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December Golf Practice Routine & Golf Drills

Welcome to December. It’s the golf off-season and winter is upon us forcing many golfers to practice golf indoors from home. But don’t worry, today we will outline a simple golf practice routine and list of golf drills to do from home this month in December.

First and foremost, keep your indoor golf practice routine fun! The golf off-season is a great time to work on fundamentals and get back to the basics with your golf swing, putting, and chipping.

It’s not a time to stress about getting better at golf, but rather about maintaining your skill levels so you can come out next spring ready to play your best golf ever. We write frequently on the topic of indoor golf practice and how to build our own winter practice program, in addition to our pre-made practice plans.

Resources:

Week 1: Drills & Workouts

Golf Swing

Make sure you are spending this week stretching each day to keep your muscles flexible for the golf swing and avoid injury swing the club at home. It’s cold outside so find a warm place if possible to swing your club.

Focus on doing 50-100 practice swings a day to better your golf swing from home. Work on feel and picture your swing in your head before each golf swing practice rep.

This week isn’t about specific golf swing drills but rather just maintaining the golf swing motion by getting off the couch and swing the club. Get those muscles loose.

Also add in some weight training if you want to work on golf fitness during winter as well.

Putting

Keep your putter inside your home with you, next to the couch or bed so you see it every day. Work on your putting grip, grabbing onto the putter during TV commercials or for 10-15 minutes before bed.

Also practice swinging the putter head back and forth, with focus on keeping the swinging motion straight!

Keep the putter face square to the target line by setting down a 6 inch piece of duck tape on the ground. Keep the head square to the piece of tape as opposed to twisting and moving around out of control during the putting stroke.

Resource: Try this putting training plan with drills and worksheets

Chipping

Work on contact with your wedges to improve ball striking and better chipping consistency. Set a quarter or nickel on the carpet and practice chipping the coin onto the couch or into a laundry basket.

This will force you to make solid contact with the coin in order to pop it up into the air from the ground.

In the following weeks, we will replace the coin with a golf ball and practice distance control by chipping the ball into a laundry basket that is 5-10 feet away from you.

But for now, practice making solid contact with the coin and your wedge to improve your golf chipping strike.

After week 1, we can move to golf drills beyond the fundamentals of golf swing grip practice, putting stroke focus, and chipping contact.

Weeks 2 – 4: Golf Drills for Indoors

Chipping

#1: Towel Chipping Drill

Start off with this indoor golf chipping drill every day for the first 15 minutes of practice.

Set up a folded towel about 5 feet away from you. Make short chip shot swings and hit the golf ball from the chipping mat to the towel so it lands on the towel before rolling off of it.

#2: Coin Chipping Drill

Next practice contact and ball striking by chipping a small coin into a laundry basket. The coin won’t lift off the ground and fly upward with enough arch unless you make solid contact with it.

It will help train your chipping skills to consistently chip a golf ball with proper contact.

Aim for 30 successful chip shots where the coin makes it into the laundry basket. This could take 30 minutes at first or longer until you get better at it!

#3: Chipping like a Putt Drill

Sometimes you want to hit a chip shot as if you are putting on the green. For example, using a low, running chip shot that gets on the ground quickly and then rolls the rest of the way like a putt would.

Use a club like your 7 iron or 9 iron. Set a water bottle on the ground 20 feet away from you. Chip a golf ball a few feet in front of you and towards the water bottle so it starts rolling on the ground quickly.

The goal is for it to stay on it’s straight line towards the water bottle and knock over the bottle.

This chipping drill will train you to keep your chips straight on line or else you’ll miss the water bottle. It will help you get more chip shots close to the hole next golf season.

Putting

#1: Putting to a Penny

Set a penny on the ground 3 feet from you. Line up your putt to try and hit the penny. Complete 35-50 reps where you successfully putt the golf ball into the penny that lies 3 feet away from you.

This will train you to start your putts on the correct line by getting the ball to start off straight on your intended line for the first 3 feet. It also helps you improve your putting from 3 feet so you make more short range putts.

#2: Speed Control

Next putting drill you’ll want to practice is the “Stop a golf ball on an Ace playing card” to help train your speed control on the putting greens.

Find a pack of playing cards and pull out the Ace card (or any card will work). A playing card is about the width of a golf hole so it simulates pretty well for this indoor putting golf drill.

Measure 10 feet away to start but also measure 20 feet and 30 feet away from you. This drill works best in an open hall way in your home or perhaps a large open room like the basement living room.

You can putt on carpet or on harder surfaces but carpet would be better suited to simulate a putting green. You can also purchase an indoor putting green to putt on.

Hit putts towards the playing card, trying to time the speed perfectly so it stops rolling on top of the playing card.

It’s a very challenging putting drill so start off hitting lots of putts until you successfully complete 1 rep where the ball ends up sitting on top of the card.

Then challenge yourself to get 5 successful putts that have perfect distance control.

As you complete this putting drill, move the distance back to 20 feet, and 30 feet. Or work on 5 foot increments, so 10, 15, 20, 25, etc.

Golf Swing:

Aim for daily golf swing practice but if not, then at least 3 times per week do the following golf swing drills at home.

Start with focusing on your backswing. Get into a golf swing set up position, ready to start the back swing. Then focus on taking the club away from the ball, backwards to initiate the backswing.

Keep it on line on the desired swing path and swing plane by doing slow takeaways at first. Later you can upgrade to faster, full swing motion.

You can set down a water bottle or some other obstruction in the desired spot behind you to force you to practice a proper takeaway or else you’ll bump into the water bottle if you take the club back too far inside or too far outside.

I like to put a tennis ball behind the golf club at address so that when I start the takeaway, the focus is to push the tennis ball straight backwards with the club head.

After you work on the takeaway, work on the down swing and making solid contact with the golf ball.

You can use foam golf balls and hit them into an indoor hitting net with focus on feeling like you’re making solid contact. Keep practicing until you have 20-30 “smooth” or “pure” feeling swings per day.

In addition to the takeaway and the downswing you should also be practicing tempo! Make sure you’re not over powering the golf swing, trying to hit the ball as hard as you can.

Instead, feel a tempo you can control the club while still bringing power. It’s not something that can be taught but rather something you need lots of practice golf swings to feel out a consistent tempo you are comfortable with.

Indoor Golf Practice Routine

Overall, give these golf practice drills and December Practice Routine a try. You’ll work on simple golf drills but they will build your fundamental skills needed next season when you step back onto a real golf course.

We also have additional golf practice routines you can follow both indoors and at the golf course. Check them out below! Thanks for reading December’s Beginner Friendly Golf Practice Routine & Schedule.

Golf Practice Plans (Follow these Programs)

Golf Video Courses

Don’t miss out on these amazing training programs. They’ll help lower your golf scores.

Or hop onto our email newsletter and get the free weekly golf tips we send out to our community plus updates and other announcements you don’t want to miss!

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