​Skidby Lakes golf professional Karl Worby explains how coming back from a winter away from golf can be made easy . . .

Have you had a long lay-off with a month or so without golf? Here are a few tips to get your game back up to scratch:

1. When practising at the driving range or practise ground, it is important to start with a warm-up and stretching exercise. This will help prevent injury and actively encourage concentration. You can see that by placing the club behind your shoulders and rotating the hips helps to loosen the shoulders and back.

2. Always start by using the short irons. These irons are from the eight-iron through to the lob-wedge. You should initially start with a few gentle half-swings and then go down through the bag. The short iron's ball position should be two-thirds of the way back in the stance from the back of the ball.

3. As you go down the bag, we come into the mid-irons (five-iron to seven-iron). The ball position should be more in the centre of the stance. These clubs can also be used to execute a chip and run shot on to the green.

4. The next group of irons are the long-irons and these are numbered from one through to four although, nowadays, many people have replaced these clubs with hybrids or rescue woods. These should have the ball positioned about one-third of the way forward in the stance to make it much easier to get the ball airborne.

5. Finally, you can finish off your full swings by using your driver. By using your driver, your stance will widen to shoulder width and the weight ratio should be about 60-40 to the right hand side. Also, the ball position should be opposite the inside of the left heel.