Most golfers do not have a drill shortage. They have a drawer full of drills they tried twice, and a swing that has not changed in three years. A drill is not a tip you read, it is a constraint you repeat, and the ones that work all do the same job: they make the wrong movement difficult, or they tell you instantly that you made it.
What separates a drill from a tip
A tip tells you what to do. A drill removes the option of doing anything else, or it makes the error impossible to miss. That is the whole distinction, and it explains why some famous drills do nothing for some golfers: if the drill does not constrain your specific error, it is just an unusual way to hit a golf ball.
There are three mechanisms, and knowing which one you are using tells you whether the drill is worth your session time.
| Mechanism | How it works | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| Physical constraint | An object stops the faulty movement before it happens | A headcover under the trail armpit, a towel behind the ball |
| Instant feedback | The strike itself reports back before you can rationalise it | A gate of two tees, a line of spray on the turf, foot spray on the face |
| Scored task | A number forces honesty and creates mild pressure | Nine points from three distances, up and down out of ten |
Most golfers only ever use the first kind, which is why practice stops transferring. Constraints teach a position. Scored tasks teach you to produce it when it counts, and that second job is the one the course actually sets.
Pick drills from your own numbers, not from a list
The reason a "best drills" list rarely helps is that it cannot know which shot is costing you. Shot Scope's summary of the five stats worth tracking is a better starting point than any drill collection: tee shot tendency, club distances, greens in regulation, up and down percentage by club, and make percentage from inside three feet and from three to six feet. The same source notes that even a scratch golfer misses one attempt in four from three to six feet, which is a useful correction to what most golfers assume good putting looks like.
Three rounds with those five things written on the card will point at one cluster, and that cluster is where your drills come from.
| What the card says | The cluster to work | What that looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Tee shots finishing in trouble, or the same curve every time | Full swing | Path and face drills, once the grip is checked |
| Missed greens turning into two or three shots | Chipping and pitching | Landing spot control and club choice |
| Three or more three-putts, or short putts missed | Putting | Speed from long range, start line from short |
| Distances you cannot predict from one swing to the next | Strike quality first | Low point drills before anything else |
Where the shots actually are
Practice allocation is decided before any individual drill matters, and most golfers get it backwards because the long game is more fun to practise.
Shot Scope's analysis of where to aim your practice, drawn from a database of around 400 million tracked shots, found that the shot distribution barely changes across handicap levels: the bulk of everyone's shots sit inside 50 yards or beyond 200 yards, with much less happening in between. The same data has a 15 handicap hitting about four greens in regulation a round, which means fourteen holes a round include a shot from around the green.
That is the argument for the split below. It is not a moral position about the short game, it is arithmetic.
| Weekly hour | Minutes | Why it gets that share |
|---|---|---|
| Putting, mostly speed | 15 | Every hole ends here and three-putts are the most avoidable stroke on the card |
| Chipping and pitching | 20 | Fourteen holes a round begin their scoring problem here |
| Full swing, with targets | 20 | Enough to keep the strike honest without rebuilding anything |
| One scored task | 5 | Turns the previous 55 minutes into something the course recognises |
If you get one hour a week, that is the hour. If you get three, keep the proportions and expand each block rather than adding new drills.
Full swing drills, at hub depth
Full swing drills fall into three groups: sequence drills that fix the order things move in, path and face drills that fix where the ball starts and how it curves, and strike drills that fix where the club meets the ground. Working on all three at once is the most common way to waste a winter.
Start with the strike. A golfer who does not know whether the club is arriving before or after the ball cannot usefully work on anything else, because every other fault reads as inconsistency. The full set, sorted by fault, is in golf swing drills, and the mechanics they are trying to produce are in golf swing basics.
Chipping drills, at hub depth
Chipping drills are the highest-return drills in golf for anyone above a 15 handicap, and the least practised, because a practice green is less satisfying than a range bay.
The two skills worth separating are landing spot control and club selection. Almost every amateur chipping problem is one of those two rather than a technique fault, which is why a drill that scores where the ball lands beats a drill that scores where it finishes.
Club selection is the one with a number attached. Shot Scope's tracking of what amateurs use around the green has a 15 handicap taking 2.52 shots to hole out when they chip with an 8 iron, 9 iron or pitching wedge, against 2.67 with a gap, sand or lob wedge. That is why the drill below uses three clubs rather than one. The full set is in chipping drills, and the technique underneath them is in how to chip a golf ball.
Putting drills, at hub depth
Putting splits cleanly into two skills that need different drills, and mixing them is why most putting practice produces nothing.
Speed control decides three-putts, and it is trained from 20 feet and beyond with a target zone rather than a hole. Start line decides short putts, and it is trained from three to six feet with a gate. A green session that alternates between the two, rather than spending twenty minutes rolling putts at one hole, is worth several times its length. The full set sits in putting drills, with the stroke itself in how to putt.
How long a drill needs, and how to know it is done
Every drill on this site carries a dose, because "practise this" is not an instruction. The two questions golfers actually have are how many and for how long.
| Type of change | Reps per session | Sessions a week | Before it feels normal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grip or setup position | 20 rehearsals, no ball | 4 to 5 | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Strike or low point | 10 to 20 balls | 3 | 4 weeks |
| Sequence or path change | 20 to 30 balls | 3 | 6 to 10 weeks |
| Short game landing control | 20 balls | 2 | 4 weeks |
| Putting speed control | 15 minutes | 3 | 6 weeks |
Two things are worth saying plainly. A change feels wrong for the first fortnight whether or not it is correct, so early discomfort is not evidence of anything. And progress shows up as tighter grouping before it shows up as better shots, which is why the scoring measures above are about consistency rather than quality.
Where to run them
Drills need somewhere to live, and the three options are not interchangeable. Full swing drills that need ball flight belong on a range, where the session structure matters as much as the drill and is covered in driving range routine. Putting, chipping and every no-ball rehearsal work perfectly well indoors, which is the subject of how to practise golf at home. The thinking behind session design, including how to split a limited week, sits in how to practise golf effectively.
Key takeaways
- A drill either makes the fault physically hard or reports the error instantly. Anything else is a tip.
- Pick drills from your own tracked numbers rather than from a list, and start with tee shot tendency, up and down percentage and short putt make rate.
- Most shots happen inside 50 yards or beyond 200, so the practice hour is weighted accordingly.
- Two drills at a time is the ceiling, and one of them should be short game.
- Constraints teach a position. Scored tasks teach you to produce it under mild pressure, and only the second one transfers.
- A drill that has become comfortable has finished its job.
- Give every drill four to six weeks at three short sessions a week before judging it.
- Improvement shows as tighter grouping first and better shots second.
Common questions
What are the best golf drills for beginners?
Strike and setup drills, in that order. A line drawn on the turf to check where the divot starts, a gate of two tees to check the putter face, and twenty grip rehearsals without a ball will do more in a month than any swing drill, because they fix the things every later change depends on.
How many golf drills should I work on at once?
Two, and one of them should be a short game drill. Every change feels wrong for the first two weeks, so working on four at once means spending your whole season in the uncomfortable phase without reaching the part where anything settles.
How long does it take for a golf drill to work?
Four to six weeks at three short sessions a week for most swing changes, and two to three weeks for a setup or grip change. Sequence changes are slower, often eight to ten weeks. If nothing has shifted in the grouping after six weeks, the drill is probably aimed at the wrong fault.
Do golf drills actually transfer to the course?
Constraint drills transfer positions, and scored tasks transfer performance. A session that only ever repeats one shot at one target builds something the course never asks for, which is why every drill above ends with a scored or alternating version.
What golf drills can I do without a ball?
Grip rehearsals, setup and posture in a mirror, slow motion sequence work, and putting stroke rehearsals against a skirting board. These are the drills that fit into a working week, and they are the ones that build the positions every ball-striking change depends on.
Are golf training aids better than simple drills?
Rarely, and only when they punish a specific fault you have actually diagnosed. A headcover, a towel, two tees and a pair of alignment sticks cover most faults. Buying an aid before knowing the fault is how a drawer of unused equipment starts.
Should I do drills at the range or at home?
Both, for different things. Anything needing ball flight belongs at the range. Putting, chipping into a net, setup work and any no-ball rehearsal is better done at home, because frequency matters more than session length for those skills.
How many balls should a drill use?
Fewer than you think. Ten to twenty balls with full attention beats sixty on autopilot, and most drills are ruined by hitting the same shot repeatedly until it works, which trains the last swing rather than the skill.
Which drills fix a slice?
Path and face drills, but only after the grip has been checked, because a weak grip produces an open face no swing drill can outrun. Start with the grip, then work the path, and never both in the same month.
Do I still need lessons if I have good drills?
A coach is mostly useful for diagnosis rather than drills, and a wrong diagnosis makes every drill after it a waste. One lesson to find the fault, then months of drilling it, is a far better use of money than a lesson every few weeks on a different topic.
Tom Ashworth
Tom Ashworth is a PGA Professional who has taught golf since 2012, working mainly with beginners and mid-handicappers at club level in Surrey. He reviews the instruction guides on Learn Golf for technical accuracy before they publish.
Most of his teaching is with players in their first three years of the game, and most arrive having been told too much: six swing thoughts collected from videos, half of them contradicting each other. His approach is to check the grip and the alignment before touching the swing, on the basis that most bad ball flight is decided at address.