Preparing For 2012 During the Winter

Many people that read the blog know that I grew up in upstate NY where we get a lot of snow (called ‘lake effect’, which will produce snowflakes the size of small dogs). With that, it makes it difficult to improve your golf game into the following golf season or to carry over a good year of golf into the following season. Here are some tips that I would have to prepare for golf while it’s snowing.


MATS

If you have a garage or another indoor place you can swing your clubs, I recommend the Fairway Pro golf mat (www.fairwaypro.com)




I’ve tried a few other mats that felt a little better than the fairway pro, but they are much more expensive and not nearly as portable. I got to try the Fairway Pro out at the 2011 PGA Merchandise show and was quite impressed with it. Does it simulate a divot? Not really. But, it feels good for a mat and doesn’t kill your wrists and hands when you miss.


NETS

I’ve been told that the issue with nets is that they break open after use. I’ve been told that best solution is to get the mesh Army nets.


I don’t think these mesh Army nets are necessarily cheap, but from what some readers have told me is that you save money in the end versus having to buy a new golf net.


CAMERA

It may be difficult to shoot this indoors unless you have the proper lighting. But, I typically recommend the Casio line of products. Although, from what I’ve been told the latest model, ZR-100 is an inferior product to the previous ones.

I think in the offseason, many golfers work too much on their timing instead of working on getting rid of those 1 or 2 big mechanical flaws that cause them the most problems. I think the offseason is the time to fix those and it’s best to do those with a camera, if you don’t have an instructor around to help.


PUTTING

Over the past year or so, I’ve become a bigger and bigger believer in the importance of speed/touch in putting. If you have a decent amount of carpet to putt on, I think you can work diligently on your putting and improve it without needing a putting green.

I would recommend getting Geoff Mangum’s ‘Reality of Putting’ video (www.realityofputting.com)



I’ve found this video to be tremendously helpful to my putting, mostly from a putting mechanics perspective. What I’ve found is that most people who have purchased this video have wound up glossing over the part where Geoff tells us how every golfer has touch and how to use their brain, along with the rhythm and tempo of the stroke to get the right touch. It’s amazing how well this works, but even more amazing is how many viewers completely ignore this.

It’s not even difficult to do, but it will require a change (most likely) in your pre-putt routine. And if you have carpet, you can incorporate this and work on a new pre-putt routine to start hitting more putts with a better touch.

As far as training aids go, I still think Dave Pelz’s ‘Truthboard’ is a good product.


I like it because it helps with getting the initial direction of the putt correct and you can start to see where you may have issues with aiming the putter. It also allows you to make for breaking putts as well. Typically, the best putters on the PGA Tour according to the Putts Gained data…are really good from 3 to 5 feet. It’s not that 3 to 5 footers matter more, but they are a sign of quality of mechanics, aim and speed/touch (often overlooked on short putts) of the golfer.


I would also recommend getting an Edel putter fitting if there’s a fitter nearby. Granted, the Edel putters are not cheap. But, I’ve had mine for 7 months and the only thing I’ve contemplated with it is possibly getting the same putter, but with the Vari-Weight model (allows for you to change the weight). And even still, I don’t think I’m going to do that.

The only complaints I’ve heard about the Edel putters is that I had 1 reader say that he changed his address position quite a bit with his putting instructor and that changed how he aimed. And a few golfers said that they didn’t like the stock round Edel putter grip. But, you can get any putter grip you would like on the Edel and I actually love the round Edel putter grip.

I actually believe that the majority of golfers really do not need to change their address position with their putting in order to putt better. Obviously, the address position can cause the golfer to aim a certain way. But, that’s kinda the point of Edel putters…they fit the putter to the way your eyes aim. So if you get fit for an Edel now, you’re not going to start mis-aiming it by the time the 2012 golf season starts.

When I lived up north, I always wanted to focus on greatly improving at least 2 things and the winter season gave me some time to do that because I didn’t have playing golf getting in the way of making progress in those weak areas. Identify those weak areas and you can get off to a fast start come 2012.




3JACK