With winter fast approaching, many recreational golfers are putting their clubs away until the spring of next year. Are you closing out the season playing your best golf? What can be done to ensure that next season, you arent starting over trying to reclaim your form? Here are five things you can do each week this winter to make sure you hit the links as sharp as when you left this fall.

1) Practice your putting. How many strokes do you add in the course of your game because of three putts or easy short putts you have missed? If youre like most golfers, the answer is too many even if it is one or two strokes each game. There are tons of products available to help your putting, from complete putting greens to ball return systems if you are using the living room carpet. Even if you are using your carpet, the key to practice enough to keep your putting form. You can always adjust to the speed of real greens when the season rolls around.

2) Setup a driving net in your garage. Just swinging the club each week can help keep you in shape for striking the ball. The worry here is that you may pick up some bad habits and not realize it because you arent seeing where the ball is going. You should take this into consideration but as long as you are thinking about what you are doing, you should be okay. Just be sure to be careful or get a decent product you can use to safely do this. Getting hit in the head with a ball wont help your game much.

3) Take a trip south for relaxation and golfing. You might as well enjoy keeping your golf form so head down south during the middle of the winter to make sure your practicing is paying off. This may even score you some points with your spouse for when you want to head out every weekend next summer.

4) Find an indoor driving range. Obviously, the benefits of this are straight forward. If you can get to the range regularly over the winter, you can see how your drives, long irons, and short game are all doing based on your practice in the garage.

5) Watch as much golf as you can. Sometimes you need to the see the game to be the game. If you pay close attention to how the pros hit the ball, it eventually will sink in to your head and you can attempt to mimic this on the range. It will all come together when you start next season.

If take the time this winter to try these 5 tips, you will most certainly be ready for the links for the 2006 season. Even if you dont have the opportunity to go south for a golf trip, start now to keep your game in top form and get excited about shooting your best score next year.