How to Practice Golf at Home With a GoSports Elite Hitting Mat

I have a confession to make. For two winters in a row, my golf swing mostly went dead on a thin foam mat that kept flattening. I am Russ, I am 63, I live outside Cleveland, and I play three times a week from about April through October. Then the snow would come, I would put the clubs in the corner of the garage, and by March my back would be stiff, my tempo would be gone, and the first month of the season would be me trying to remember how to swing. Last November I finally did something about it. I bought the GoSports Elite Hitting Mat, set it up on the garage floor, and started practicing at home. This is how I do it, including the parts nobody talks about when your lower back is the reason you are reading this in the first place.

If you are here because you want to keep your swing alive through the winter, or because your back gets stiff when you go too long between rounds, this guide is for you. I am not a teaching pro. I taught high-school shop for 31 years and I have a handicap around 16. What I can tell you is what actually happens when you hit a few hundred balls off a mat in your garage, what the GoSports Elite Hitting Mat does well, and the warm-up and cool-down routine that keeps my lower back from seizing up the way it did four years ago.

Step 1: Set up your space so you will actually use it

The biggest mistake I made the first winter was putting the mat somewhere inconvenient. I had a thin foam mat back then, and I told myself I would drag it out whenever I felt like practicing. I felt like practicing almost never. This time I cleared a corner of the garage, left the GoSports Elite Hitting Mat on the floor permanently, and put the net I already owned a few feet in front of it. That sounds like a small thing, but it changed everything. The mat is always there, the net is always there, and I can be swinging within two minutes of walking into the garage.

You do not need a fancy setup. You need a flat floor, a mat that does not slide, a net or a practice screen in front of you, and enough room behind you to make a full swing. I have about eight feet between the back wall and the net, and that is plenty for a wedge or a short iron. If you are going to hit driver, give yourself more room and think about where a mis-hit might go. I keep the garage door closed and I still check the ceiling every time I set up.

One more thing about the mat itself. The GoSports Elite Hitting Mat has a cushioned base, and that cushion matters more than I expected. My old foam mat flattened out after two winters and I could feel every impact through the club into my hands and up into my back. This one still has give after a full winter of use. If you have a bad back, that cushion is not a luxury. It is the whole point.

Step 2: Warm up before you touch a club

Four years ago I spent a long afternoon at the range and came home with a lower-back strain that took six physical therapy visits to sort out. My back still gets stiff in the morning, and it gets sore the evening after a round if I have not been careful. The single best thing I have done since then is stop skipping my warm-up. My wife Carol is the one who pointed out that I was skipping it, and she was right.

Before I hit a single ball on the GoSports Elite Hitting Mat, I spend five minutes on the living-room rug with my foam roller. I roll my upper back, my glutes, my hips, and my hamstrings. I do not roll directly on my lower spine, because my physical therapist told me not to. Then I make a dozen slow, smooth swings with a short iron, no ball. Since March I have also owned an Orange Whip, which I swing in the backyard on golf mornings. The Orange Whip has a flexible shaft with a weighted ball on the end, and it rewards a smooth tempo. If you rush it, it feels clunky. That is the point. It teaches my body to start the swing slowly instead of yanking the club back.

On cold golf mornings I also put on my back brace over a thin undershirt in the course parking lot. It is a lumbar support belt with a padded lower-back panel and adjustable side straps, and it gives me support and a reminder to stay braced. It does not fix anything, and I would never claim it does. It just helps me feel more supported when my back is already stiff. I wear it for roughly one round in three. In the garage I leave it in the bag and simply keep the session short on days when the cold has gotten into my back.

Step 3: Use alignment aids so you are not grooving a bad line

Here is the trap of practicing at home. You can hit hundreds of balls into a net and groove whatever swing you brought with you, including the bad parts. That is why I set up my Callaway Alignment Stix on the mat before I start. They are two bright yellow 48-inch sticks that collapse into short sections so they fit in the golf bag. I lay one along the target line at my toes and one along the ball line, and I check my setup before every few shots.

The alignment sticks do something important for me. They give me a visual target even though I am hitting into a net. Without them, I tend to aim wherever my feet happen to point, and after a hundred balls I have practiced aiming wrong. With the sticks down, I can feel my feet, hips, and shoulders lining up square, and I can see the club path relative to the line. It is the difference between practicing and just swinging.

I also use one of the sticks as a swing-plane guide sometimes. I stick it in the ground at an angle and make slow practice swings next to it. That is a drill I picked up from a friend at the range, and it is a good way to spend ten minutes without hitting a single ball. On days when my back is stiff, those slow swings are often all I do.

Step 4: Build a short session you can repeat most days

The biggest lesson I learned from my two dead winters is that a short session you actually do beats a long session you keep putting off. I aim for 20 to 30 minutes on the GoSports Elite Hitting Mat, a couple of evenings a week. That is enough to hit 40 or 50 balls with a wedge and a short iron, work on the alignment drill, and still be done before my back starts to complain.

I start with a wedge and take easy half-swings until the turf contact feels solid. Then I work up to full swings. I pay attention to the sound and feel of the club hitting the mat. The GoSports Elite Hitting Mat gives you honest feedback. If you hit behind the ball, you feel it. If you hit it clean, you feel that too. That feedback is the whole value of practicing at home, because a net does not show you where the ball went.

I also keep a tee in the mat for some shots. The mat came with rubber tees, and they are gentle on the mat and on my back. Hitting off a tee lets me work on a slightly different part of the swing, and it is a nice change of pace from hitting off the turf. I do not hit driver in the garage very often, mostly wedges and short irons, and that is fine. The goal is to keep the swing feeling alive, not to win a long-drive contest in my garage.

Step 5: Cool down after you put the club down

This is the step I used to skip, and it is the step that has kept me playing three times a week. After I finish a garage session, I put the clubs away, go inside, and spend another five minutes on the living-room rug with the foam roller. I roll my upper back, glutes, hips, and hamstrings again, and I take a few slow stretches. It takes almost no time, and it makes a real difference in how my back feels the next morning.

The evening after a round, I do the same thing. I roll out on the living-room rug while I watch the news, and I have done that most evenings after a round since January of 2025. My back still gets stiff in the morning sometimes, but it does not seize up the way it did before I started this routine. I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. If you have real or worsening pain, go see a doctor or a physical therapist. That is what I did, and it is the best advice I can give you.

One more thing about the cool-down. Since March I have kept an Orange Whip by the back door, and I take a few slow swings with it in the backyard most mornings before I play. It is a full-size trainer with a flexible shaft and a counterweight above the grip, and it is the best warm-up tool I own. A few smooth swings in the parking lot before a round, and my back feels ready instead of tight.

What Else Helps

The GoSports Elite Hitting Mat is the center of my winter practice setup, but it is not the whole setup. The net I hit into is one I already owned, and any sturdy net will do. The Callaway Alignment Stix live in my golf bag and come out for every garage session. Since March, the Orange Whip has been my outdoor warm-up tool, and the foam roller is my cool-down tool. The back brace is there for cold mornings and stiff days. None of these things fixed my back, because nothing fixes a back except time, strength, and good habits. What they did was let me keep practicing through the winter, and that is what has kept my swing alive and my back happier.

If you are just starting out, I would buy the mat first, then add the alignment sticks, then add the warm-up and cool-down tools. You do not need all of it on day one. You need a mat, a net, and a routine. The rest is refinement.

A short session you actually do beats a long session you keep putting off. Twenty minutes on the GoSports Elite Hitting Mat, a couple of evenings a week, kept my swing alive through an Ohio winter.