Golf drills you can do at home
The best golf drills at home are the ones that give you feedback without ball flight: a putting gate tells you instantly whether your start line is square, a mirror tells you where your positions really are, and a towel under both arms tells you if your arms and body are working together. Below are the drills worth your carpet, grouped by what they fix — including low-ceiling and indoor variants — plus how to check whether they are actually transferring to your scores.
Updated
Putting drills (start here)
Putting is roughly 40% of your shots and needs about six feet of carpet, which makes it the highest-return thing you can do indoors. Two skills matter: starting the ball on your line, and controlling distance.
- The gate drill. Set two tees (or two coins) just wider than your putter head about a foot in front of the ball. Roll putts through the gate. If you clip a tee, your face was open or shut at impact. This is the single best home putting drill because the feedback is immediate and unarguable.
- The coin drill. Put a coin on the carpet six feet away and putt to cover it. Removes the hole from the equation and trains start line plus speed together.
- Ladder drill (distance control). Place targets at 3, 6, and 9 feet (or the length of your hallway) and putt to each in sequence without looking at the result until the ball stops. Trains feel rather than mechanics.
- Yardstick or rail drill. Putt a ball along a yardstick. It stays on only if your path and face are square. Cheap, brutal, effective.
Honest caveat: carpet is slower and truer than a real green, so home putting trains your stroke, not your speed for a specific course. Do not expect your lag putting to calibrate at home.
Chipping indoors (without wrecking the house)
You can chip indoors safely with foam or plastic balls, or with a real ball into a net at very short swing lengths.
- Towel target drill. Lay a towel 8–10 feet away and land foam balls on it. Landing spot is the skill that actually controls a chip; the roll takes care of itself.
- Coin or tee contact drill. Place a tee an inch behind the ball. If you hit the tee, you are hitting it fat. Trains a descending strike with no ball flight needed.
- One-handed chips (lead hand only). Kills the flip. Short swings, foam ball, ten reps.
Full-swing drills for a low ceiling
Most homes cannot take a full driver swing — you need roughly 9–10 feet of ceiling, and more for a tall player. These drills work in a normal room:
- Mirror work. Face a mirror (or film yourself) and rehearse your takeaway to hip height, checking the clubface and shaft. Positions are exactly what a mirror is good for, and this needs no ceiling at all.
- Towel under both arms. Trap a towel across your chest under both armpits and make half swings. If it drops, your arms have disconnected from your body rotation. Fixes the classic “all arms” move.
- Slow-motion swings. Take 30 seconds to make one full swing. It sounds trivial and it is genuinely hard — and it exposes every position you cannot actually control.
- Split-hands drill. Grip with your hands a few inches apart and make half swings to feel how the forearms rotate through impact.
- Impact bag or cushion. Trains a forward-shaft impact position with a very short swing — no ceiling required.
If you have a net and the height for it, add a short block of speed work (a few sets of near-maximal swings with adequate rest). Speed responds well to at-home training because it does not need ball flight to improve.
Indoor-specific: what the winter version looks like
When the season closes, the same drills carry over with two changes. First, the mix shifts — with no course to test on, lean harder on putting and mirror work, where the feedback is self-contained. Second, the goal shifts: winter is for changing something, because there is no scorecard to protect. Rehearse a genuinely new position now and let spring tell you whether it took.
If you play in a simulator or an indoor league over the winter, one thing worth knowing up front: those rounds do not count toward your official handicap. See whether golf simulator rounds count toward your handicap for the rule and what to do with those scores instead.
Track whether any of it is working
Drills are a hypothesis. The course is the test. Each block above has a matching number on your scorecard, so pick the one that maps to what you are drilling and watch it across 5–10 rounds:
| If you are drilling… | Watch this stat | How fast it should move |
|---|---|---|
| Putting gates and ladders | Putts per round | Fastest — within a handful of rounds. |
| Chipping to a towel | Up-and-down percentage | Medium — needs enough short-side misses to register. |
| Mirror, towel, and speed work | Greens in regulation, driving distance | Slowest — full-swing changes take months, not weeks. |
| Everything, in aggregate | Handicap Index trend | Slowest of all — it uses your best 8 of 20 rounds. |
If the matching number has not moved after ten rounds, the drill is not transferring. Change the drill rather than doubling the reps. More on which numbers are worth your attention in the golf stats worth tracking, and the structure to hang these drills on is in how to practice golf at home.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the best golf drills to do at home?
- The putting gate drill (two tees just wider than your putter head, a foot in front of the ball) is the highest-value home drill because feedback is immediate and putting is about 40% of your shots. After that: chipping to a towel with foam balls for landing-spot control, mirror work for takeaway positions, and a towel under both arms for connection.
- Can you do golf drills indoors with a low ceiling?
- Yes. Mirror work, towel-under-the-arms half swings, slow-motion swings, split-hands drills, and impact-bag work all fit in a normal room. Full driver swings generally need about 9-10 feet of ceiling, so save those for a net with the height for it, or a range.
- How do I practice putting at home on carpet?
- Carpet works well for start line and stroke mechanics — use a gate drill or roll balls along a yardstick. It works poorly for speed, because carpet is slower and truer than a real green. Train the stroke at home and calibrate distance on an actual putting green.
- Do at-home golf drills actually lower your score?
- They do when they target skills that transfer — putting, short game, setup, tempo, and speed. They do not when they target skills that need ball flight you cannot see at home. The test is on the course: pick the stat that matches your drill (putts per round for putting, up-and-downs for chipping) and watch it over 5-10 rounds.
- How long should an at-home golf practice session be?
- Ten to fifteen minutes, several times a week. Short and frequent beats long and rare for building a motor pattern, and it is far easier to actually sustain.
Keep reading
Give your drills a scoreboard
Log a round in Flash Caddie and your putts, greens in regulation, and up-and-downs trend automatically — so you can see which drill is paying and which one is just reps. Free on iOS.