Off Season

Hey Tom...

I have not been there yet this winter, but there is a sports dome in the north end of Barrie where they have an indoor range. Although you cannot follow the full path of many clubs, they have various targets hanging from the roof. They are hanging at different heights and the targets (some sort of tarp material) have different size holes in them. I would often go with a friend, and we would have competitions trying to see who could get a ball through the various holes in a predetermined order first.

This kept the competitive juices flowing, and forced you to concentrate on hitting the shot to the right spot rather than just hitting the ball far :)

I have also gone to the outdoor range near the 400 and highway 7. It is nice that they have the heaters overhead and allow one to hit all your clubs from wedge through driver with a variety of targets on the ground to aim for. Just a little difficult to follow the ball flight sometimes with all the balls laying on the ground as it is quite a busy location.

Darius

Hi Tom,

I like to use the off season to work on a few things that help all year.

First is my body. I like to get my workouts started and specific golf flexibility stretching. I like to see my chiropractor a lot to get my spine and pelvis moving really well.  Lots of yoga moves like cats and dogs, bird dogs, and glut bridges like they reccomend at the Titlest Performance institute for spine angle and stability. Shoulders are key to keep loose in the winter as they are so vulnerable during the year.

For putting my kids leave little toys and characters all over the house so I like to putt around, at them and through them. Playing mini golf for feel, aim and other fun ideas to groove touch. My kids play too so its kinda fun.  Different than looking at a hole and i aim for specific points on the toys.

Chipping if you have a matt you can work on your pitching and chipping backswings length and your crispness hitting to  pillows or into a bucket  depending on the room you have to do it. Dave Pelz talks about the 14 yrd shot that flies 8 and rolls  6yds so at home I have pillows in the basement I try to land the ball on fooling around with wedges.

We have a golf dome in our area and I go once a week to keep the swing loose and to work on any moves and tempo to the ball I want to have. Then I try to land pitches different distances and see if I can stop, spin or roll balls on the astro turf. I use my ipad to video a few swings here and there just to look at and see if I can pick anything up and if I dont feel right I get a lesson or two but usually not till late february early march.

I am feeling the withdraws too!

Hope this helps. Lots of articles and youtube videos of TPI episodes and things for ideas on the web and at mytpi.com.

Have a great winter and hopefully you get a little winter getawy with you clubs!

Happy holidays.

James :)

Hi Tom, I've been working out again with weights and certain stretches like I use to do. Most exercises that I do are on TDI but for those I didn't do are also on there which is nice to know. I know it helps because I just passed 200 games in my life this year and I'm shooting a few games in the 70's. Had one 20 minute lesson as well that I keep to at the Golf Simulator. I'm working on getting my swing to go back father. With the exercise and better form I'm hitting my 7 iron 190 some times.6 Iron 197. This is not consistent yet but seems to be going that way. Patrick