You do not need to hit balls to get better. Three of the four biggest sources of lost shots for a recreational golfer can be worked on indoors.
1. Connection, with slow rehearsal swings
The best home skill in golf, because it is trained at half speed and half length. A band around your upper arms, twenty slow swings, then twenty without it. Nothing leaves the ground and the habit still builds.
2. Putting, which is where your strokes actually go
Putting transfers almost perfectly from carpet to green in terms of setup and stroke. Eye line, shoulder alignment and start line are identical indoors. A mirror gives you the same information on a rug that it gives on a practice green.
3. Setup and posture, in a mirror
Unglamorous and genuinely valuable. Most swing faults have a setup component, and setup is free to fix. Two minutes checking posture, ball position and alignment beats fifty balls.
4. Turn and mobility
If you physically cannot turn, no drill fixes your backswing. Slow rotations with arms crossed, feeling the chest move over a stable lower half. This doubles as a warm up.
What genuinely needs a range
- Strike and low point work that needs ball flight.
- Path work where you need to see curvature.
- Speed training, unless you have real space.
A realistic week
Ten minutes on five evenings at home, one range session at the weekend to test what you built. That is about ninety minutes, and it will beat most people practising twice as long.
