Are you ‘wintering?’ One of the best teachers in the country showed me how

JACKSON TOWNSHIP, NJ – My dad always talked about winterizing.

Winter was especially important in Wisconsin, where we were from, and where the numbers on the thermometer looked a lot like a leaderboard—minus-10, minus-20, and so on. Shoot, in January at home, the thermometer played on one Forests Clip from 2000. Anyway, you had to winterize some things so that when spring finally came, they would be ready. And that meant, for example, checking your tires and fluids in your car. And closing your windows. And so on. We can end here. This is not a home improvement site. But it’s a game improvement, which got me wondering:

Was there a golf equivalent to covering your outdoor air conditioner? And if so, can I write about it?

Yes, actually. And yes, we hope so.

To help with the latter, I spoke Keel McDonian. He is the director of stage teaching Metedeconk National Golf Club and a GOLF Teacher to see. And a believer in golfers being ready on the first day of the golf season, wherever and whenever that may be when the snow has melted and the sun shines longest.

In short, he’s a winterer my dad would be proud of. So I asked a few questions:

Who is winterization good for? Beginner? Average players? People with disabilities?

All of them, McDonagh said.

Why beginners?

“They have to be able to when they see the ball hit the screen and see it fly in the air or whatever, that’s a positive for them. That’s generally what they’re looking to get out of it,” McDonagh said. “Building the fundamentals of grip, putting, understanding ball position, ball distance — it’s very easy to work on that in a short period of time indoors. It’s not something you have to do on the range for hours.”

Why average players?

“They’re probably looking for a breakdown of their swing,” McDonagh said. “They probably settled a little bit with the way they’re playing. They’ve started with a certain index, they’ve gone down and they’ve been sitting there for maybe a couple of months, a couple of years, and they need another set of eyes on their movement to take it to the next level. It could be a big change, it could be a control change, it could be understanding where the club needs to be against them.

“So for that golfer who already plays and understands how to play and has had success but has kind of regressed a little bit, it might be time for the everyday golfer to go and take a real look at how they’re swinging, how they’re swinging. And in the same breath, it can come down to how they’re just moving physically. So the reason their swing game can work naturally. flexibility work, yoga, whatever either way, you train a little bit more, lose a few pounds, build some speed that way.”

Why more advanced players?

“So your top-class amateurs, your pros, they’re at a level where their game is already good enough to compete,” McDonagh said. “So they can work on trying to generate more speed and figure out different ways to use the land.”

The most important thing in wintering

At this point as we talked, McDonagh offered what he called the most important thing about winterization.

The coach.

“Go to someone your friends recommend or you’ve heard of, someone you can trust,” he said. “Take what they tell you and don’t change it, because every swing change we make, like (Top 100 Hall of Fame Teachers) Mike Adams always says, we only rent. So if I come in, somebody comes in here for an hour and I change their check, they’re renting it for that hour. It won’t feel good. They have to go out and put in the work until they master it.

“And the difference they will see in their golf game when they master the changes they were asked to make just makes the process of having more fun on the golf course that much easier.”

Were there some steps an average gamer could use to hibernate?

had. McDonagh had three.

The first step? Develop a plan.

“I think the most important thing for anyone trying to get better is to understand how they swing and how they’re designed to swing a golf club,” McDonagh said. “As we know in today’s world, you go on Instagram for hours, you go on YouTube for hours, you can find golf tips from every corner of the globe. They’re not going to benefit you – they may benefit me, they may not benefit you and vice versa. So I think if someone is really serious about using the off-season, the winter months and the winter months will allow you to go out in April. place, whether it’s a three-month plan, four-month plan, five-month plan. Find an instructor that you’re going to work with regularly. Ask them, their honest opinion, what they see, where the leaks are. Is it an oil change? Do I need new tires? Is it a grip change? Do I need to change my clubs? Is my equipment affecting me? Am I getting too old for my clubs? Am I getting too fast for my clubs? Whatever mund të jetë, mund të jetë një mori gjërash different.”

The second step? Find a coach you can connect with.

“Someone you like to see, who you can understand and communicate with,” McDonagh said. “Because we’ve all been there. I’ve taken lessons for years where I’ve driven for hours, stayed in the room for an hour or two, and left, gone back to the car and like, I didn’t understand anything, I didn’t get anything. And that can happen. You can shop around.

“I mean, I don’t know how many golf coaches within a 15, 20 mile radius of any of us on planet Earth. Online lessons work, too. So in the offseason, I go SeparatedI’m going to do online classes where I can teach people remotely anywhere, in New York or Arizona or Ireland or Australia or wherever they are. And that can work two ways, where they send videos, I send the videos back, or you can do a live video stream, where you’re actually watching them in an internal setup working on what you’re doing.”

The third step? Take your time.

“And putting in the time,” McDonagh said, “is consistent with making sure you write down your goals, like what I’m trying to accomplish here. Do I want to get a little faster? Do I want to improve my swing? Do I need to squeeze my irons a little better? And just go to a reputable golf coach to see what the reasons are. Your golf game plateaus.

“And then obviously we’d all like to do that, when the doors open to the driving ranges in March and April, we’d all like to walk on the first tee feeling ready and confident in the changes we’ve made. But that takes time. I mean, if you look on social media, the tour events that happen every week, we see constant videos of our best players in the world not being able to make a slow change in golf. at least, I haven’t met anyone who can, so understanding the intricacies and subtleties of trying to make changes, but you have to work at a slow pace and then build it up, set the right goals for the offseason or what you can carry over the next 12 months.”

Editor’s Note: For more on golf at Metedeconk National Golf Club, please click here. And for more information on how to donate money to help McDonagh’s dad, who is battling cancer, please click here.

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