Practise Your Short Game at Home

Paul Casey Short Game at Home

Rule 1: Your Sternum should be in front of the ball

This is incredibly important if you want to make solid contact with the ball each time. Typically, the bottom of our swing arc is in line with our Sternum (middle of your chest). We do not want to ‘bottom out’ before the ball because that means we will be hitting the ground first.

Rule 2: Weight on your lead leg

One of the most common mistakes amateur golfers make is leaning back on their trail leg in an attempt to get the ball airborne. Unfortunately, all that is going to do is lead to you hitting the ground way before the ball and losing all control of distance. Keep that weight forward and this will help you keep your Sternum in front of the ball at impact.

Rule 3: Hit down on the ball

Your irons and especially your wedges have a lot of loft already, so there is no need to try and lift the ball in the air. Keep the face open and hit down on the golf ball every time and simply let the loft of the club do the work for you.

These are the 3 key tips for helping you play a solid chip shot every time. Once you master these fundamentals you can then begin to start experimenting with altering lofts, using different clubs and really practicing distance/spin control.

Practising Distance Control at Home with Hugh Marr

Thanks to the excellent advice from Paul Casey, you are now ready to start working on your distance control. The ‘Ladder Drill’ is an extremely simple yet effective way of practicing this and it requires very little space. The aim of this drill is to hit a ball a couple of yards in front of you and then land the next one just past it. You then play to the next furthest ball away. It teaches you how to control distance by giving you variance. Here is a detailed description of how to perform this at home.

Chipping Ladder Drill

How to perform the ‘Ladder Drill’ by Hugh Marr at Home

Equipment needed: Wedge, golf balls

Key learning objective(s):

– Improve your distance control

How to practice at home:

This drill requires very little space, so your garden should be perfect here. Take a wedge or any club you prefer to chip with and 5-10 balls.

Now starting at one end of your garden, hit your first shot about 5 yards away from you. Your objective is to land the second shot just past the first one. If you succeed, you then use the second ball as your new target and so on.

If you fall short or hit it too far past, ignore those and work towards the original target.

Try to see how many you can score in a row. This is a great drill for improving your distance control at home.

Top 5 tips and hints on how to practise at home and how to improve your short game by Paul Casey and Hugh Marr

True for all shots but particularly valuable for chipping

Master great set up. Great swings are built on great foundations

Master the simple things – get good with one type of shot with one club. You can then build more skill on top of this

Practise your fundamentals every day!

Plan your practice and keep a diary of your progress