3 Important Golf Shots You Can Practice at Home

You would probably love to be able to spend more time at the golf course, practicing your game.  If you had all of the free time in the world, you could head over to the course on a nearly daily basis, practicing all of the parts of the game that give you trouble.

Obviously, that isn’t reality for most people.  You probably have to work most days, and on non-work days you have a number of other commitments that take up your time.  Even if you do get out to practice occasionally, the amount of practice time that you get at the course may not be enough to take your game to the next level.

So what can you do to make improvements in your game without drastically changing your schedule?

Practice at home!

You may not have a driving range in your backyard, but there is still plenty you can do to facilitate change in your game.  In this article, we will look at three specific shots that you may be able to practice in and around your home.

Work on Short Putts

Making your short putts is incredibly important to your score, and it is one area of the game where many amateur golfers struggle.  Fortunately, this is likely the easiest part of the game to practice at home.

A photo posted by Randi Jantz (@randi.jantz) on Mar 5, 2016 at 1:05pm PST

Since you are only rolling the ball a few feet with a very small swing of the putter, you can practice short putting just about anywhere you have a smooth floor surface and some room to stand up.  When practicing your short putting at home, keep the following points in mind –

• Have a specific target – It is a great idea to use a target that is even smaller than an actual golf hole.  Place something on the ground that you can use as an aim point and do your best to hit it over and over again from a few feet away.  If you get good at hitting your small target at home, the hole may start to look rather large when you return to the course.
• Focus on your fundamentals – Since you aren’t on an actual putting green, it is easy to get a bit lazy when it comes to your fundamentals over the short putts.  Don’t make this mistake.  If your practice is going to be beneficial, you need to make sure to stick with your fundamentals prior to every single stroke.  Take your time, get into a good stance, and roll the ball smoothly toward your target.
• Use alignment aids – Poor alignment is one of the leading causes of missed short putts on the course, so use this time at home to work on that piece of the putting puzzle.  Place an alignment aid – such an alignment stick or even a yard stick – on the ground near your ball and use it to put your body and the club into the right position before the stroke begins.

If you are able to spend a bit of time at home on a regular basis working on your short putts, it is almost inevitable that more of them will start to fall in on the course.

Take a Few Driver Swings

Wait a minute – wouldn’t it be extremely dangerous to hit driver shots in your backyard?  Yes, of course.  You should never actually hit a ball with your driver while practicing at home (unless you live on many, many acres), but you can practice your swing without actually hitting any shots.

Swinging your driver requires a great tempo and rhythm, and many amateur players have trouble getting into that rhythm on the course.  By working on this swing at home, you may find it easier to get your tempo under control during your next round.

While making practice swings with your driver, focus on giving the swing all the time it needs to develop naturally.  It’s easy to cut this swing off short as you hurry to get back down to contact, but there is no need to rush.  Let your backswing finish, allow the transition to happen in its own time, and only swing through to the finish when you are balanced and ready to go.

Chipping – With Plastic Golf Balls

Chipping is probably the area of the game where the average golfer stands to improve the most in terms of taking strokes off the scorecard.  The average player wastes multiple strokes per round due to poor chipping, but that doesn’t have to be the case.  If you purchase a few plastic golf balls that you can use for some home chipping practice, you can quickly improve on your ability to strike the ball cleanly on your short shots.

While it might seem perfect to just chip off the carpet in your house, that method can actually wear a hole through your carpeting in relatively short order. Instead, think about also purchasing a small chipping mat that you can use wherever you have room to safely chip your plastic golf balls.

Set up a target for your chip shots – a laundry basket works great – and focus on making clean contact each time.  When you get back out to the course, keep your focus on making solid contact and you should find that your chip shots suddenly wind up much closer to the hole.

If you really want to go big you can try building something like this with SKLZ home practice products:

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You will never be able to practice your game at home in quite the same way that you can when at the course, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do your best to make some progress.  Working on the three areas of your game listed above will help you move in the right direction – and hopefully lower scores will be just around the corner as a result.

Cover Image via Flickr