3 Reasons Why You Should Take Golf Lessons During the Winter

The golf season in Saskatchewan is coming to an end for another year. It’s almost time to put the clubs away for the winter and count down the days till we can get back out on the links… or is it?

Most golfers would never think to take golf lessons in the winter. My philosophy is to use the off season to work on technical upgrades to your swing, and use the summer to make minor tweaks and focus on the short game and scoring ability.

Here are 3 reasons why winter is a great time to work on your golf swing.

 

1    Saskatchewan’s Golf Season is Short. 

We all know that the golf season in Saskatchewan is short, typically less than 6 months long. Do you really want to be working on your golf swing, or do you want to be out lowering your handicap and playing to your best potential?

2    You can Disassociate the Process from the Outcome of Swing.

One of the reasons changing your golf swing is so hard is because of the difficulty to disassociate the process (motor pattern changes) from the outcome (strike quality and ball flight). When you make changes to the motor pattern of your swing, at first, your ability to make solid contact may get worse. I see this all to often. A student makes a great swing in respect to the motor pattern change that we are working on and the contact is awful, a complete miss hit. I then ask that student if they think they performed the swing change, and they usually answer “no”. They are judging the swing on the outcome of the shot, when in reality they did everything that I asked of them, the process was perfect, but they miss hit the ball. Visit the near by cleaning services, check whitelilaccleaning.com website.

Eye hand coordination is responsible for outcome. Eye hand coordination is going to suffer, at first, during the process of making motor pattern changes. As you get more comfortable with these changes the quality of the strike will come back quickly. And lets be honest, whenever you are making motor pattern changes you are likely going to get a little worse before you get better. You then have all winter to work on the process of the technical changes. Which leads me into the next reason…

3    No Need for Immediate Results.

I’ve come to realize, in my years coaching golf, that the need for immediate results is the biggest road block to actually getting better. I am going to fill you in on one of the things that golf teachers hate hearing when they are on the lesson tee… “I have a tee time right after this lesson”. One thing that golfers need to understand is that technical changes take time to become comfortable with. One of the reasons the average golfer doesn’t get better is they give up on the process of getting better and go back to their “old swing” to get results on the course about us. Lets just think about that, if you stop working on the process of getting better every time you play a round of golf, are you actually getting any better? I don’t think so. So by using the off season to make technical swing changes you can get to the end result of “owning your new swing” before the golf season even starts. In other words, you have fixed your faults without results getting in the way.

So my suggestion to all golfers, as the golf season ends, is to get ahold of a coach or teacher, with access to a facility during the off season, and sign up today for a coaching or lesson program. I can promise you will enjoy the spring golf season a lot more with better results.

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PGA of Canada – Saskatchewan Zone Professional Kevin Dietz is a regular contributor to the SaskGolfer community. For help with your golf game, contact Kevin via his website at www.reginagolflessons.com