My golf season having been officially “over” for two months and the next one still three months out, I will no doubt find the next few months quite maddening. So what can I do? Do I sit around and read the golf magazines looking for the latest tips and drills? Do I drool over the latest equipment and gear? Play Tiger Woods 2007 endlessly?
I will be doing all the above. However, I’ve also decided to take a different approach and come up with an off-season game plan of getting into better golf shape over the winter so I am ready to go come spring. My best round of the year was my last one at the Newport Cup and needless to say, it was the perfect springboard into working on an off-season plan to be a better golfer in 2007. Think of it as “Extreme Makeover: The Sand Trap Edition.”
Maintaining year-round muscle memory of your full swing is important if you want to be able to get better and not be rusty for the first month when the course thaws out. You basically have four options when the need to hit a bucket arises: golf domes, heated outdoor driving ranges, golf simulators, and your basement or garage. Which one you use depends on where you live and your budget.
Golf Domes
The first time I stepped into a golf dome many years ago, I had a bad feeling that the structural integrity was not exactly up to code and it was ready to collapse (or perhaps how a passenger felt when being on the Hindenburg). Needless to say, I didn’t stay long and that dome is no longer around.
Air supported domes however have improved since then and are now used for soccer, basketball, tennis, ice skating and even for industrial use. Golf domes provide a nice, warm environment to work on your game over the off season and I for one plan on utilizing one several times per month to work on my swing as this is my closest option.
Heated Outdoor Driving Ranges
If domes aren’t your thing, you can always use a heated outdoor driving range. The main benefit to using the outdoor range as opposed to the golf dome is the ability to see the entire ball flight of your shot rather than be limited by the length of the dome. The downside seems to be that they seem far and few between.
I’m not entirely sure where my ball landed, but at least I’m warm!
In my search for a practice facility that doesn’t require a day trip the domes seem to far outnumber the outdoor ranges however the idea of hitting a bucket when its snowing and 20 degrees out seems just the perfect way to thumb your nose at winter and may provide too much temptation not to try at least once this off-season.
Golf Simulators
Golf simulators seem to be the most numerous indoor practice facility to find as they are used by most major golf retailers and are now being utilized at golf courses, family entertainment centers, and sports bars to give you the opportunity to play some of the greatest courses in the world (albeit in a digital world).
I’ve used a few of these to demo clubs at some of the major retail chains in the past and they can provide you with quite a bit of good information such as distance, launch angle, and spin. I would prefer to to see the ball flight for real as oppose to a digital ball flight but this may be the only way to get in a round over the winter.
One plus to the simulators is that you can play some of the great courses of the world and the green fees are a lot cheaper. The graphics I’ve seen look amazing and they look very realistic.
Home
When the weather isn’t too cold, I usually will go out to my garage and take a few swings using some older clubs, a standard mat and some foam golf balls. While this setup works OK, there are some great products to make a practice facility in your own home.
The first thing you need to is to decide what kind of mat to use. There are several options from your plain fake synthetic grass mat that cost about $15 that you can put a few pieces of carpet under to protect your clubs to some truly innovative mats that can simulate shots that feel like you are in a fairway such as the True Strike mats and the Fairway Series at Softee Manufacturing.
Depending on your space and budget, there are many different sizes and styles of nets one can get. Izzo is one such manufacturer that makes nets that you can use year around. Of course, you also need practice golf balls to hit and two options are the Birdie Ball which we reviewed this spring and the Almost Golf Ball. Both provide a limited flight and give you something not available in previous practice balls, feel like a real golf ball.
Conclusion
Gone are the days where you put your clubs away for the winter and start counting the days until spring. Golfers now have several options for practicing their full swing over the winter with the availability and advancements of simulators, domes and outdoor heated driving ranges as well as innovative products to build a practice facility in the comfort of your own home.
Photo Credits: ©About Golf, ©The Farley Group, ©County Air Golf Park.
Great piece, Alan. May even motivate me to get off my duff and outside (or inside) practicing somewhere.
Still I’m torn. I kind of like an off season to lick my wounds from the season before, forget all the horrible shots, and dream of an upcoming season in which I finally master the game and ravage the competition.
Of course, waiting until March to start means I won’t have any game until July and I’ll be so out of shape it will disappear by September, like always.
Excuse me while I go look for my shag bag.
Is that the Eagle Quest Golf Dome in Rhode Island?
A great way to stay “golf fresh” is to make a ½ club. Take an old 5 or 6 iron, cut it in half and regrip it (you may have to put some extra grip tape on the shaft to make it feel normal because the diameter of the shaft is smaller).
This ½ club can be used indoors even in low basement type ceilings.
You can go through your full swing motion or just check basic positions including your grip. I especially like it to make sure my clubface is square ½way back, at the top, and ½way down. You can even try to mimic a player’s swing while watching the golf broadcast.
If your ceilings are really low, make the club out of a 9I or PW.
It is the Metro Golf Dome in Ontario, Canada (click on The Farley Group link in the photo credits to see more pictures of this dome).
I live in Florida so I don’t really have this problem but I used to live in Mass so I sure can relate.
One problem about playing golf year round is your bad habits never have a chance to lose their grip… I kinda miss that break where you can rethink your game and maybe review the fundamentals and kinda “start over.” I remember sitting watching golf on TV up north and holding my pitching wedge working on my grip. I also did a lot of chipping around the living room. Ya sure I broke a few things around the house but there’re kind of nice memories.
If I was up north these days I’d me heading to my nearest launch monitor to work on things like angle of attack, swing plane, and seeing how changing things effected by club head speed.
I’d probably be setting up a practice area in my garage or someplace and spending way too much money on new fangled electronic stuff. Instead I’m down here in beautiful Tampa playing golf and paying 3 times what I do in the summer. Oh well…it’s a tough job but someones got to do it.
This product, Golf Launchpad, created a buzz at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas earlier this month.
Matching PC game & golf swing simulator technologies.
http://www.electricspin.com/media.html
Mike