Winter is not the season your golf gets worse. It is the season you get ahead of everyone who stops. In the Netherlands the courses go quiet from about 1 November to 30 April, when winter rules (“plaatsen”) come in and a hard frost or a thaw can close the greens, or the whole course, at short notice. That downtime is real. So instead of waiting for spring, you bring a little golf into your living room.
I promise you: the players who keep one small routine through the grey months come back in April feeling sharp. The ones who do nothing spend their first weeks just re-finding basic feel. A lot of coaches tell the same story, and I see it every year with my own students.
Here are my five favourite drills you can do at home, plus one Dutch bonus. None of them need a range. Most need less space than you think.
Why does winter practice matter more than most golfers think?
Because the skills that drop off fastest are the ones you can train indoors. PGA teachers agree on this: in winter you should do more short-game practice, not less. Putting and chipping are the easiest things to keep alive at home, and they are where scores are won.
Winter also gives you something the season never does: time with no scorecard. No Saturday competition, no pressure. That is the perfect moment to work slowly on your grip and your setup, the parts of golf most people never touch when they are busy playing. If you want to build on solid ground, start with the golf fundamentals of grip, stance and posture — everything below sits on top of them.
How do you practise your putting stroke indoors without a fancy mat?
You use the floor you already have. A tightly woven, flat carpet is perfect for stroke work. Avoid a shaggy or textured rug, because it makes the ball wobble and teaches you nothing good.
One thing to know: home carpet rolls much slower than a real green, so do not train distance on it. Train the stroke — a square face, centre contact, a smooth tempo. Two simple drills do this:
- The gate drill. Put two coins or two tees on the carpet, just a little wider than your putter head. Roll putts through the “gate” without touching either side. This trains a straight path and a square face on every stroke.
- The clock drill. Set four balls at 3 feet around a cup or a coin, at the 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock spots. Hole all four before you allow yourself to step back to 4 feet. It builds the calm, confident short putt that saves rounds. If you want more of this, my putting drills for short putts go deeper.
One golfer told me he put a tiny putting strip in his basement and spent every free winter evening on his 6-to-15-foot putts, the exact range where his scores were leaking. By spring, those putts were his strength. Small effort, big reward.
What is the towel drill and why does it fix so many swing faults?
Tuck a small towel under both armpits, hold it there, and make slow practice swings without a ball. That is the whole drill. Simple, and quietly powerful.
The towel keeps your arms and your chest turning together. When it drops, you know your arms lifted on their own — the exact fault behind the “chicken wing” and the overswing. Keep it in place, and your body learns to rotate as one connected unit. Dozens of club golfers say the same thing: this was the one drill their pro gave them that finally made the connection click, practised on winter evenings in the living room, no ball needed. When they went back to the range, their takeaway felt joined-up for the first time. Better connection also means cleaner contact, so this pairs well with learning to stop hitting it fat or thin .
How can slow-motion swings in front of a mirror actually change your game?
A real golf swing lasts about 1.5 seconds, and the clubhead travels more than 50 feet in that time. That is far too fast to feel a new position while it happens. Slow motion is the answer. Move at a tenth of the speed and your body can actually learn the shape. This is not a beginner shortcut — Tiger Woods and Ben Hogan both drilled slow, ball-less swings for exactly this reason.
Stand in front of a full-length mirror and make a slow backswing. Pause at three checkpoints: the takeaway, halfway back, and the top. Look, compare, adjust. The mirror gives you feedback you simply cannot get on the course.
Want to check your swing plane too? Lay an alignment stick (they cost under €20) on the floor along your target line, and hold or rest a second one at the shaft angle. Slow rehearsal swings against those lines are one of the fastest ways to feel an on-plane move at home. This is where a slice or a hook gets sorted — see how to fix a slice and how to fix a hook for the path faults to watch for in the mirror.
Two safety notes. You need roughly 8 feet of clear space to swing a short iron or wedge without hitting a lamp. And never take a full driver swing indoors. Ever.
How do you train grip pressure and tempo at home — even watching TV?
Hold the club softer than you think. Tight hands lock the wrists and steal clubhead speed. On a tension scale of 1 to 10, aim for about 4 to 6. Light, but in control.
This is the drill you can do on the sofa. Keep a club nearby, and while you watch TV, just hold it at that soft 4-to-6 pressure so your hands remember the feeling. Add a breathing habit while you are at it: one slow breath just before a practice swing releases the whole body and smooths your tempo. Holding your breath does the opposite, it stiffens everything.
Many golfers describe the same small miracle here. One had gripped far too tightly under pressure for years. A coach had her consciously go from an 8 down to a 4 before every swing, all winter, at home. Her first spring round felt completely different — she said she could “feel the clubhead” again. That is what soft hands give you.
What about indoor golf in the Netherlands: simulators and staying sharp?
When you want to actually hit balls in winter, the Netherlands has good indoor options. Venues like KingsGolf (Amsterdam and Soest) and Teebox (Bilthoven) run TrackMan simulators with access to 450+ courses around the world, open year-round and bookable from around €25. KingsGolf Amsterdam has four TrackMan iO bays with 24/7 access, and its AI coach, Tracy, reads 28 data points on every swing. Golf.nl also keeps a handy indoor-golf finder if you want the nearest place to you.
A simulator is a lovely step up from home drills. But it costs money and you have to leave the house, so I see it as a bonus, not a replacement. Your carpet and your mirror are free.
How do you turn these five drills into a realistic winter routine?
Keep it small and often. Three short sessions a week beats one long, tiring push. A simple week looks like: ten minutes of gate and clock putting, a handful of towel-drill swings, and a few slow mirror reps with soft hands. That is it. Fifteen minutes.
If you are a beginner working toward your baanpermissie or GVB, this winter head start is gold. Grip, putting and the towel drill get you ready for your first real lessons, so you arrive already moving well instead of starting from zero. When you are ready to build on it with a proper eye on you, come and learn with me at Chi Chi Golf in Utrecht or Golfschool Hoenderdaal in Driebergen — you can see the lesson options and prices any time.
Do a little this winter. Come spring, you will feel the difference on your very first tee, and you will be glad you did not wait.