When you live in a cold climate region, it can be a bit hard to practice your golf swing. However, with a bit of creativity and lots of determination, you can get around the snow drifts and freezing temperatures that you’ll have to deal in order to go out and work on your skills such as as long shots, putting and chipping. Use these convenient techniques and hacks in order to resist the temptation not to play again until spring, and improve your golfing skills in the cold.
Work On Your Body
During the winter, you have a great opportunity to work on your strength and flexibility. Professional golf players such as Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods frequently improve their fitness on the offseason. Of course, exclusively working on your physical conditioning is not going to improve your swing, but it does help avoiding injury and playing better in general.
Ted Bishop, the vice president of PGA of America, says its good to do at least 45 minutes of aerobics, four or five days every week, and, if possible, get a personal trainer to give you a custom designed fitness program.
According to Golf Magazine, using medicine balls and lifting weights is an excellent option for a golfer who’s looking to get more strength and power to get longer shot with your driver or other clubs.
Play Indoors
If you find an indoor driving range, it can be easy and comfortable to practice your shots. Although you won’t be able to go as far as you’d go in a field, a domed and heated facility is an excellent way to practice in the winter. If you work during the day, make sure the facility you’re looking into is open late into the evening, so you can practice at night.
If you don’t know any indoor ranges around, check with the club pro or ask your fellow golfers. Another option would be to consider an indoor putting green for total weather-independent man cave golfing!
Practice With Weighted Clubs
If an indoor range is not a possibility for you, you can always swing a weighted golf club in our garage. They are shorter than regular clubs, so it’s likely that you’ll have enough space to swing them. The PGA suggests that golfers swing a weighted club every day, even if only for a few minutes, to increase the club head speed you can reach and improve your arms and wrists’ strength.
Get A Grip
If you ned to, get a professional instructor to teach you what’s the proper grip, or get a club that has a training grip attached to it. Keep the club near you when you’re at home during the winter, and work on you grip on your off time.
For instance, you can hold your club during the commercials until its over. Michael Breed, a famous teaching professional from PGA, suggests that players wrap paper around the club’s grip, and practice holding it lightly enough for the paper not to crinkle. According to Breed, this is a good way to hold the club without unnecessary tension in your arms and hands.
Find Open Courses
Some courses remain open in the winter – even on regions were the winter is harsh, such as Chicago. If you find a course that’s open year-round, you’ll be able to carry on practicing on all seasons. There might be outdoor driving ranges that have heated stalls in your area as well, which is another good option.
If All Else Fails, Just Swing
If most of these options aren’t available to you often, you can always go outside on a nice winter day and swing a club a hundred times. You don’t need a ball to practice – just try and improve your form, swinging as if it was the real thing.
Just working out, mastering your grip and taking 100 practice swings whenever you can is already going to significantly improve your golfing skills.
