9 Best Golf Short Game Drills to Save Strokes Fast

The best golf short game drills train the shots you hit most and score with least: chips, pitches, bunker splashes, and putts inside 50 yards. Roughly 60 to 65 percent of your strokes happen there, yet most players spend practice time on full swings. Below are 9 drills, ranked by how many strokes each realistically saves, covering distance control, landing spots, strike, sand, and putting. Work the ones matching your weakest area and your scores drop without a single extra yard off the tee.

Why Short Game Practice Saves the Most Strokes

Distance control and reliable contact around the green cut strokes faster than any driver upgrade. A golfer who gets up and down half the time and never three-putts is often 8 to 10 shots better than one with the same ball-striking but a loose short game. These drills fix the low point, landing spot, and speed judgment that decide those scores, and they complement the full-swing work in our guide to golf swing drills. Learn the setup first, then drill it to a target.

The 9 Best Golf Short Game Drills at a Glance

Rank	Drill	Skill it fixes	Best for
1	Ladder Drill	Distance control	Chips and pitches long/short
2	Towel Target Drill	Chip landing spot	Steering the club at the pin
3	Coin Drill	Crisp ball-first strike	Chunked and thin chips
4	Weight-Forward Drill	Low-point control	Fat-and-thin pattern
5	Clock Drill	Pitch distance calibration	The 20–50 yard gap
6	Line Drill (bunker)	Sand-first contact	Fear of the sand
7	Gate Drill	Putting start line	Missed short putts
8	Ladder Putting Drill	Lag speed control	Three-putts from distance
9	Up-and-Down Game	Pressure transfer	Practice that won’t hold up

1. The Ladder Drill (distance control, all short shots)

Distance control is the single biggest scoring skill inside 50 yards, and the ladder drill trains it directly. Set targets or towels at 5, 10, and 15 paces and chip or pitch three balls to each without changing clubs, varying only your swing length. The goal is landing every ball in its own zone. Most amateurs miss greenside shots long or short, not left or right, so grooving three repeatable carry distances erases the guesswork that causes duffs and long-range three-putts.

2. The Towel Target Drill (chip landing spot)

Great chippers pick a landing spot, not the flag, and this drill forces it. Lay a towel or a paper plate about 3 feet onto the green as your target and land every chip on it, letting the ball release and roll to the hole. It retrains your brain to control carry instead of steering the club at the pin. Pair it with our full golf chipping technique breakdown so your setup supports a consistent landing point, then chip 20 balls chasing the towel.

3. The Coin Drill (crisp strike, no chunks)

Place a coin or a tee just ahead of the ball and clip the coin after the ball on every chip. This trains a descending, ball-first strike with your hands leading, the fix for chunked and thin shots. If you hit the ground behind the coin, your low point is too far back. Fifteen slow reps rebuild the feeling of compressing the ball first, and it reinforces the fundamentals in our step-by-step guide on how to chip in golf.

4. The Weight-Forward Drill (low-point control)

Set up to a chip with roughly 60 to 70 percent of your weight on your lead foot and keep it there through the strike. Many players unconsciously shift back to “help” the ball up, which moves the low point behind the ball. Hold a lead-side-loaded finish for a two-count on every rep. Combined with the coin drill, this is the fastest cure for the fat-and-thin pattern that wrecks scores around the green.

5. The Clock Drill (pitch distance calibration)

Pitching from 20 to 50 yards is the hardest short-game gap for most golfers, and the clock drill maps it. Picture your lead arm as a clock hand and hit pitches to 8 o’clock, 9 o’clock, and 10 o’clock backswing lengths, noting the carry each produces with your wedge. You build three reference distances you can trust on the course instead of manufacturing feel under pressure. Log the yardages so the calibration transfers to real shots.

6. The Line Drill in the Bunker (sand-first contact)

Bunker shots demand hitting the sand, not the ball, and the line drill grooves it. Draw a straight line in the sand, set a ball a couple of inches forward of it, open the face, and splash the sand starting on the line so it never touches the ball. Watch where the sand enters; if you catch the ball first, your low point is off. This mirrors the full method in our guide on how to hit a bunker shot, the shot amateurs fear most and practice least.

7. The Gate Drill (putting start line)

Set two tees just wider than your putter head about a foot in front of the ball and roll putts through the gate without clipping either tee. A putt that starts online from inside 6 feet is nearly always holed, and this drill exposes a face that is open or shut at impact. Start at 4 feet and add distance once you clear the gate cleanly ten times in a row. It slots neatly alongside our full set of golf putting drills for face and path.

8. The Ladder Putting Drill (lag speed control)

Three-putts come from poor speed, not poor aim, so drill lag distance. Place balls at 20, 30, and 40 feet and putt each trying to stop it inside a 3-foot circle of the hole, resetting your speed for every distance. Judging pace is a feel skill that only sharpens with reps to varied lengths. Nailing your first-putt speed removes the knee-knocking second putt entirely, which is where the ladder drill quietly saves rounds.

9. The Up-and-Down Game (pressure transfer)

The final drill turns practice into scoring. Drop a ball in a random greenside lie, chip or pitch it, then hole out with the putter, scoring one point for every up-and-down. Play nine “holes” and track your total. Adding a score makes each shot matter the way it does on the course, which is the transfer most range practice lacks. Chase your personal best each session, and the pressure of a kept score is exactly the missing ingredient that turns clean practice reps into lower rounds.

What Makes a Great Short Game Drill

A drill earns its place when it gives instant feedback, isolates one skill, and transfers to a real target under some pressure. The towel, gate, and coin drills succeed because you can see immediately whether you passed or failed each rep. The up-and-down game succeeds because it adds a score. Avoid mindless repetition to no target: rolling putts with no gate or chipping to open green grooves whatever pattern you already own, the same trap that undermines aimless full-swing practice covered in our how to swing a golf club guide.

A Simple 20-Minute Short Game Practice Plan

Structure beats wandering the green hitting random chips. Use this rotation three or four times a week.

• Minutes 0–6 — strike and landing: coin drill, then towel target drill, 10 balls each.
• Minutes 6–12 — distance control: ladder drill and clock drill to real targets.
• Minutes 12–16 — sand or extra chipping: line drill if you have a bunker, otherwise the weight-forward drill.
• Minutes 16–20 — putting under pressure: gate drill from 4 feet, then the up-and-down game for a score.

For a deeper putting block on off days, layer in our golf putting drills routine, and rotate the extra chipping patterns in our golf chipping drills set so the greenside work stays varied.

Common Mistakes Golfers Make Practicing the Short Game

Chipping to no target. Without a landing spot or a hole, you groove effort, not accuracy. Always name a target before every rep.

Ignoring speed on the greens. Players drill 6-foot putts for hours and never practice lag, then three-putt from distance. Spend as much time on 20-to-40-foot speed as on short makeable putts.

Only practicing perfect lies. Real greenside shots come from rough, downslopes, and tight lies. Drop balls in bad spots on purpose so your practice matches the course.

Skipping the pressure. Clean reps with no consequence do not transfer. Finish every session with a scored game so the skill holds when it counts.

When to Drill and When to Just Play

Do the conscious drill work in practice, then trust it on the course. Thinking “coin drill, weight forward, sand first” over a real chip overloads you and produces worse shots than reacting to the target. Build the pattern with these drills at the range and short-game area, and when a good short game finally frees up strokes, feed the momentum into the scoring plan in our guide on how to break 100 in golf, where getting up and down matters far more than distance.