If you can’t get to the golf course, or the driving range, but would like to practice your swing, you may feel there’s not much you can do.
You’ll be surprised how you can still practice and almost do it anywhere
You can practice your golf swing anywhere that you have room to swing your arms. There are a range of drills you can use, such as the ‘back step front step’ drill, the ‘heel up golf swing’, and the ‘over the top barrier’ drill.
Below, I’ll explain how these drills improve your golf swing, as well as, how to do each one.
Read on, to discover how you can do these drills in your backyard, or anywhere you have space to swing your arms, and take a few steps from side to side as well as forwards and backwards.
How You Can Practice Your Golf Swing Without A Range
Practicing your golf swing without a range can be done by doing repetitions of specific drills.
The drills develop the feelings, and movements that improve the mechanics of your golf swing. A good golf swing uses precise mechanics that don’t come naturally and need to be practised.
With that being said let’s get into some of the actual drills, listed below are a collection of drills that PGA golfers do and professional coaches recommend.
For the instructions I will explain it for a right handed person, because that’s the most common, but if you’re a lefty just do the mirror image of the movements.
The Back step Front Step Drill
What this drill improves:
This drill improves how you shift your weight as you take your shot.
A common issue with a player’s golf swing is, as they hit through the ball they leave their weight on their back foot, and attempt to scoop the ball in the air.
Taking a shot like this gives you less power, and usually gives you poor contact with the ball. Which means you can’t hit the ball as far or as accurately as you’d like.
This leads to slicing the ball, and more of your shots will be fat shots or thin shots – where you hit the ground first, or the ball makes contact with the top of the club face.
How to do the drill:
- To do this drill start by standing in your normal golf swing position, but with your feet together.
- Lift your arms back for your golf swing and pause at the top of your swing.
- In this position, take a step to your right with your right foot, so your feet are shoulder width apart.
- As you swing down towards the ball, bring your feet together again. And then take a step to your left with your front foot, so that your feet are shoulder width apart again.
Doing this helps you develop how you distribute your weight as you take your swing.
The Butt On The Chair Drill
What this drill improves:
This drill improves your posture as you take your golf swing. In a good golf swing you maintain a bend in your body, and your butt is slightly back.
A very common issue for golfers is that they start in the proper position but as they take the swing their hips come forward, and they tuck the tailbone in.
This makes the angle of the golf club too vertical, and the club face comes across the golf ball at an angle.
As you may be aware, this is what’s called ‘early extension’, and is a typical motion that you feel you want to, to try to get more power in your shot.
However, it changes the angle that you hit the ball, and can make you slice the ball.
How to do the drill:
This drill can be done in your home or outside.
- Grab a standard dining table or office chair, and put it somewhere where you have a bit of room.
- Now, put your butt up against the back of the chair, so that it’s resting gently against it.
- Take your golf swing, and keep your butt touching the chair all the way until you make contact with the ball.
This will help you make much better contact with the ball.
The Over The Top Barrier Drill
What this drill improves:
This drill helps with ‘coming over the top’.
This is where a golfer takes a back swing, and uses a lot of force in their right arm.
The swing comes down at a steep angle, and they make contact with the ball at an angle so that they slice the ball or strike the ball on the toe of the club.
Doing this drill will improve how your club makes contact with the ball, and will mean you’ll slice the ball less.
How to do the drill:
- You want to grab something that can act as a barrier which will prevent you from coming over the top.
You can use a towel, a soccer ball, or anything you have lying around.
- Place it about 5 cms (2 inches) on the far side of the ball, and at an angle. The angle should be about at the 2 o’clock position.
- Now take your golf swing as you normally would but try not to hit the barrier before the ball.
- If you come over the top the club will hit the barrier first before you hit the ball, and you can adjust your swing, until you can hit the ball without hitting the barrier.
This will help your swing come down at the proper angle to give you a nice clean shot.
This will also help you make better contact with the ball, and as you get better at will be less likely to slice the ball
The Heel Up Drill
What this drill improves:
This drill improves your balance as you take your golf swing. A common issue is that as people take their golf swing they leave their feet planted on the ground and as the follow through on their shot they’re off balance.
This makes it hard to make consistently good golf shots, because your body needs to be stable so that it doesn’t throw off the angle of your arms.
This aspect of your swing is also improved by the back step front step drill I previously mentioned. However, both are good to try and get good at.
How to do the drill:
- Start in your normal golf swing position.
- Take your swing.
- As you finish your shot make sure to lift the heel of your back foot off the ground so that you finish with only the toes of your back foot touching the ground.
If you carefully watch the top golfers you will notice they all finish in this position.
You can do this drill by doing small half swings, and you don’t need to take a full swing every time.
The Getting More loft Drill
What this drill improves:
This drill improves your ability to add more loft to a pitch shot. A common issue with creating more loft is that you don’t have the hand sensitivity to feel where the club head is as you’re taking the shot.
This drill improves that.
You’ll need a club for this one but it can be any club, not necessarily a pitching wedge or a sand wedge.
How to do the drill:
- Start in your standard golf swing position.
- Turn the club head upside down so that you’re holding the golf club near the head rather than by the handle. You should be gripping the club just above the head of the golf club.
- Now, swing the golf club back and forward with your wrists and hands. Because you’re swinging the handle of the club it’s a lot lighter, and you can develop a feel for the end of the club.
- Once you switch your club back to the normal position you will notice that you have much more control over the end of the club.
This will help you to be more precise with where you hit the ball on the club face, and you can hit the ball at more of an angle – allowing you to scoop the ball – to get more loft.
The Sand Shot Drill
This drill is provided by Ashley Moss, an LPGA Class A player.
What this drill improves:
This drill improves your ability to hit bunker shots. A common mistake players make when doing bunker shots is to try to scoop the shot to create more loft. But, with bunker shots you want to hit the ball the same as a shot off the fairway.
This drill improves your ability to control where the bottom of the swing is happening.
For this drill you’ll need a bit of tape, and a surface like carpet, grass, astro-turf, or another surface that won’t be permanently damaged if you miss a few times while doing this drill.
How to do the drill:
- Start by placing some tape in a straight line in the middle of your feet. The tape will act as a target for you to aim for.
- Get in a position where the tape is directly in between your feet and in front of you.
- Now you want to balance on your lead leg, and put your back leg back a bit. Lift the heel of your back leg so that you’re standing on the ball of your foot.
This will help you maintain stability as you practice just this part of your swing.
- Now do your normal swing and try to graze the tape with the bottom of your club as you follow through.
The better you get at this drill the more consistent you’ll be at getting the ball out of the bunker.
Other common issues that affect your golf swing are not having lag in your golf swing, I recently wrote an article explaining how to perfect your golf swing lag.
Here’s the article: A Guide To Perfect Golf Swing Lag
Time For Some Putting Drills
Now that you’ve got some cool drills to get the feel of what a perfect golf swing feels like, and how to train to develop the unique coordination to perform them consistently, it’s time to get into some putting drills.
Especially those long putts that make you feel like the best golfer in the world when you sink them.
These will improve every aspect of your putting, and you can practice these drills almost anywhere.
For these, you’ll need something to putt into.
For example an empty can of beans, a flat cardboard or plastic disk that you can lay flat on the ground, or a cup.
You can also lay down a piece of astro turf in your lounge, to get a similar speed as a green. Also, you can put a piece of astro turf over your lawn if your yard is uneven.
The Coin On The back Of The Putter Head Drill
According to the famous English putting coach Phil Kenyon, this drill helps with the tempo of your putt.
Oftentimes when putting your swing has an uneven speed, which means your putt will come up too short or overshoot the hole.
This drill helps to make your swing an even speed, giving you greater consistency in your putts.
How to do the drill:
- Place a coin on the back of your putter.
- As you backswing and transition to the forward part of your motion try to throw the coin off the back of the putter.
The behind the Hole Barrier Drill
This drill helps with getting better at your putting distance. With this drill you are aiming for the ball to finish before it goes too far past the hole.
How to do the drill:
- Place a club, flag stick, a broom, or similar object about 2 feet (60 cm) behind the hole.
- This drill works best with a disk as the hole. That way, once the ball goes into the hole you can see how far past the hole it goes.
- Take your regular putt but practice having the ball stop before it reaches the barrier that you set up after the hole.
This will develop your ability to putt at a good speed to sink it the first time, or make it an easy tap in if you slightly miss.
The Chalk Line Drill
What this drill improves:
The chalk line drill helps develop hitting the ball in the line that you want, improving your overall putting accuracy.
How to do the drill:
- Designate a starting position where you want to take your putt from.
- From your starting position draw a straight line using chalk in the direction you want the ball to go. It’s helpful to use a ruler or a club to get a perfectly straight line.
- Practice taking putts so that the ball goes perfectly down the line chalk line.
The Putting Through Tees Drill
What this drill improves:
This is a good warm up drill, and also a good drill to practice anywhere. It helps you to putt on the line you’ve chosen.
How to do the drill:
- Set up two golf tees either side of your putting starting position. You can also use two coins, or two small sized objects.
- Try not to hit the pins, or disturb the objects with your putter or the ball as you take your putt.
- You can increase the difficulty by narrowing the space in between the golf tees.
The One Handed Putting Drill
What this drill improves:
This drill improves your putter release. As you may be aware the putter release is where the putter passes your center line.
How to do the drill:
This one is really simple so it doesn’t require steps. You simply want to practice putting with either your top hand or your rear hand.
Tiger Woods is known to practice this drill with his rear hand, according to Golf.com.
The Guiding Rails Drill
What this drill improves:
Practicing this drill will improve how straight you putt, which will give you more accuracy, and help you maintain your putter in a nice straight line as you putt.
How to do the drill:
- Put two clubs, pieces or wood, books, or other straight edged objects on either side of your putter. Parallel to the direction you’re putting.
- Take your putt and try to keep the heel and toe of your putter in line with the straight edges you set up.
Do this as many times as you need to develop keeping your putter as straight as possible while you putt. You can also modify this drill and only use one rail either on the heel side or the toe side.
In my opinion, it’s easier to keep your putter straight using two straight edges rather than one.
Conclusion
These ways to practice your golf swing improve your coordination, strength, and dexterity to dramatically improve your golf swing.
These exercises can be performed anywhere, at home, at a park, or at the golf course.
The putting drills and strength exercises are all used by professional golfers who play in the PGA, and the other drills are recommended by expert golfers who have been playing for many years.
