If you’re anything like me, you want to improve your golf, but you find it tough to get to the golf course often enough. With that in mind – what can you do to practice golf at home?

In this article I’ll cover my top ways to max out your golfing progress while you’re stuck at home. This isn’t an extensive list of 50 drills, but rather the best set of ideas I have come across. In total this will give you roughly an hour of focused practice. Enjoy.

Golf swing drills at home (15 mins)

Putting drills at home (20 mins)

Chipping drills at home (15 mins)

Practice golf at home extras

Golf swing drills at home

Golf swing drills are an obvious place to start but hear me out, most golfers do not max out their progression with golf swing drills. There are three key ways you can practice your golf swing at home. Most focus on the first example listed below, but I personally love option two for higher level golfers (single figure players and pros), and would suggest option three to most developing golfers (10 handicap and up).

#1 Swing drills for optimising golfing technique (10 mins)

By far the most commonly used swing drills are to improve a position or movement in your golf swing – obvious, but very useful. To begin with, you’ll need clear feedback on when you are performing the action correctly. To help, use a mirror or widow and slowly move into the required position. Check your position in the mirror and correct as necessary.

Once you can achieve this five times in a row, without correction, it is time to move on to the steps below.

Most golfers stop their technical swing drill work once they can perform the above. However, you’ll find part-practice leads to an ability to swing the golf club well at home, but poor transfer onto the range and golf course.

The next step is to practice your golf swing changes with a slow-motion, continuous swing – no stopping. This is surprisingly hard to do, but will help transfer your swing change into hitting shots with a golf ball. Again, use a mirror or window for feedback.

Lastly, practice your swing changes at 50 – 75% and work up towards full speed swings.

This combination of part-practice, whole practice and finishing with more speed is the best mix to engrain swing changes when you are away from the golf course.

#2 Swing drills for perfecting impact (5 mins)

Make a practice swing with a 6-iron and stop at impact. Take a look at where your club face is pointing and the relationship between your lead arm and club shaft. You’ll be amazed but many golfers rehearse an impact position that replicates their bad shot (open/closed club face, poor angles between lead arm and club shaft – causing fats and thins).

The following drill is one of the quickest ways to start feeling a powerful, neutral impact position, and it will translate well into your practice and play. The drill can be practiced by draping a towel over the club, like Andrew Rice below, or by pressing the club head against the corner of a wall.

Begin in a set-up position, then without making a backswing just press forward against the towel or the wall. You’ll find that as you try to generate more force, your body will want to move into this tour pro position you see below – body rotating through, hands ahead of the club head, square club face. If you want to add a little more resistance lay a weight or your golf bag on to of the towel and move through impact into a follow through.

For this drill start with your set up position, then press forward into impact. Squeeze the towel or press against the corner of a wall until the club flexes. Check out Andrew’s website for more great content.

Practice this impact drill 5 – 10 times in a row, before having a break and repeating.

#3 Mastering your fundamentals (5 mins)

If you keep your golf grip, golf posture and alignment tidy you will rarely fall into bad swing habits. Mastering these basics at home is one simple way to ensure you keep making great progress as a golfer.

Use a mirror or window to set up with what feels like your ‘natural’ grip and posture. Check these against some textbook examples and tweak as necessary. You want to practice your ideal grip and posture over and over again, until it feels second nature.

Use the following links to find detailed guides on the perfect golf grip and golf stance.

Putting drills at home (20 mins)

I doubt anyone would turn down the opportunity to be a better putter. Optimal putting practice at home should achieve three goals:

Refine your putting fundamentals of grip and posture.

Improve your in-stroke mechanics and accuracy.

Build confidence.

Firstly, check your putting grip and posture in a mirror to ensure all is in order – use the links above to find some technical putting guides. Next, lay down a golf club or putting aid and hit 10 – 20 putts to refine your putting swing path and club face (pictured below).

The idea of putting aids (or a golf club / alignment stick) is to give feedback on your putting swing path and club face. If you miss putts left or right it will most likely be down to one of these two factors. You can read more about putting aids here.

The last task is to pick a target slightly smaller than a golf hole. The Puttout pressure trainer pictured below is great, or you can use a drinks bottle. Remove all aids and see how many times in a row you can hit your target from 6, 8 or 10 feet – keep a note of your personal best.

Pictured above is the Eyeline putting mirror if you putt square-to-square this device can be helpful. If you putt on a slight arc check out the Putting Arc.

If you want even more challenge you can try to putt over a coin, or just keep increasing the distance you putt from. Once you have the basics in place check out this guide on how to putt. Also, if you are on the hunt for a new putting toy, check out this article on the best indoor putting greens.

Chipping drills at home (15 mins)

Even a small carpeted room can provide some great chipping practice. Below are two simple drills to master your strike, accuracy and distance control at home.

# 1 Chipping for strike and accuracy

Take your bottle or Puttout trainer from the putting task and place it 10 – 15 feet away against a wall. Take 10 balls, make a crisp strike with each and see how many chips you can get to roll up your PuttOut trainer or hit your target.

# 2 Chipping drill for distance control

Take 5 golf balls and set up 15 feet away from the wall. Chip one ball towards the wall, aiming for your shot to finish half the distance (7 1/2 feet). Your next chip shot needs to get past the first ball, but stay short of the wall. Your next shot must get past your second chip shot, but stay short of the wall…this drill sounds so simple, but just try completing it with 5 golf balls.

This chipping drill forces you to master your strike, you’ll also find you decelerate on failed attempts. To succeed, repeat the drill and aim to accelerate through impact with a crisp strike.

Practice golf at home extras (optional)

Following the three steps above should give you a nice 1 hour golf practice session at home. For you real golfing nerds here is some extra content.

Golf fitness at home

I’ve written a couple of articles on golf fitness. Working on your conditioning will not magically turn you into a scratch player, but better fitness will allow you to: swing the club more efficiently, generate more club head velocity, practice for longer in a more effective manner and reduce the risk of injury.

Click the following link to read an article explaining golf fitness. Or if you want to skip straight to some great golfing exercises check out this article giving you the best golf exercises. For you serious players wanting assistance check out Nick over at Stronger Golf for some one-to-one online support.

Golf psychology

There is no getting around the fact that how we think affects our golfing performance. If you want a geeky read around golf psychology click this link and read my on-going golf psychology guide.

Imagery is the practice of visualising yourself performing a skill, such as driving, chipping, putting, without moving from your armchair. There is growing evidence to support the notion that practice and imagery interventions outperform just practice alone.

So a simple as it may seem, spending 5 – 10 minutes visualising yourself hitting great golf shots, chips and putts over and over again is of benefit, even it it offers just a small gain in performance and confidence.

Practice golf at home – Conclusion

There we have a swift run through of how you can keep developing your golf game when you can’t get to the golf course. I hope you enjoy using the games and ideas featured here.

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Happy golfing – Will @ Golf Insider

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