Three great putting drills to practice indoors this winter which will lower your handicap

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We’ve reached that time of the year again when many golfers have locked their clubs away as the grim reality of a long, cold winter sets in.

We’re not all lucky enough to live in Florida or Southern California, and many of us will not be able to get out and play until March or April at the earliest.

However, there are ways to keep your game in decent shape during the off-season, and these tips for practicing indoors should stand you in good stead upon your return to playing regularly, whenever that may be.

• Read also: The three most common and easily fixable mistakes amateurs make when hitting bunker shots

The Golfing Gazette has already provided amateur golfers with the blueprint for success this winter with our guide to three things you can do to improve without leaving the house.

Now it’s time to focus on three specific drills which will help you improve your putting.

*Antony Martin played to a plus-four handicap as an amateur and competed on the professional mini-tour circuit in America, winning three times in total.

Three putting drills to practice indoors which will lower your handicap

Putting is arguably the most important part of the game.

And what better time to get your stroke locked in ahead of the 2026 than right now?

Focus on nailing down your start line

The ‘gate drill’ is the perfect way to improve your consistency when it comes to actually starting the ball where you want to.

The beauty of practicing this drill inside is that you should be on an almost dead flat surface.

Place a cup at the end of the room and lay down two coins around two inches apart from each other just in front of your ball, forming a gate.

The key is to make the ‘gate’ narrow enough so that getting the ball through is not easy. If you struggle with starting your ball on the correct line, this drill may seem difficult at the start.

However, the idea of the drill is to help train your eyes and brain to coordinate better. What you see when looking down at your ball and tracing your eyes up and down your line do not always match.

Distance control

The larger the room, the better for this one!

Give yourself the longest put possible and then place a golf ball 18 inches behind whatever object you are using as your ‘cup’.

The aim of this drill is to try to get every single one of your putts to finish in between the cup and the ball which is sitting 18 inches behind it.

12-18 past the hole has been statistically proven as the perfect speed required to hole putts.

Mid-high amateur golfers three-putt at least three times per round on average, so improving your distance control will be a sure-fire way of shaving some strokes off your scores.

One-handed drill

You can copy the great Tiger Woods with this one.

The one-handed drill (using your dominant hand) will help give you instant feedback regarding off-center strikes.

Practicing with one hand will also help you improve the tempo of your stroke.

By using your trail hand, you will get a better feel for the release of the putter head through impact, and how much acceleration or deceleration you have in your stroke.

The one-handed drill is a great one to improve your feel more so than your technique.

Amateur golfers putting stats from 30 feet and in

Our friends over at Shot Scope have complied some really in-depth data showing how amateur golfers actually fare on the greens.

Here are the results showing how regularly players from six different handicap categories actually hole putts from varied distances:

If you can nail down your speed and start line, you will become a better putter overnight.

It’s clear from those numbers that you don’t have to be perfect but there are definitely always ways to improve.

By practicing the three drills outlined above, you may well return to the golf course in the Spring a better putter!