Improvised short game practice?

[wubskis]

As Marvin Gaye has taught me, ain't nothin' like the real thing. My dilemma however, is that I don't have regular access to any form of short game practice facilities. The only time I can get on a putting/chipping green is when I pay for a round, and can use their facilities to warm up. I am aware I'm being picky when I say I don't like extended practice sessions before a round, because I'll just tire myself out mentally, or after a round, because I just want to put my feet up, analyse my scorecard and make a mental checklist of what needs work, but in my head I won't get around this ethos.

It gets more interesting I suppose - I currently putt around my living room, marking out different spots and putting between them, which at full stretch can accomodate 20ft putts, which is pretty reasonable. It's fairly decent practice at making consistent strokes for distance and accuracy, albeit on a flat surface. I've contemplated trying to chip around my living room, but I'm in an apartment right now and I'm really not in a position to risk damaging anything etc.

There's a fairly open patch of grass outside the apartment building, mown to about half an inch deep, about 30*30 feet, that I've been chipping around, trying to focus on landing the ball at certain areas, as once it lands, it stops pretty dead.

So, in a MacGyver-esque scenario, what could I do with what I've got? I'm pretty prepared to be told 'nothing at all', that is if anyone has actually read the life story I posted above. Thanks in advance for any help you guys can throw my way D:

[bunkerputt]

Chip with a lob wedge. You can fly the ball farther and take a bigger swing in a shorter area. Also, buy a shag carpet patch to stop the ball. You don't even have a range that you can go to? Man, England sucks....no offense. Move to Texas if possible. Otherwise you could try one of the indoor golf simulators where you hit off a mat into a net. In fact, just setting up a mat and a net might be a good compromise. You can still develop a good motion without really seeing where the ball is going and just focusing on contact. In fact, that's one of the best ways to improve.

[wubskis]

Chip with a lob wedge. You can fly the ball farther and take a bigger swing in a shorter area. Also, buy a shag carpet patch to stop the ball. You don't even have a range that you can go to? Man, England sucks....no offense. Move to Texas if possible. Otherwise you could try one of the indoor golf simulators where you hit off a mat into a net. In fact, just setting up a mat and a net might be a good compromise. You can still develop a good motion without really seeing where the ball is going and just focusing on contact. In fact, that's one of the best ways to improve.

I've been chipping around the aforementioned grassy area with my lob wedge, just trying to build distance control and improve contact. I walk away feeling like I've learnt from it, so I consider it

fairly beneficial, but not exactly great. The shag carpet idea is actually pretty good though, and one I think I'll look into, thanks for that! I have a range within walking distance, but it's basically a farmer's field mown very rarely (at best) with covered bays, and it only has mats, no grass areas to take shots off. It makes for ok practice hitting full to 3/4 wedge shots, but anything less and you find yourself contending with grass of ridiculous length. There's a net to chip into, which again is alright for practicing distance control and repetition, but I find mats pretty horrible to work with, so it's not ideal. There's some ranges within a fairly short drive of where I am, but they're mostly just upgrades in condition of the local one - all with mats and no grass bays, none with anything to aim at apart from signs or flagsticks dotted around the place with no greens mown around them. The net idea, well, it sounds good in principle, and although I'm 99.9% sure I could install one in the apartment without incident and use it without causing damage, I'd rather not run the risk, especially since the range is at least good for hitting full shots.

[saevel25]

My key rule of thumb with shortgame, unless the shot calls for it use the least lofted club in which the shot dictates. The more the ball runs on the ground the better it is to control in my opinion.

[wubskis]

My key rule of thumb with shortgame, unless the shot calls for it use the least lofted club in which the shot dictates. The more the ball runs on the ground the better it is to control in my opinion.

Well, I am often called boring for picking up my 8-iron when around the greens and hitting a bump and run instead of trying to fly it towards the flag, so I'm generally in a sensible frame of mind =P

[senorchipotle]

why not get some foam balls with real flight patterns and chip those in your house.

[wubskis]

why not get some foam balls with real flight patterns and chip those in your house.

Well, all I can answer to this is that I wasn't aware of their existence? The nearest American Golf and the last four pro shops I've visited only sold wiffle-y balls, which I cannot stand, especially for chips.

Man, between this suggestion and the shag carpet mat one it looks like I could be having a pretty productive winter, thanks!

[Harmonious]

Question: In England, is it not permissable to just go to a course to use the putting/chipping green? Everywhere I have ever been in the US, you can use them free of charge, at least at public courses. I have spent countless hours in the early evening just practicing my putting and chipping in this way. Judging from the number of familiar faces, I think a lot of other folks do the same thing.

[wubskis]

Question: In England, is it not permissable to just go to a course to use the putting/chipping green? Everywhere I have ever been in the US, you can use them free of charge, at least at public courses. I have spent countless hours in the early evening just practicing my putting and chipping in this way. Judging from the number of familiar faces, I think a lot of other folks do the same thing.

When you say public courses, do you mean courses with no membership possibilities, or just courses the public can visit and play at? I've been definitively told that I can't just show up and practice at two of the local courses, citing that their use is for members and paying visitors only. There's only one course with no membership within about 45 minutes of where I live, and even there I would imagine that they would get quite uppity if I just turned up to practice with no intention of paying for a round. I have heard (from a friend of a friend of a friend etc) that at a local course they have a chipping/putting green for members only, and then one open to the public, but can't confirm this - I called a befuddled assistant in the Pro Shop that seemed to have no idea what I was talking about, so I will probably have to pay them a visit. They have a public driving range there, so it wouldn't be a completely wasted visit if I couldn't in fact use the short game practice area.

Golfing in America seems to have many, many benefits over golfing here, this is just another addition to an ever-growing list of reasons~

[Paradox]

my home course is all about people improving their games. They actually have two greens..one in front of the pro shop mainly used by people who are about to play(but open to anyone who wants to use it) and another by the driving range with full sized flagsticks so you can move a little further away and get a better visual. On top of that, there is a par 3 with mainly 60-70 yard holes where you can work on you wedge game quite a bit.

[wubskis]

my home course is all about people improving their games. They actually have two greens..one in front of the pro shop mainly used by people who are about to play(but open to anyone who wants to use it) and another by the driving range with full sized flagsticks so you can move a little further away and get a better visual. On top of that, there is a par 3 with mainly 60-70 yard holes where you can work on you wedge game quite a bit.

Well, I'll scout around the local courses and see if any of them will let me sneak on to use their short game areas. I'm playing a par 3 course thursday morning (busy week!) which is actually very nice, the maintenance is incredible and the hole designs are very fun, they even have their own imitation Sawgrass #17:

It's usually incredibly empty, so I'll play two balls, one I play normally, and one I purposefully attempt to get into trouble with so I have to get out of trouble. It's a sign of my handicap that sometimes my regular ball ends up in trouble, and my 'trouble ball' ends up in the middle of the green D:

[Paradox]

heh thats an oddly shapped green area.

If thats on a par 3 course I'd be playing that a bunch..looks like tons of fun.

[JohnQVegas]

If you want to work on accuracy, you can buy one of those little chippings nets for your grassy area. It wont really tell you what the ball is going to do after it lands (roll out or check up), but you can vary your distances and help you work on chipping to certain spots on the green.

[senorchipotle]

yeah, here in dallas we've got four or five ''municipal'' courses which are funded by the city through property and sales tax. so, essentially i'm already paying to use the practice greens there. you only have to pay if you're going to hit balls at the range. the one where i like to go has two large putting greens and a large chipping/pitching green. but all of them have practice facilities where anybody can just walk up and use them. but sadly muni's are pretty much only in/around large cities.

as far as practice balls goes, callaway sells orange foam ones with real flight pattern, but i've found the ''almost golf'' balls to be the best by far. they're coated in some sort of epoxy which makes them dense on the outside, but not hard enough to do any kind of damage. you could order either online i'm sure.

[bunkerputt]

One thing I forgot to mention... Grab a pillow and set it up 3 feet away. Just hit shots over and over into the pillow with some impact tape. Check your impact pattern. If it's not tight, forget about grass making it better. Get your impact pattern tight first. That way when you start seeing the ball fly and roll out, your mind will only need a few strokes to immediately key in on the right distances. Forget about distance control if your impact is everywhere on the clubface. Your brain has no idea how far a shot will possibly go. The pillow makes you make a connection between body motion and solid contact. All the other clutter like lie, stance, the hole, etc. is removed.

[Gerald]

I don't know about the UK, but in the Netherlands at most clubs it is possible to practice at the driving range, chipping and putting green, plus mostly a par 3 shortcourse for a small anual fee or day fee, without becoming a club member for the 18 hole course. I can imagine this to be the same in the UK. Overhere there are quite a few Pitch & Putt Par 3 courses, that also have a driving range at a cost of about € 30 monthly...... and it can be fun to practice your short game at these Pitch & Putt courses .... making 18 Par 3's can be as challenging as playing a low score at a normal course.

[The Recreational Golfer]

wubskis: If all you do is hit inside your house, you can do two things - practice making clean contact with all of your short game strokes, and practice hitting the ball straight (not as easy as it sounds, especially if you open the clubface). You can chip with real balls, and pitch with Wiffle balls by hitting them into a heavy blanket you can suspend from the curtain rod in front of one of your windows.

The only thing left to practice is distance, which you really need a practice facility for. You can turn a course into a practice facility if you show up when there's no one else around, play solo, and drop balls wherever you want to hit new shots or repeat shots that didn't work out the first time. I know from previous discussions that lots of us on this forum do that from time to time.