe the Golf Mentor card fully to the left to dismiss it.
  3. Reopen Golf Mentor from the Watch home screen.

After relaunching the Watch app, open the iPhone app and tap Sync Watch in the left-hand menu. This re-sends the session to the Watch so it can reconnect.

How to Force-Quit the Golf Mentor iPhone App

  1. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen (or double-press the Home button on older iPhones) to open the app switcher.
  2. Swipe the Golf Mentor card upwards to close it.
  3. Reopen Golf Mentor from the home screen.

Key Metrics (What They Mean)

  • Duration: You need to select the length of time of your practice session.
  • Place: Here you can enter the place where the practice session took place.
  • Focus: You need to select the focus of your practice session.
  • Outcome: You need to select the outcome of your practice session.
  • Comment: You can add detailed notes on your practice session here

For full metric definitions, see Swing Analysis Help.