Golf Practice Drills for Indoors this Winter

Take the following list of winter golf practice drills and come up with a fun routine you complete each day during the winter months to keep your golf skills sharp.

It’s recommended you practice golf indoors at least 3x per week so the motion of putting, chipping, and the golf swing still feel fluid. If you take several weeks off, you lose that touch and feel with the club.

Indoor Golf Drills List:

Putting with Alignment Sticks
Putting to a Playing Card
Chipping to a Towel
Three Quarter Chipping
Hitting into a Net

Also be sure to check out our winter golf training plan with 21 days of routines to follow and plenty of bonus practice drills that are perfect for indoors.

Putting with Alignment Sticks Drill

The best golf drills to practice indoors this winter are drills that work on your fundamentals.

During the golf season we lose focus on the fundamentals and instead only care about the result of the swing, the chip shot, and the putt. But when we get pushed indoors during winter, we no longer have access to the golf course so the results based focus disappears and now we’re left with fundamentals to focus on.

This putting drill requires alignment sticks or two golf clubs set down onto the ground parallel to each other and about a putters width apart.

Make 50-100 practice strokes between the alignment sticks working on keeping the face square to sticks and your putting stroke swing path straight.

After 50-100 dry reps with no ball, add in a golf ball and stroke another 50-100 putts. The goal is for the ball to roll straight between the two alignment sticks staying centered the whole time. If the ball starts curving left or right and runs into the “bumper guard rails” then you know your putting stroke wasn’t straight or the face wasn’t square at impact.

Putting to a Playing Card Drill

While the previous indoor putting drill worked on alignment and keeping the putting stroke straight consistently, this next drill works more on distance control.

In most homes, you have carpet but if not then you may need to buy some putting green turf or even a putting green training aid on Amazon like this one.

Using fake putting green turf is the closest thing to real greens and allows you to still practice distance control with the putter.

Next, we need an Ace or King from a deck of playing cards. Set it on the ground about 3 feet in front of you and try to hit your putt with enough power that it stops on top of the playing card.

Successfully roll the ball onto the card 5 times before moving the card back to 5 feet, 7 feet, and 9 feet. Then challenge yourself with longer putts by placing the card 20, 30, and 40 feet away from you if you have the space in your house.

Chipping to a Towel Drill

This is a simple but effective golf drill you can do at home in your living room. Set up a folded up 1 foot by 1 foot towel about 5 feet away from you.

Then chip golf balls at the towel trying to land on it to practice carrying your chip shots 5 feet, which is a needed skill if you’re just in the rough and need to land the ball a few feet onto the green.

Work your way back, moving the towel to 10 feet, 15 feet, and so on to get good at distance control with the chipping wedge.

Repeat this drill the next day but switch up the club you’re using and practice with another wedge, pitching wedge, or 9 iron.

By the end of winter, you should be skilled at hitting chip shots under control with multiple clubs if you practice this short game drill daily from at home.

Three Quarter Chipping Drill

One of the best golf skills to develop in your short game is the three quarter chip shot. It will help you hit the green from awkward distances when you’re in between clubs.

To practice your three quarter swing, it’s recommended you invest in a hitting net which can be easily bought and shipped within a few days from Amazon like this one here.

You’re also going to need turf to chip off of, so here is the recommended chipping mat with multiple types of fake grass to chip from.

Be cautious when practicing chipping indoors because wedge shots get up into the air higher and faster, so make sure you’re practicing in a room that things wouldn’t break if you mishit or missed the practice net you’re hitting into.

Hitting into a Golf Practice Net

This final indoor golf drill to practice during winter is simply hitting golf balls into a practice net. This is the best way to keep your swing fluid and not tighten up your body during the off months.

My goal is to hit 30-50 shots each day into the golf practice net, which works out to about 200-300 swings per week.

This may seem like a lot but it really doesn’t take long to rack up 100 golf swings. If you’re someone who hits a lot of range balls at the driving range, you probably go through a bucket of 80-100 balls for just one session.

At minimal, we want to hit 25 balls indoors from home each day to keep the swing sharp. Work on feel and contact since we can’t see the result of the swing indoors.

You’ll begin to notice when the ball was struck solid in the center of the face versus when you’ve hit it off the heel or toe. Developing this feel will be great for when you return to the golf course next spring again.

More Golf Practice Drills

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