There are times during the season when it’s nice to change up the practice routine, put away the traditional drills, and have some fun while still working on some key skills. In this article, I will describe a great activity that combines soccer with golf.

Soccer Golf

Soccer golf is a great drill that will help players improve passing accuracy, touch, and leg strength.

To get started, you first want to select several objects to use as “holes” on your golf course. Objects can include things such as goal posts, trash cans, cones, light poles, trees, fences, and so on. You don’t need to limit yourself to the soccer field.

After you have determined your targets, you want to set up a course. You want to create holes of varying length and difficulty. Use your imagination and creativity. For example, I’ve made par 5 “doglegs” where players needed to chip the ball over a fence and navigate around a tree before reaching the target. I’ve had par 3 holes where players had to lob the ball over an imaginary lake before reaching the hole.

Now that you have the course set up, give the players a walk-through of each hole, explaining how they should proceed. You can also establish a par for each hole at this time depending on its length and difficulty. Pars in golf usually range from 3 to 5 strokes but your holes can be as long or as short as you want.

Once the players are familiar with the holes, have them proceed through the course. You can either have each player go individually or you can send them off in pairs, having them take turns on each shot. Each touch of the ball is worth a stroke and the players should keep track of their own scores.

This is a great activity that your players will really enjoy. My teams actually create their own score cards and players now have an active role in developing new holes and courses.

Soccer Golf is an activity that can be used at any point of a practice, but I find it works particularly well as a cool-down activity towards the end.