Ninety golfers who had never putted were split into two groups. One group hit 240 putts in a single day. The other hit 60 a day for four days. Same 240 putts. Tested a day later, a week later and four weeks later, the four day group was better every time (Dail and Christina, 2004).
That one study is the whole case for how to spend this winter.
If your season ends around now, it is four or five months until it starts again. Two hours a week for twenty weeks is forty hours. There are two usual ways to spend them. Nothing until April. Or one long session now and then, on the loud shot. Both ways you come back rusty at everything, because neither one picked a thing.
3x15 Week
Three sessions a week. Fifteen minutes each. Every one scored. That is 45 minutes, spread out, with a number at the end. It is the study, applied.
What goes in the 15 minutes comes from your ranking. The top of it. If the top cannot be trained at home, take the next one down. One thing, two at most. Not four.
What each part of your game looks like at home
| Leak | At home | The score | What waits for spring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Putting | A mat or the carpet. Start line and putts from 3 to 6 feet. | Makes out of 10. | Green speed and reading slope. |
| Around the green | A net, or foam balls onto a towel. Landing spot. | Landings on the towel out of 10. | Real turf, bad lies, spin. |
| Approach | A net with a launch monitor, or an hour in a simulator bay. Contact and carry on one club. | Your carry spread on that club. | Wind, slopes, the real target. No monitor? Approach waits, and your home sessions go to the next leak down. |
| Off the tee | The Penalty Test is a decision, not a drill. It needs no winter reps. What does change in winter is speed. | Clubhead speed on a radar, if you have one. | Everything else. A review of 20 studies found about 8 weeks of strength and speed training added about 4% clubhead speed (Uthoff and colleagues, 2021). That is a gym plan, and it comes from a coach, not from this course. |
Score it
The scoring is the part people skip and the part that matters. Ten putts from four feet is practice. Ten putts from four feet, count the makes, write the number down, and now you have something to beat on Thursday. Without the number, a 15 minute session turns into hitting the same putt until you are bored, and bored is not practice.
What a mat can and cannot do
I could not find a study that shows putting on a mat carries to a real green. The closest thing is 22 elite golfers who trained a putting routine in a lab and then, over their next ten competitive rounds, averaged almost two fewer putts a round (Vine, Moore and Wilson, 2011). Small study. Low handicaps. No placebo group.
So here is where I land. A mat holds your stroke and your start line. Green speed you relearn in April, and in my experience that takes a few rounds, not a few weeks.
My winter
An hour in a simulator bay once or twice a week, and a few minutes of putting in my office most days. That is about your two hours. None of it is swing changes. The sim hour is contact and carry numbers. The office putting is start line. That is it.
Your one action this week
Take the top of your ranking that you can train at home. Run three 15 minute sessions on it this week. Score every one. Write the three numbers on the 3x15 Week card. Next week you beat them.
This week's three numbers
Three 15 minute sessions on one thing. Score each one and type it here.
Kept on this phone so the numbers are here next week. Write them on the 3x15 Week card too.
If you set the app up with your ranking, it builds the plan from it, and the net and putting filter cuts it down to what you can do at home. Every drill has a score built in, so the number to beat is already there.
Your first session is 15 minutes at home. Do it in the next 48 hours. 30 days free at app.playready.golf. Code COURSE20 takes $20 off the annual plan, every year. Start free.
Next week: which clubs in your bag earn their spot, and the one gap worth closing.