Question: The term "free will" can imply that one's will is without causes. But whenever we make a decision, it always has causes. 

ex: If you have just enough money to buy either an apple or a chocolate for a snack, what makes you choose one over the other?

Is it a spontaneous decision without any causes? No! If you pick the chocolate, it could be due to the craving of the taste of chocolate at that time. Why do you crave for it? Because the taste of chocolate had made an impression on you which says that it is enjoyable. Would you have chosen the chocolate, if it had an unpleasant taste? So your willingness to pick the chocolate is not really free. Because the taste played a big role in your decision. On the other hand, if you are willing to pick the apple, is that willingness free? No! Again, it could be because of the of the taste. Or because eating the apple would be healthier. If the apple wasn't a healthy food, would you have picked it? So your willingness to pick the apple is dependant on the condition of the food. 
Even if you pick any one of them just because you are hungry, is that decision free? No! Because the decision is cause by hunger and hunger is cause by other causes.

So the question is: is free will possible in a practical world or is it just 'will' which isn't free?

Answer: 
Words are pointers. They are not the thing they represent. As such the question misses the point. 

In Buddhism there a distinction between karma and things like cultural programming on the one hand and liberation and conscious choice on the other hand.

The problem is that you don't have a concept of what conscious choice means. You might never have experienced it so any word can't point you to the concept. You will always match it to previous experience that are of a different quality.
You can observe that all the decisions you have made in your life can't be reasonably called free but that doesn't mean that's true for everyone.

If you sit a while in meditation you can discover new ways to make choices. Not anymore by bound to pick the chocolate because you have aren't picking the chocolate anymore because you have a craving for it or eat the apple because you should eat healthy.
You cannot always choose - conscious choice implies awareness: but when you can, choose well.

[Free will](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will) has been the subject of argument in Western philosophy: partly because of notions like "God is omnipotent" (because if God can do anything and does everything then how much choice do we have); and/or because the opposite notion of the world having a physical (not spiritual or mental) basis.

IMO this is a 'false dichotomy'. It might be asking [a question about the existence of self](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta#Views_on_self) of the kind that it's recommended you don't ask.

There was a nursery story (i.e. a children's fable) told to me: someone asked a centipede, "Which foot do you move first?" and the centipede thought about it and didn't know and got confused etc. Whereas a natural centipede will just move.

Similarly a natural person makes decisions, and those decisions have an effect, and self-training (if you choose to do so) can make the decisions more skillful, etc.