Breaking 100/90/80: Indoor Practice

By Kevin Weeks

With Matthew Rudy

Photo Illustrations by Jim Luft

January 2012

Kevin Weeks, a Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher, is the director of instruction at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club, in Lemont, Ill.

I teach year-round outside of Chicago, so I know what it's like to be stuck indoors for a long, cold winter—and what that can do to your game. But even if you can't get to a driving range for a while, you can follow the at-home drills on these pages and be a better player by the time the weather turns. It can be as simple as rolling putts on the carpet with no shoes or socks on (above) to emphasize the feeling of equal weight distribution across your feet, from front to back and side to side. It's better than putting in golf shoes. Here are some more.

One of the simplest ways to develop distance and accuracy doesn't even involve swinging a club. Make some practice swings from your regular setup with a standard kitchen broom. The weight of the broom won't let you make the arms-only swings that many players use on the course.

Shoulder turn is tough to monitor on your own because you can't see yourself swing. To get the next-best thing, slide one of those alignment aids or sticks—I use the ones the hardware store sells as driveway guides for snow plowing—through the sleeves of your shirt so it runs along the top of your shoulders

When you have a loop in your swing (most amateurs swing back inside and then loop the club to the outside) you must make a compensation to get back to the ball. That hurts your consistency.