A high school golf practice can take place on a driving range, chipping and putting green or on the golf course. Coaches have noted to us that one of the most important topics to them is learning more about practice ideas and drills for their team. Golf teams can save more strokes from 60 yards in than any other area of the game. Below you will find drills that can help all of your team members sharpen their short game skills.
http://https://youtu.be/xpAp3KFBknk
Around the world
On the green, put down 5 tees surrounding a hole – you can choose the length of the putt. Have your players start at one of the tees and in order to move around the hole, they must make the first putt before moving on. If they miss one, they have to go back to the beginning and make all 5 putts consecutively. Once they make all the putts in that hole – have them move onto another station or hole and change up the length of the putt.
For chipping, select one hole on the putting green and set up 5 different locations presenting a variety of different shots. Set a goal of how close the player has to hit the chip in order to move onto the next tee or location, if they do not get it within your designated length, they have to start over.
Chipping Darts
This is a personal favorite of mine. Have all players participate and purchase some “rings” that you can put down onto the green around a hole, ideally, you will have 3 different sized rings which will provide a smaller target the closer a player gets to the cup. Give each ring a point value, for example, 1 point for a ball inside the biggest ring, 3 inside the middle and 5 inside the closest etc. You can set up different stations around the green and at the end of the contest, say 7 or 9 holes you can deem a winner and give away a small prize
Chipping course
Around your practice putting green set up a 9 hole chipping course. I would recommend trying to do various length, grass types and club selection to really make your players use a variety of different shots and techniques. Have your players pair up and keep score as they go from station to station, have them putt out after chipping as well. Ideally, each location is a par 2 or an up-and-down. At the end of the 9 holes, have the two pair teams total their score and the low score will receive a small prize.
Lag putting drill
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MducFYxKUmQ
This is a great tool to help your players focus on their lag putting. Set up 4-6 various spots or locations on the green and have the putts be greater than 30+ feet on each. I would suggest using the rings as we talked about in the chipping drill or you can simply use string and tees to make a circle. The goal for your players is to “make” each putt within the designated circle (I would recommend a 2 or 3 foot radius around the hole. This will teach the players that their speed is much more important than their line on longer putts.
Various club exercise
A common mistake for many high school golfers is that they can only use their highest lofted wedge for all types of chip shots around the green. A simple drill can be where you require a player to use various wedges on a chip or pitch shot and see which club produces the best result. The goal of the drill is to encourage your players to use lower lofted wedges, even irons to eliminate chunked or bladed wedge shots.
Hopefully, some of these above tips and drills will help your team perform better around the greens this season and shoot lower scores!